We bring lawsuits in collaboration and alignment with allies across movement sectors to dismantle corporate consolidation of power in the meat industry. Our cases seek to hold bad actors accountable, and empower those harmed by Big Ag, from meatpacking workers put at risk of contracting COVID-19 by their employers, to environmental justice communities subjected to land, air, and water contamination from factory-sized operations.
Case Database
Created: 05/18/2023
Updated: 05/18/2023
Public Justice submitted an amicus brief to the Supreme Court in support of California’s Proposition 12, which limits the sale of pork products in California produced using extreme confinement. The Supreme Court of the United...
Created: 05/09/2023
Updated: 05/22/2023
Snake River Waterkeeper is using the Clean Water Act to hold agribusiness company Simplot accountable to the people of Idaho for dirtying the Snake River with factory farm pollution. Simplot’s Grand View Feedlot is one...
Created: 01/17/2023
Updated: 05/31/2023
Everyone should be able to work with dignity and access resources that better their working conditions and lives. However, Colorado farmworkers’ right to access essential services where they work and live was under threat. The...
Created: 11/15/2022
Updated: 03/20/2023
Hormel wants you to make the “Natural Choice.” Documents we’ve made public reveal how that is anything but.
Created: 11/03/2021
Updated: 04/28/2022
Everyone should be able to work in conditions that are dignified, fair, and healthy, and getting injured at work should never mean losing your income or ability to take care of your family. However, for the...
Created: 10/27/2021
Updated: 06/05/2023
A just, healthy, and thriving food system requires transparency. Public Justice engages in litigation to strike down the Ag-Gag laws that penalize whistleblowers who expose the truth about the factory farm system.
Created: 08/24/2021
Updated: 05/31/2023
The American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) of 2021 promised $4 billion in debt relief for farmers and ranchers of color to mitigate the disproportionate impact of COVID-19 on a population previously excluded from government resources...
Created: 06/21/2021
Updated: 07/22/2022
Food & Water Watch, represented by Public Justice, filed a lawsuit in the Superior Court of the District of Columbia against Smithfield Foods, alleging that the multinational meat processing company repeatedly lied to consumers throughout the...
Created: 04/14/2021
Updated: 08/04/2021
Public Justice filed an amicus brief in support of meatpacking workers who died from contracting COVID-19 at a Tyson slaughterhouse in Waterloo, Iowa (Buljic v. Tyson Foods, Inc. and Fernandez v. Tyson Foods, Inc.). The two wrongful...
Created: 04/07/2021
Updated: 08/27/2021
Industrial agriculture is a major driver of climate change. However, the Environmental Protection Agency has failed to treat the industry like the climate polluter it is. That is why Public Justice led 25 climate, environmental...
Created: 04/01/2021
Updated: 05/13/2021
Everybody has the right to clean water. Yet for the neighbors of industrial agriculture operations like Walnutdale Farms in Michigan, this right is unrealized. That is why the Public Justice Food Project represented the Sierra...
Created: 12/08/2020
Updated: 08/04/2021
Hundreds of mostly Black and brown community members in Eastern North Carolina won a series of mass action lawsuits against Smithfield for the public nuisance caused by factory hog farms. It was a historic victory....