Corporate Cruelty: Holding Factory Farms Accountable for Animal Cruelty Crimes to Encourage Systemic Reform
![handle is hein.journals/janimlaw16 and id is 151 raw text is: Corporate Cruelty: Holding Factory Farms Accountable for Animal
Cruelty Crimes to Encourage Systemic Reform 137
CORPORATE CRUELTY: HOLDING FACTORY
FARMS ACCOUNTABLE FOR ANIMAL CRUELTY
CRIMES TO ENCOURAGE SYSTEMIC REFORM
MARY MAERZ
Abstract: Animal cruelty within industrialized animal agriculture, or
factory farms, is a major concern of the animal protection movement.
Two types of animal cruelty exist in factory farms: systemic and
egregious cruelty. Systemic cruelty refers to day-to-day operations
of factory farms which expose farm animals to the most constant and
prolonged suffering. Egregious cruelty refers to specific acts of violence
to animals by farm workers. While systemic cruelty is the top priority
of animal advocates, only criminal prosecution of egregious cruelty has
gained traction. This Note proposes that animal advocates, through the
criminal justice system, should seek to apply the doctrine of corporate
criminal liability to egregious anti-cruelty cases. Doing so would address
the factory farming system itself, deter the corporation from allowing
similar conduct to continue, incentivize the corporation to make systemic
reforms to avoid liability, and address controversial prosecutions of
factory farm workers. Anti-cruelty violations of workers can satisfy the
elements of the legal doctrine for corporate criminal liability. Due to
the nature of their day-to-day work, factory farm workers, when they
commit acts of egregious cruelty, are employees of the factory farm
corporation, working within the scope of their employment, and to the
benefit of the corporation. The mens rea element required for criminal
corporate liability can be satisfied by imputing the workers' knowledge
or intent to the corporation. Animal advocates can take advantage of
the ability to prosecute egregious anti-cruelty cases arising from factory
farms through corporate liability to better impact systemic cruelty
reform.
I. INTRODUCTION
The industrialized animal agricultural system of the twentieth
and twenty-first centuries' is fertile ground for criticism from animal
protection and advocacy groups.2 The industrial settings of factory
' See Gaverick Matheny & Cheryl Leahy, Farm-Animal Welfare, Legislation,
and Trade, 70 LAW & CONTEMP. PROB. 325, 327-28 (2007), for a detailed discussion
on the history and workings of factory farms and their implications on animal welfare.
2 Cheryl L. Leahy, Large-Scale FarmedAnimalAbuse and Neglect: Law and
its Enforcement, 4 J. ANIMAL L. & ETHICS 63, 64-65 (2011) ([a]nimals raised to be](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/janimlaw16&div=8&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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Corporate Cruelty: Holding Factory Farms Accountable for Animal Cruelty Crimes to Encourage Systemic Reform
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