Posted December 3, 2013
The U.S. Department of Justice recently announced that a
California meat packer, Westland Meat Co., and two companies that provided
loans to the operations have agreed to settle allegations of inhumane handling
of cattle, failing to inspect disabled cattle, and making false representations
regarding the company’s eligibility to process beef, according to an article by
the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin available here. The Associated Press also reported on the
story here.
The lawsuit was filed by the Humane Society of the United
States (HSUS) after it released a video that depicted mistreatment of “downer
cattle” at the Hallmark Packing Co. and Westland Meat Co. The video showed “cattle at auction houses
languishing for hours or left for dead.”
Federal rules prohibit meat from downer cattle from
entering the food supply “because of a higher risk of contamination from E.
coli, salmonella, or mad cow disease.” USDA
also prohibits the inhumane handling of cattle, requires “proper inspection and
disposition of downer cattle and also requires suppliers to identify convicted
felons who are responsibly connected to the suppliers’ operations.”
The parties originally settled the lawsuit for $155
million, but the Justice Department determined that the defendants could only
afford to pay a total of about $3.1 million because they were “financially devastated
by the recall.”
In March 2009, Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack “amended
the federal meat inspection regulations to require a complete ban on the
slaughter of cattle that become non-ambulatory disabled after passing initial
inspection by Food Safety and Inspection Service inspection programs.”
The HSUS lawsuit was filed under the whistleblower
provisions of the False Claims Act, which allows a private entity to bring a
lawsuit on behalf of the government and to share in any proceeds from the suit.
For more information on animal welfare and food safety,
please visit the National Agricultural Law Center’s website here
and here.
