How Animal Cruelty Hurts Law-Abiding Businesses

When one company cuts corners by unlawfully abusing or neglecting animals, that rule breaker also cheats its competitors.

Here’s why: 

Companies that follow the rules expend resources to do so. They train their staff to understand animal welfare, and they give their employees the tools to treat animals well. They invest in proper housing and equipment, and make necessary repairs. At every turn, these companies think through what the law and morality require of them, and they make a plan to do it. 

Companies that break the rules skip those expenditures in a short-sighted attempt to undersell their compliant competitors. Animal-abusing companies thus steal market share they never earned.

For example, the Vice President of Mission and Innovation Strategy for the meat company Applegate declared this in a federal lawsuit about organic meat production: “Our company is harmed by competition from organic livestock products that are not meeting the highest, organic welfare standards.” See Organic Trade Ass’n v. U.S. Dep’t of Agric., No. 1:17-cv-01875-RMC, Decl. of Gina Asoudegan ¶ 8 (D.D.C. filed Feb. 15, 2018).

The same can be said about all food companies when their competitors break rules or mistreat animals.

Unfair competition: Breaking the law to get ahead

Picture two chicken producers: By-the-Book Broilers and Corner-Cutting CAFO Co. By-the-Book Broilers diligently follows all laws, including its state’s animal cruelty and neglect laws. It invests in wholesome feed, clean water, well-sized facilities, veterinary care, worker training, and enough staff to ensure employees have time to handle each bird with care.

Corner-Cutting CAFO Co. skimps on all of that. It gives birds whatever old rotten feed it has lying around, leaves them to drink dirty water which sometimes runs out, overcrowds chickens, doesn’t bother paying a veterinarian, leaves staff to guess how to do their job, and hires so few employees that staff resort to throwing birds.

If Corner-Cutting CAFO Co.’s approach is cheaper in the short run, Corner-Cutting CAFO Co. can beat By-the-Book Broilers on price—even though that lower price comes from illegal conduct. So By-the-Book Broilers loses business to Corner-Cutting CAFO Co.

That’s the opposite of how a fair market should work. 

And in several states, By-the-Book Broilers has a remedy: It can sue.

California’s Unfair Competition Law (UCL), for instance, defines unfair competition to include “any unlawful . . . business act or practice.” Cal. Bus. & Prof. Code § 17200. 

Animal cruelty and neglect are unlawful. So the UCL reaches them. And California’s UCL has thus already repeatedly been used to challenge harm to animals. See, e.g., Animal Legal Defense Fund v. LT Napa Partners LLC, 234 Cal. App. 4th 1270 (2015); see also Stop Animal Exploitation Now v. Santa Cruz Biotechnology, 2016 WL 3742783 (Cal. Ct. App. July 5, 2016) (unpublished). Indeed, California’s Proposition 12—the state law banning the sale of eggs, pork, and veal made by keeping animals in tiny cages—explicitly mentions that a violation “constitutes unfair competition.” Cal. Health & Safety Code § 25993(b). 

California’s UCL lets any “person who has suffered injury in fact and has lost money or property as a result of the unfair competition” bring suit. Cal. Bus. & Prof. Code § 17204. 

The classic example of a person who has lost money or property as a result of unfair competition is a competitor company. See, e.g., L. Offs. of Mathew Higbee v. Expungement Assistance Servs., 214 Cal. App. 4th 544, 547 (2013) (“[T]he UCL was originally conceived to protect business competitors.”). 

So By-the-Book Broilers can sue Corner-Cutting CAFO Co. under California’s UCL for committing animal cruelty and neglect.

And California’s UCL is just one example.

Other states have unfair competition statutes, too. See, e.g., Fla. Stat. § 501.204 (“Unfair methods of competition, unconscionable acts or practices, and unfair [ ] acts or practices in the conduct of any trade or commerce are hereby declared unlawful.”); Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 93A, § 2(a) (“Unfair methods of competition and unfair [ ] acts or practices in the conduct of any trade or commerce are hereby declared unlawful.”); Utah Code § 13-5a-103 (“[A] person injured by unfair competition may bring a private cause of action against a person who engages in unfair competition.”).

Even without a statute, states like Kentucky, Massachusetts, Maryland, and New York recognize a common-law (or judge-made) tort of unfair competition. See, e.g., Malden Transportation v. Uber Techs., 286 F. Supp. 3d 264, 279 (D. Mass. 2017); McCormack v. Cole, 265 Ky. 482 (1936); G. W. Aru, LLC v. W. R. Grace & Co.-Conn., 344 F.R.D. 446, 450 (D. Md. 2023); ITC Ltd. v. Punchgini, 9 N.Y.3d 467, 471 (2007).

And the common-law tort of unfair competition can reach a competitor who gains an edge by breaking the law. See, e.g., Malden Transportation, 286 F. Supp. 3d at 279 (D. Mass. 2017) (denying dismissal of common-law unfair competition claim by taxi drivers against Uber for Uber’s failure to comply with taxi regulations); McCormack, 265 Ky. 482, 97 S.W.2d at 34 (holding that a law-abiding business can sue to stop a competitor business from committing a crime).

So By-the-Book Broilers may have an unfair competition cause of action against Corner-Cutting CAFO Co. in many states.

Giving animal agriculture a bad name

In addition to unfairly lowering their own short-term costs so as to wrongly outcompete law-abiding businesses on price, companies that abuse animals also harm law-abiding businesses in another way: They give animal agriculture a bad name. Let’s think back to By-the-Book Broilers and Corner-Cutting CAFO Co. By-the-Book Broilers works hard to make a product that consumers can trust. Corner-Cutting CAFO Co. doesn’t bother. Then both By-the-Book Broilers and Corner-Cutting CAFO Co. sell their chicken meat to Regular Restaurant. Regular Restaurant has an item on its menu that simply says “grilled chicken.” Consumers who visit Regular Restaurant don’t know what company the grilled chicken comes from on any given day.

One day, Corner-Cutting CAFO Co. gets caught beating its chickens and letting them die from preventable illnesses. The story goes viral online. Consumers swear off chicken meat.

This consumer rejection doesn’t just affect Corner-Cutting CAFO Co. By-the-Book Broilers suffers as well. Consumers start to think “I have no way of knowing how the animals I eat are treated. I shouldn’t trust any of these companies.”

Even Regular Restaurant may suffer. Consumers may simply refrain from eating at Regular Restaurant altogether, since they don’t know how to tell whether the meal they’re eating came from a humanely treated animal or an abused one. Or Regular Restaurant may be forced to expend its own resources investigating its suppliers’ treatment of animals in order to provide assurance to its diners. For instance, the Applegate VP declared that “Applegate expends resources confirming” how its suppliers treat animals. See Organic Trade Ass’n, Asoudegan Decl. ¶ 9.

Law-abiding companies are victims of animal cruelty, too.

Chickens deserve to be treated with kindness. When a company abuses them, the chickens are the first and biggest victims.

But they aren’t the only ones.

Workers suffer psychological distress from witnessing, or being forced to participate in, the cruelty.

Consumers lose the ability to trust that their food complies with their morals.

The animal-abusing company itself suffers by being turned into “a lawless rogue,” and thus becoming “untrue to itself.” See Hon. Leo E. Strine, Jr. et al., Loyalty’s Core Demand: The Defining Role of Good Faith in Corporation Law, 98 Geo. L.J. 629, 650 (2010).

And the honest businesses that try to do things the right way lose out when they watch the rule breaker eat their lunch.

Producers: If you have concerns about competitors mistreating animals, please reach out.