Animal Law Commons^™

A Dead Horse, You Can't Beat It: Equine Carcass Disposal Laws And Practices, Robert F. Dahlstrom, Kerry O'Neill Irwin, Emily J. Plant

Kentucky Journal of Equine, Agriculture, & Natural Resources Law

No abstract provided.

Cage-Free, Free-Range, Organic? Why Animal Welfare Depends On A New Government Labeling Scheme, Tabitha N. Mitchell

Student Articles and Papers

No abstract provided.

Human Drama, Animal Trials: What The Medieval Animal Trials Can Teach Us About Justice For Animals, Katie Sykes

Animal Law Review

The legal system generally does little to protect animals, and one aspect of its inadequacy is a matter of formal structure: under United States and Canadian law, animals are not legal “persons” with an independent right to the protections of the legal system. There are calls to expand the status of animals in the law by providing them with legal standing, the right to be represented by a lawyer, and other formal protections. But, in a way, some of this has happened before. There is a long history, primarily from the medieval and early modern periods, of animals being tried …

2010 Legislative Review, Jenny Keatinge, Richard Myers

Animal Law Review

No abstract provided.

Confined To A Process: The Preemptive Strike Of Livestock Care Standards Boards In Farm Animal Welfare Regulation, Lindsay Vick

Animal Law Review

In recent years, livestock care standards boards have emerged as an innovative way for state agencies to regulate farm animal welfare. Far from improving farm animal welfare, however, these boards are frequently a way to codify existing industry standards. The Ohio Livestock Care Standards Board, for example, had a nominal mission to establish regulations governing the care and well-being of livestock and poultry. Other states have created similar mechanisms for regulating farm animal welfare. This Comment maintains that the Ohio Livestock Care Standards Board regulations merely codify the existing status quo on Ohio factory farms rather than improving the health …

Who The Judge Ate For Breakfast: On The Limits Of Creativity In Animal Law And The Redeeming Power Of Powerlessness, Matthew Liebman

Animal Law Review

Drawing upon various schools of legal thought, this Essay explores how ideological and non-legal factors influence the adjudication process in animal law cases. The Legal Realist and Critical Legal Studies movements highlighted the indeterminacy present in legal doctrine and undermined trust in judges’ ability to arrive at “correct” answers to legal questions. In the midst of such indeterminacy, where legal texts do not predetermine legal outcomes, judges tend to render decisions that are consistent with pervasive societal norms and existing distributions of political power. Starting from these premises, the Author questions whether innovative and creative impact litigation by the animal …

Front Matter

Animal Law Review

Front Matter includes Title Page, Masthead, advisors, and Table of Contents for Animal Law Review Volume 18, Issue 1, 2011.

A "Fisheye" Lens On The Technological Dilemma: The Specter Of Genetically Engineered Animals, George Kimbrel, Paige Tomaselli

Animal Law Review

One year ago, the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) proposed approval of the first genetically engineered (GE or transgenic) animal for food production—a salmon engineered to grow much faster than normal using genetic material from an ocean pout. Faced with concerns from scientists and the public that these “super” salmon will escape into the wild and be the final blow to wild salmon, proponents crafted a scheme that is half Michael Crichton, half Kurt Vonnegut: The engineered salmon eggs will begin life in a lab on a frozen Canadian island, then be airlifted to a guarded Panamanian fortress, …

Trademark Protection Of Live Animals: The Bleat Goes On, 10 J. Marshall Rev. Intell. Prop. L. 715 (2011), Lee B. Burgunder

UIC Review of Intellectual Property Law

The Wall Street Journal recently reported that the owner of a Swedish restaurant was suing other businesses for violating its registered trademark, which surprisingly consists of live goats on a grass roof. The PTO and the courts have steadily enlarged the set of trade dress features that might serve as trademarks, and there is no reason, in theory, to treat live animals differently. Nevertheless, the PTO likely made a mistake in this instance when it agreed to register the mark. This article evaluates the requirements for protecting trade dress with trademarks, and explains why a Swedish restaurant should not have …

The Animal Companion Puzzle: A Worth Unknown Though Height Taken, Ronald B. Lansing

Animal Law Review

A tort occurs where one individual breaches a duty allegedly owed to another. When the damage necessitates a judicial rem­edy, it is up to the courts to fix the appropriate level of compen­sation. The law distinguishes between two categories of compensatory awards and labels them ''economic'' and ''noneconomic'' remedies. When a loss falls into the latter cate­gory-that is, the damages suffered lack an ascertainable mar­ket value-judges have struggled to put a price on the harm.

