Cruelty = Liability: The Legal Reasons Why Corporations Must Think Carefully About Their Animals’ Welfare

Companies and executives are increasingly seeing that their treatment of animals matters for legal, reputational, and financial reasons: Animal cruelty and neglect are liabilities.

If you’re an executive, board member, in-house counsel, or investor at a company that owns or uses animals, this one is for you.

Animal cruelty is a crime. Every U.S. state criminalizes animal cruelty and neglect. And the law applies to corporations just like individuals.

Cruelty has thus cost companies dearly. Sometimes it has cost a company everything. In 2008, the Humane Society of the United States released undercover video of workers at the meatpacker Westland/Hallmark abusing cattle too sick or hurt to walk. The footage triggered the largest meat recall in U.S. history—about 143 million pounds. The Humane Society of the United States, now called Humane World for Animals, brought suit. In 2012, a court entered a judgment of $497 million against the company. It could not pay. The company went out of business.

In 2024, the animal-breeding company Envigo pleaded guilty to mistreating thousands of beagles at a Virginia facility that supplied dogs for research. Envigo paid more than $35 million. The facility shut down.

The market punishes animal mistreatment, too. After the 2013 documentary Blackfish revealed SeaWorld’s mistreatment of orcas, attendance fell and the company’s stock lost hundreds of millions of dollars in value. In 2018, the company and its former chief executive paid more than $5 million to settle related fraud charges.

Financial problems are no excuse. In 2026, a Wisconsin court found the poultry company Pure Prairie Poultry liable on 30 counts of animal mistreatment after it stopped paying for feed and left flocks of chickens to starve. 

These instances are just some examples. The costs of corporate animal abuse may take different forms—a court judgment, a fine, a collapsed stock price, a finding of liability. 

Corporate executives and in-house counsel would be well-advised to review their companies’ treatment of animals—both the official policies on paper and what happens in practice.

A review might include questions such as: 

• What animals does the company own or control? 

• How does the company ensure that all animals get access to food and water every day?

• Do growers ever experience missed feed deliveries? 

• Can all animals in the company’s supply chain walk to access feed and water? What happens when animals become ill, injured, or stuck? How high are illness and injury rates, and what can be done to lower them? Do animals routinely get stuck in farm facilities, such as having their feet caught in metal wire or falling through a hole in the floor? If so, what can be done to make the facilities safer? And how can the company ensure that, when animals do become ill, injured, or stuck, a worker will promptly intervene, before the animal begins to suffer thirst or hunger?

• How realistic is the company’s euthanasia policy and how well does it get carried out in practice? How many animals need euthanasia on a daily basis? Who is responsible for euthanizing ill or injured animals; and what tools, if any, does the company give them to do so? In practice, do the people responsible for euthanizing animals have the time and physical and emotional capacity to do so in a timely manner for all animals in need? (Poultry growers told to euthanize huge numbers of animals by manual cervical dislocation may find the task too time consuming, physically strenuous, and emotionally draining. This may lead to prolonged suffering when growers predictably skip this difficult and unpleasant task. Providing euthanasia tools may help.)

• Do all animals in the company’s supply chain have space to exercise?

• Does slaughter occur humanely? Are animals stunned before being shackled, hung, or cut?

• How many animals die other than by slaughter or get condemned at the slaughterhouse? 

• Do vehicles drop or run over animals during transport? Do animals ever experience extreme heat or cold during transport? 

• What machinery does the company have that interacts with animals? Does any machinery trap or crush animals when it malfunctions? What can be done to ensure proper design and maintenance of all machinery?

• Does each facility that deals with animals have enough staff to allow workers to do their jobs calmly and carefully? Or do rushed workers ever harm or overlook animals?

• Is the company on track to keep any public animal-welfare commitments it has made—e.g. cage-free or Better Chicken Commitment?

• Does the company sell products that have been banned in certain jurisdictions, such as foie gras, eggs from caged hens, or pork produced with gestation crates?

• What concerns do workers, growers, truck drivers, contractors, or customers have about the treatment of animals? Do workers feel confident that they can report animal-welfare concerns to management without fear of retaliation?

Depending on your business, you will want to ask additional questions as well. Many of these questions will be best answered by speaking directly with the employees on the ground who deal with animals day-to-day. By addressing these issues, you’ll protect animals—and protect your company from liability.