Federal court upholds California’s cage-free law

A federal appeals court in California denied a meat industry group’s challenge to the state’s new cage-free law, although the legal challenges to Proposition 12 will continue.

The ballot measure passed in 2018 and requires producers to stop using cages and provide more space for egg-laying hens, breeding pigs, and calves raised for veal. It also prohibits the sale of products that don’t come from animals raised by the new standards.

Like similar laws passed in other states, Proposition 12 was supported by animal welfare groups like the Humane Society and the ASPCA, and opposed by farm industry groups like the California Farm Bureau Federation and the National Pork Producers Council.

In the latest legal action, the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals denied a request for an injunction from the North American Meat Institute, upholding a lower court’s ruling.

A previous statement by NAMI’s CEO argued that if the law is allowed to stand, “California will dictate farming practices across the nation.” President and CEO Julie Anna Potts went on to say that “California’s overreach creates an unworkable patchwork of differing state regulations that will make it impossible for the supply chain, from small farmers to your local grocer, to function.”

“We are disappointed in the ruling and are reviewing our options,” a NAMI spokesperson said after the recent ruling.

“We’re pleased that the judicial system has again affirmed that each state has the right to ban the sale of products within its borders produced through cruel factory farming methods,” a Humane Society spokesperson said.

Even as that appeal was turned down, a challenge to Proposition 12 first raised last December by the National Pork Producers Council and the American Farm Bureau Federation continues.