Posted By: Mira Trapper
Very important insightful Oped.Wake up CALL!!!!!!! - 07/15/09 11:27 AM
The Weekly Standard
So Three Cows Walk into Court…
Animal-rights extremism in the Obama entourage is no joke.
by Wesley J. Smith
07/20/2009, Volume 014, Issue 41
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Utilities/printer_preview.asp?idArticle=16726&R=16257278ED
Imagine you are a cattle rancher looking for liability insurance. You
meet with your broker, who, as expected, asks a series of questions to
gauge your suitability for coverage:
Have you ever been sued by your cattle?
If the answer is yes, what was the outcome of that suit?
Have you received any correspondence or other communication from your
herd's legal representatives threatening suit or seeking to redress
any legal grievance?
If you think that's a ridiculous scenario, that animals suing their
owners could never happen, think again. For years, the animal rights
movement has quietly agitated to enact laws, convince the government
to promulgate regulations, or obtain a court ruling granting animals
the "legal standing" to drag their owners (and others) into court.
Animals are not (yet) legal persons or rights-bearing beings, hence,
they lack standing to go to court to seek legal redress. That
procedural impediment prevents animal rights activists from attacking
animal industries "from within," as, for example, by representing lab
rats in class action lawsuits against research labs. This lack of
legal standing forces attorneys in the burgeoning field of animal
law--who are dedicated to impeding, and eventually destroying, all
animal industries--to find other legal pretexts by which to bring
their targets directly into court.
In 2006, the Humane Society of the United States--which has no
affiliation with local humane societies--brought a lawsuit against
Hudson Valley Foie Gras contending the company permitted bird feces to
pollute the Hudson River. The Humane Society of the United States
isn't an environmental group, so why were they suing about pollution?
The answer is that the animal rights group considers its legal
adversary to be a "notorious factory farm." But because it had no
standing to bring a private case against Hudson Valley as guardians
for the farm's ducks, but still wanting to impede the farm's
operation, the Humane Society availed itself of the private right to
sue directly as permitted under the Clean Water Act.
But imagine if the farm's ducks could sue the farm. The Humane Society
or any other animal rights group--who, after all, would be the true
litigants--could sue the company into oblivion. Indeed, if animals
were granted legal standing, the harm that animal rights activists
could do to labs, restaurant chains, mink farms, dog breeders, animal
parks, race tracks, etc., would be worse than the destruction wrought
by tort lawsuits against the tobacco industry. No wonder animal rights
activists salivate at the prospect of animals being allowed to sue.
Animal standing has friends in some surprisingly high
places--including potentially at the highest levels of the Obama
administration. Senator Saxby Chambliss of Georgia, ranking Republican
member of the Senate Agriculture Committee, recently announced he was
holding up the confirmation of law professor Cass Sunstein--a close
friend of the president rumored to be on the fast track for the
Supreme Court--as the White House's "regulations czar." The reason:
Sunstein explicitly advocates animals' being granted legal standing.
In a 2004 book which he edited, Animal Rights: Current Debates and New
Directions, Sunstein wrote:
“It seems possible .  .  . that before long, Congress will grant
standing to animals to protect their own rights and interests. .  .  .
Congress might grant standing to animals in their own right, partly to
increase the number of private monitors of illegality, and partly to
bypass complex inquiries into whether prospective human plaintiffs
have injuries in fact [required to attain standing]. Indeed, I believe
that in some circumstances, Congress should do exactly that, to
provide a supplement to limited public enforcement efforts.”
It is worth noting that Sunstein's commitment to animal standing has
been sustained over time. He made a similar argument in an article
published in the UCLA Law Review in 2000. His support for animal
rights also extends to an explicit proposal in a 2007 speech to outlaw
hunting other than for food, stating, "That should be against the law.
It's time now."
The idea of giving animals standing seems to be growing on the
political left, perhaps because it would be so harmful to business
interests. Laurence H. Tribe, the eminent Harvard Law School
professor, has spoken supportively of the concept. On February 8,
2000, less than a year before his Supreme Court appearance on behalf
of Vice President Al Gore in the aftermath of the Florida vote
controversy, Tribe delivered a speech praising animal rights lawyer
Stephen Wise and arguing on behalf of granting animals the right to
sue:
“Recognizing that animals themselves by statute as holders of rights
would mean that they could sue in their own name and in their own
right. .  .  . Such animals would have what is termed legal standing.
Guardians would ultimately have to be appointed to speak for these
voiceless rights-holders, just as guardians are appointed today for
infants, or for the profoundly retarded. .  .  . But giving animals
this sort of "virtual voice" would go a long way toward strengthening
the protection they will receive under existing laws and hopefully
improved laws, and our constitutional history is replete with
instances of such legislatively conferred standing.”
