first amendment – Animal Law Developments

April 24, 2026April 24, 2026 by John M. Simpson

PETA Strikes Out in Challenge to Iowa “Ag Gag” Law

By John M. Simpson. In Iowa, it is a crime to trespass on private property. Given recent actions by animal rights activists invading private farm land to film what is claimed to be animal mistreatment, Iowa amended the criminal trespass statute to prohibit use of a camera during a trespass. The law was originally sustained against a facial First Amendment challenge. Animal rights group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) and another organization then brought an as-applied challenge arguing that the statute violated the First Amendment if it prevented them from recording on private property that is otherwise open to the public after being asked to leave by the owner but not asked to stop recording. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit disagreed and affirmed dismissal of the case. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals v. Reynolds, No. 25-1750 (8th Cir. Apr. 23, 2026).

The court assumed that a trespasser has “general rights of free speech on property privately owned and used nondiscriminatory for private purposes” – an issue that the Supreme Court has yet to decide. Slip. op. at 8. Even so, the challenge to the statute failed because the application of the statute at issue survived intermediate scrutiny under the First Amendment. The law promotes a substantial government interest that would be achieved less effectively absent the statute, and it did not burden speech more than is necessary to further the interest.

The court rejected appellants’ arguments that the statute is not narrowly tailored.

First, appellants’ assertion that privacy and property rights are not furthered if the owner objects to the trespasser’s presence but not to the recording “is nonsensical. When a property owner uses his ‘power to exclude’ by ejecting a trespasser — ‘one of the most treasured strands in [his] bundle of property rights’ — he necessarily exercises his lesser right to stop the trespasser from unlawfully recording on his property.” Slip op. at 11.

Second, Iowa’ interests in protecting privacy and property rights are implicated even if the locations at issue are otherwise open to the public: “[P]roperty owners forfeit neither their right to exclude nor to control their property by opening it to the public for a certain purpose.” Slip op. at 11.

Third, the assertion that the state failed to produce evidence that “Iowa needed to proscribe all the speech covered by the statute to achieve its interests . . . lacks merit because § 727.8A is subject to intermediate rather than strict scrutiny.” Slip op.at 12.

So in Iowa, pig farm trespassers with cameras beware. The first offense is an aggravated misdemeanor with a fine between $855 and $8,540 and up to two years of imprisonment. The second offense is a class D felony with a fine between $1,025 and $10,245 and up to five years of imprisonment.

March 19, 2026March 20, 2026 by John M. Simpson

PETA’s Monkey Speech Claim Fails

By John M. Simpson. As we previously reported, animal rights group, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), sued the National Institutes of Health and Mental Health in federal court seeking to compel the defendants to install a live video feed in the defendants’ laboratories so that PETA can receive the communications of the rhesus macaques that are being used in medical research. PETA claimed a First Amendment right “as a listener” to the live feed and a Fifth Amendment “liberty and property interest” in the same channel of communication. The court granted the defendants’ motion to dismiss for lack of jurisdiction. PETA v. Nat’l Inst. of Mental Health, No. 8:25-cv-00736-PX, 2026 WL 39219 (D. Md. Feb. 13, 2026).

The court lacked jurisdiction, first, because defendants had sovereign immunity. While the Administrative Procedure Act could be the basis for waiving sovereign immunity, it could only do so if the agency action at issue was final. The action here was not final because “the challenged agency action is neither discrete nor specific, but rather cuts to the very kind of programmatic decisions that would require reconciling needs of the experimenters with the public’s video access of the same.” 2026 WL 39210, at *3. Nor had PETA shown that the defendants had determined PETA’s rights or obligations. PETA could cite “neither binding nor persuasive authority” that animal communications implicate a First Amendment right as a “listener” or a Fifth Amendment “’life, liberty, or property’ interest in the asserted ‘open channel of communications.’” Id. at *4. Finally, PETA failed to persuade the court that defendants were required by law to provide the access to the macaques that PETA demanded. Id.

The court also lacked jurisdiction because PETA had no Article III standing to sue. PETA’s claimed injury to its First Amendment right to listen “is not, as pleaded, a legally protected interest sufficient to confer standing.” Id. at *5. As the court observed:

Nowhere does PETA establish any authority whatsoever for the extraordinary proposition that the macaques’ sounds and movements constitute protected speech to which a companion right-to-listen exists.  Rather, PETA relies on a legion of inapposite law concentrating on the public’s right to receive human speech. . . .  But PETA gives the Court nothing that comes close to establishing a constitutional right to receive “non-human primate” sounds or behaviors.  [Id.]