This jurisprudential puzzle is particularly apparent in the pet loss context. Companion animals are defined as property under the law in all fifty states. Thus, …

The Endangered Species Act V. The United States Department Of Justice: How The Department Of Justice Derailed Criminal Prosecutions Under The Endangered Species Act, Ed Newcomer, Marie Palladini, Leah Jones

Animal Law Review

Historically, in prosecutions under the Endangered Species Act (ESA), to prove the element “knowingly” the government only had to prove that a defendant intentionally killed an animal that turned out to be endangered or threatened, not that the defendant knew the identity of the species or the endangered or threatened status of the animal when it was killed. Jury instructions to this effect were repeatedly upheld. Then, in a brief filed with the U.S. Supreme Court for McKittrick v. U.S., the federal government, unprompted, unnecessarily, and without explanation, said that it would not use this jury instruction in the future …

Animal Violence Court: A Therapeutic Jurisprudence-Based Problem-Solving Court For The Adjudication Of Animal Cruelty Cases Involving Juvenile Offenders And Animal Hoarders, Debra L. Muller-Harris

Animal Law Review

Cases involving cruelty to animals are currently handled by the traditional criminal courts. These courts, however, are not effective at punishing animal abusers or protecting animal victims. Although all states have laws criminalizing various forms of animal cruelty, the reality is that most cruelty cases are not prosecuted; even when cruelty cases are successfully prosecuted, punishments are weak. This Comment proposes the creation of an Animal Violence Court, using juvenile animal abusers and adult hoarders as ideal candidates for a pilot animal cruelty justice system. The Animal Violence Court will provide for the ongoing safety and care of animal victims, …

The Connection Between Animal Abuse And Family Violence: A Selected Annotated Bibliography, Sharon L. Nelson

Animal Law Review

This Selected Annotated Bibliography assembles legal and social literature that examines the link between domestic violence and animal abuse. Drawing from an ever-growing body of written works dedicated to the issue, the Bibliography presents the works that are most informative and useful to the legal community. These include case studies, current and proposed legislation, and social services guides that address the occurrence of and response to the animal cruelty-family violence correlation. In doing so, the Bibliography creates a resource that will prove helpful to a variety of legal practitioners, law makers, and professionals within the criminal justice system, and will …

State Animal Use Protection Statutes: An Overview, Jen Girgen

Animal Law Review

Although much attention has been given to the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act, a federal statute enacted to deter and punish extra-legal animal rights activism, comparatively little attention has been afforded the various state versions of this law. This Article is an attempt to help remedy this deficit. It offers a comprehensive overview of existing state animal use protection statutes and describes legislative trends in this area.

Front Matter

Animal Law Review

Front Matter includes Title Page, Masthead, advisors, and Table of Contents for Animal Law Review Volume 17, Issue 2, 2011.

Welfare Improvements For Organic Animals: Closing Loopholes In The Regulation Of Organic Animal Husbandry, Aurora Paulsen

Animal Law Review

For many consumers, farm animal welfare matters. To ensure the well-being of farm animals, consumers often pay premium prices for animal products with humane labels. Because “organic” is an example of a label presumed to convey information about animal husbandry practices, animal products with this label may offer an alternative to products from animals that were raised “conventionally” on large, industrialized farms with minimal welfare protections. The Organic Foods Production Act of 1990 and enacting regulations require that organic animals be able to engage in natural behaviors. However, many of the requirements are general and thus result in significant variations …

The Statutory Pet Trust: Recommendations For A New Uniform Law Based On The Past Twenty-One Years, Shidon Aflatooni

Animal Law Review

Nearly three-fourths of American households include pets. Often, these pets are considered to be members of the family and are cared for as such. When a pet owner dies, however, questions often arise as to who will be responsible for continuing to care for the animals. Previously, probate and trust laws did not allow pet owners to provide for the care of their pets after death. In 1990, the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws (NCCUSL) enacted the first pet trust statute in the Uniform Probate Code. Since then, the NCCUSL passed the Uniform Trust Code, which included …

Dog Damages: The Case For Expanding The Available Remedies For The Owners Of Wrongfully Killed Pets In Colorado, Logan Martin

University of Colorado Law Review

For most people, the death of a loved one can have devastating emotional consequences. This is especially true where the person's death was the result of an accident caused by the negligent, or worse, malicious actions of another person. In most of these situations, both common law and statutory law usually provide some means of compensation for the surviving party. However, when the dead loved one is not another person, but rather a pet or companion animal, the owner's recovery is usually very limited. This Comment argues that such limited recovery is inappropriate and that Colorado should adopt a rule …

Protecting Equine Rescue From Being Put Out To Pasture: Whether Ranches Dedicated To Abused, Abandoned, And Aging Horses May Qualify For "Agricultural" Classifications Under Florida's Greenbelt Law, Michael T. Olexa, Joshua A. Cossey, Katherine A. Smallwood

UF Law Faculty Publications

Florida's equestrian community is currently experiencing an influx of horse owners and equestrian facilities. This generates opposition within those counties refusing to recognize equestrian property uses as “agricultural.” Subject to the restrictions set out in section 193.461 of the Florida Statutes (otherwise known as the Greenbelt Law) only property “used primarily for bona fide agricultural purposes shall be classified agricultural.” This article addresses whether the use of property to board, train, and graze abused, abandoned, and aging horses (referred to throughout this paper as “rescue” horses) should fall under the Greenbelt Law‟s “agricultural” tax classification. Several points support classifying rescue …

The Beasts In The Jungle: Animal Welfare In International Law, Catherine Sykes

LLM Theses

Animal welfare has emerged as a pervasive concern in modern international law. The purpose of this study is to situate the international legal principle protecting the welfare of animals within the broader framework of international law. The study uses a constructivist model to develop a theory of the place of animal welfare in the international legal regime that has due regard for cultural differences and the diversity of international society. The historical antecedents for an obligation to protect animal welfare in various global cultures are considered. The argument posits an internationally recognized principle of humane treatment of animals based on …