But animal rights lawyers aren't waiting until the law is changed
before enlisting animals as litigants. While these efforts have so far
been turned back by the courts, they have received respectful hearings
on appeal. In 2004, an environmental lawyer sued in the name of the
"Cetacean Community"--allegedly consisting of all the world's whales,
porpoises, and dolphins--seeking an injunction preventing the federal
government from conducting underwater sonar tests. When a trial court
found that the "Community" had no standing, the case was appealed to
the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, where anything can happen. The
court refused to grant the whales and dolphins standing, but in
language that must have warmed every animal liberationist's heart, it
stated that theoretically, animals could attain the right to sue:
“It is obvious that an animal cannot function as a plaintiff in the
same manner as a juridically competent human being. But we see no
reason why Article III [of the U.S. Constitution] prevents Congress
from authorizing suit in the name of an animal any more than it
prevents suits brought in the name of artificial persons such as
corporations, partnerships or trusts, and even ships, or of
juridically incompetent persons such as infants, juveniles and mental
incompetents.”
Of all the ubiquitous advocacy thrusts by animal rights advocates,
obtaining legal standing for animals would be the most damaging--which
makes Sunstein's appointment to the overseer of federal regulations so
worrisome and Senator Chambliss's hold on the nomination so laudable.
Chambliss plans to meet with the nominee personally "to provide him
the opportunity to fully explain his views." Chambliss said:
“Professor Sunstein's recommendation that animals should be permitted
to bring suit against their owners with human beings as their
representatives, is astounding in its display of a total lack of
common sense. American farmers and ranchers would face a tremendous
threat from frivolous lawsuits. Even if claims against them were found
to be baseless in court, they would still bear the financial costs of
reckless litigation. That's a cost that would put most family farming
and ranching operations out of business.”
But animal standing would do more than just plunge the entire animal
industry sector into chaos. In one fell swoop, it would both undermine
the status of animals as property and elevate them with the force of
law toward legal personhood. On an existential level, the perceived
exceptional importance of human life would suffer a staggering body
blow by erasing one of the clear legal boundaries that distinguishes
people from animals. This is precisely the future for which animal
rights/liberationists devoutly yearn.
Wesley J. Smith is a senior fellow in human rights and bioethics at
the Discovery Institute. His A Rat is a Pig is a Dog is a Boy: The
Human Cost of Animal Rights will be published in January.
So Three Cows Walk into Court…
Animal-rights extremism in the Obama entourage is no joke.
by Wesley J. Smith
07/20/2009, Volume 014, Issue 41
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Utilities/printer_preview.asp?idArticle=16726&R=16257278ED
Imagine you are a cattle rancher looking for liability insurance. You
meet with your broker, who, as expected, asks a series of questions to
gauge your suitability for coverage:
Have you ever been sued by your cattle?
If the answer is yes, what was the outcome of that suit?
Have you received any correspondence or other communication from your
herd's legal representatives threatening suit or seeking to redress
any legal grievance?
If you think that's a ridiculous scenario, that animals suing their
owners could never happen, think again. For years, the animal rights
movement has quietly agitated to enact laws, convince the government
to promulgate regulations, or obtain a court ruling granting animals
the "legal standing" to drag their owners (and others) into court.
Animals are not (yet) legal persons or rights-bearing beings, hence,
they lack standing to go to court to seek legal redress. That
procedural impediment prevents animal rights activists from attacking
animal industries "from within," as, for example, by representing lab
rats in class action lawsuits against research labs. This lack of
legal standing forces attorneys in the burgeoning field of animal
law--who are dedicated to impeding, and eventually destroying, all
animal industries--to find other legal pretexts by which to bring
their targets directly into court.
In 2006, the Humane Society of the United States--which has no
affiliation with local humane societies--brought a lawsuit against
Hudson Valley Foie Gras contending the company permitted bird feces to
pollute the Hudson River. The Humane Society of the United States
isn't an environmental group, so why were they suing about pollution?
The answer is that the animal rights group considers its legal
adversary to be a "notorious factory farm." But because it had no
standing to bring a private case against Hudson Valley as guardians
for the farm's ducks, but still wanting to impede the farm's
operation, the Humane Society availed itself of the private right to
sue directly as permitted under the Clean Water Act.
But imagine if the farm's ducks could sue the farm. The Humane Society
or any other animal rights group--who, after all, would be the true
litigants--could sue the company into oblivion. Indeed, if animals
were granted legal standing, the harm that animal rights activists
could do to labs, restaurant chains, mink farms, dog breeders, animal
parks, race tracks, etc., would be worse than the destruction wrought
by tort lawsuits against the tobacco industry. No wonder animal rights
activists salivate at the prospect of animals being allowed to sue.
Animal standing has friends in some surprisingly high
places--including potentially at the highest levels of the Obama
administration. Senator Saxby Chambliss of Georgia, ranking Republican
member of the Senate Agriculture Committee, recently announced he was
holding up the confirmation of law professor Cass Sunstein--a close
friend of the president rumored to be on the fast track for the
Supreme Court--as the White House's "regulations czar." The reason:
Sunstein explicitly advocates animals' being granted legal standing.
In a 2004 book which he edited, Animal Rights: Current Debates and New
Directions, Sunstein wrote:
“It seems possible .  .  . that before long, Congress will grant
standing to animals to protect their own rights and interests. .  .  .
Congress might grant standing to animals in their own right, partly to
increase the number of private monitors of illegality, and partly to
bypass complex inquiries into whether prospective human plaintiffs
have injuries in fact [required to attain standing]. Indeed, I believe
that in some circumstances, Congress should do exactly that, to
provide a supplement to limited public enforcement efforts.”
It is worth noting that Sunstein's commitment to animal standing has
been sustained over time. He made a similar argument in an article
published in the UCLA Law Review in 2000. His support for animal
rights also extends to an explicit proposal in a 2007 speech to outlaw
hunting other than for food, stating, "That should be against the law.
It's time now."
The idea of giving animals standing seems to be growing on the
political left, perhaps because it would be so harmful to business
interests. Laurence H. Tribe, the eminent Harvard Law School
professor, has spoken supportively of the concept. On February 8,
2000, less than a year before his Supreme Court appearance on behalf
of Vice President Al Gore in the aftermath of the Florida vote
controversy, Tribe delivered a speech praising animal rights lawyer
Stephen Wise and arguing on behalf of granting animals the right to
sue:
“Recognizing that animals themselves by statute as holders of rights
would mean that they could sue in their own name and in their own
right. .  .  . Such animals would have what is termed legal standing.
Guardians would ultimately have to be appointed to speak for these
voiceless rights-holders, just as guardians are appointed today for
infants, or for the profoundly retarded. .  .  . But giving animals
this sort of "virtual voice" would go a long way toward strengthening
the protection they will receive under existing laws and hopefully
improved laws, and our constitutional history is replete with
instances of such legislatively conferred standing.”
But animal rights lawyers aren't waiting until the law is changed
before enlisting animals as litigants. While these efforts have so far
been turned back by the courts, they have received respectful hearings
on appeal. In 2004, an environmental lawyer sued in the name of the
"Cetacean Community"--allegedly consisting of all the world's whales,
porpoises, and dolphins--seeking an injunction preventing the federal
government from conducting underwater sonar tests. When a trial court
found that the "Community" had no standing, the case was appealed to
the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, where anything can happen. The
court refused to grant the whales and dolphins standing, but in
language that must have warmed every animal liberationist's heart, it
stated that theoretically, animals could attain the right to sue:
“It is obvious that an animal cannot function as a plaintiff in the
same manner as a juridically competent human being. But we see no
reason why Article III [of the U.S. Constitution] prevents Congress
from authorizing suit in the name of an animal any more than it
prevents suits brought in the name of artificial persons such as
corporations, partnerships or trusts, and even ships, or of
juridically incompetent persons such as infants, juveniles and mental
incompetents.”
Of all the ubiquitous advocacy thrusts by animal rights advocates,
obtaining legal standing for animals would be the most damaging--which
makes Sunstein's appointment to the overseer of federal regulations so
worrisome and Senator Chambliss's hold on the nomination so laudable.
Chambliss plans to meet with the nominee personally "to provide him
the opportunity to fully explain his views." Chambliss said:
“Professor Sunstein's recommendation that animals should be permitted
to bring suit against their owners with human beings as their
representatives, is astounding in its display of a total lack of
common sense. American farmers and ranchers would face a tremendous
threat from frivolous lawsuits. Even if claims against them were found
to be baseless in court, they would still bear the financial costs of
reckless litigation. That's a cost that would put most family farming
and ranching operations out of business.”
But animal standing would do more than just plunge the entire animal
industry sector into chaos. In one fell swoop, it would both undermine
the status of animals as property and elevate them with the force of
law toward legal personhood. On an existential level, the perceived
exceptional importance of human life would suffer a staggering body
blow by erasing one of the clear legal boundaries that distinguishes
people from animals. This is precisely the future for which animal
rights/liberationists devoutly yearn.
Wesley J. Smith is a senior fellow in human rights and bioethics at
the Discovery Institute. His A Rat is a Pig is a Dog is a Boy: The
Human Cost of Animal Rights will be published in January.