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 hereand here.
Share: