This week the Nonhuman Rights Project filed an amicus curiae (“friend of the court”) brief asking California’s First District Court of Appeal to recognize that animal cruelty qualifies as a “significant evil” that may justify emergency intervention under the state’s common law defense of necessity. Necessity is a centuries-old doctrine that excuses otherwise criminal conduct when it’s necessary to prevent an even greater harm from occurring, such as when someone breaks a car window to rescue a baby from overheating on a hot day.
The case arose from incidents in 2018 and 2019 when animal activists documented what they described as severe animal cruelty at Sunrise Farms and Reichardt Duck Farm in Sonoma County, California and removed animals for the purpose of providing them care. As reported by Vox, at one facility, chickens had been found with “serious injuries like prolapsed reproductive tracts, and had mangled feet that got stuck in the wire of their cages and prevented them from moving.” At another facility, ducks had been found “wounded, or stuck on their backs and unable to right themselves.” Numerous dying and dead animals were also found.
Following these events, the state charged the activists who documented the conditions and rescued the animals with trespass and conspiracy to trespass. One activist asked to present a necessity defense to the jury on the basis that the trespass was necessary to prevent animal cruelty. Incredibly, the trial court ruled that the necessity defense can never be invoked on behalf of a nonhuman animal—no matter how severe the suffering and even if the suffering rises to the level of unlawful cruelty.
We argue this ruling is wrong. The trial court’s ruling is based on the outdated view that nonhuman animals are mere “things” whose suffering does not matter—a view fundamentally at odds with contemporary values as reflected by California’s own animal cruelty laws.
On its surface, this case involving chickens, ducks, and criminal trespass may seem far from the Nonhuman Rights Project’s ordinary work. But when a court categorically excludes animals from a legal doctrine that protects against significant evil, it sets a dangerous precedent for how all animals are viewed under the law—including our clients. The legal principle at stake transcends any single case. It goes to the heart of how our legal system views animals. Are they “things” or are they beings who matter?
Also at stake in this appeal is the critically important question: who decides whether animals matter? The prosecution is arguing that only the legislature can expand the necessity defense to prevent animal cruelty. But, as we argue, ensuring the common law’s just and rational development is a core responsibility of the courts. In the words of the California Supreme Court: “Courts [must] remain alert to their obligation and opportunity to change the common law when reason and equity demand it.”
This issue of judicial responsibility is central to our work of securing legal rights for nonhuman animals. We’re asking courts to fulfill their duty to ensure the common law evolves in tandem with society’s values—whether in the context of arguing that chimpanzees have a right to bodily liberty protected by habeas corpus, or that a dog can qualify as an immediate family member, or that animal cruelty constitutes a significant evil for purposes of necessity.
With this brief, we’re asking the California Court of Appeal to take a step in the right direction by acknowledging that it’s arbitrary, irrational, and unjust to limit the necessity defense solely to the protection of humans. Nonhuman animals aren’t things who should be left to languish and suffer; they’re sentient beings who must be protected from cruelty. And it’s squarely the obligation of the courts to make that determination.
You can read our brief in People v. Hsiung here. We’ll keep you posted on what happens next. In the meantime, thank you for supporting a future where sentient beings are not condemned to utter thinghood simply because they are nonhuman.