The court also found PETA’s reliance on the decision in Murthy v. Missouri, 603 U.S. 43 (2024) – in which social media users challenged government censorship during COVID-19 – to be misplaced:

Like the plaintiffs in Murthy, PETA relies on a “boundless” theory of the “right to listen” to animal sounds and behavior. As in Murthy, the scope of this theory is breathtaking; it would confer standing to sue on anyone who claims interest in the sounds and movements that animals use to communicate with each other. This is the very kind of overly broad articulation of “injury” that the Murthy Court eschewed. PETA, therefore, has not pointed to any legal authority which supports a constitutionally protected interest in receiving communications from the macaques.  [Id. at *6].

Whether PETA intends to appeal this ruling remains to be seen.

March 10, 2025March 10, 2025 by John M. Simpson

PETA Claims First Amendment Right to Communicate with Monkeys

The Beach Boys wrote a song called “Pet Sounds.” In a recently filed federal lawsuit, animal rights organization People for the Ethical Treatment Animals (“PETA”) claims that it has a First Amendment right to receive monkey sounds (as well as monkey movements).

The lawsuit, filed on March 6, 2025 in the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland, is entitled People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals v. National Institute of Mental Health, et al., No. 8:25-cv-00736-PX. The case centers on research done in an NIMH laboratory that utilizes the Rhesus Macaque. According to the Tulane University National Primate Research Center, Rhesus Macaques are placed within the Cercopithecidae family (Old World Monkeys), So, for simplicity, we’ll refer to them as monkeys.

The gravamen of the lawsuit is that the federal defendants turned down PETA’s request for a live-stream audiovisual feed of the monkeys in the laboratory. PETA claims that the monkeys are “willing speakers” who “regularly communicat[e]” about their physical and psychological condition. According to PETA’s complaint, experts in monkey communication claim the ability to understand the information that the animal sounds, body posture, facial expression and other actions purportedly convey. PETA claims that denying it the ability to communicate with “fellow primates” violates PETA’s First Amendment rights, and PETA therefore wants the court to permanently enjoin the defendants from “withholding from PETA … access to the rhesus macaques’ communications.”

PETA’s track record in opposing animal-based medical and mental health research is well-known. Thus, most of the complaint is devoted to describing the research that is performed, the conditions of the laboratory and in making PETA’s overall case for the abolition of animal-based research. However, the First Amendment predicate for the case is extremely thin, if not nonexistent. PETA cites a number of cases to the effect that there is a First Amendment right to receive information even though the speaker may not, itself, have a First Amendment right. But PETA cites no case (and we are aware of none) holding that the sounds and body gestures of a monkey constitute speech that is protected under the First Amendment – whether it concerns the speaker’s right to speak or the listener’s right to receive.

PETA’s complaint also pleads a denial of due process under the Fifth Amendment but is very vague on what “property” or “liberty” interest of PETA was allegedly violated.

This isn’t the first time that PETA and other animal rights groups have sought attention by trying to get a court to confer human rights on an animal, but very few of these efforts has succeeded. Thus, killer whales are not subject to the Thirteenth Amendment, elephants are not covered by the writ of habeas corpus, a Bengal tiger can’t pursue a Freedom of Information Act request, humans don’t have “next friend” standing to pursue a copyright claim on behalf of a monkey or a bill of attainder claim on behalf of a barn owl, and dogs, birds and dugongs don’t have standing in federal court to sue. PETA’s current effort to have a federal court declare monkey speech protected by the First Amendment would clearly seem to be headed for a similar fate. Indeed, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit rejected an effort to invoke the First Amendment on behalf of “Blackie the Talking Cat,” an animal that allegedly “spoke, for a fee, on radio and on television shows such as ‘That’s Incredible.’” Miles v. City Council of Augusta, Ga., 710 F.2d 1542, 1543 (11th Cir. 1983) (per curiam). Affirming dismissal of the First Amendment claim, the court ruled that it “will not hear a claim that Blackie’s right to free speech has been infringed. . . . [A]lthough Blackie arguably possesses a very unusual ability, he cannot be considered a ‘person’ and is therefore not protected by the Bill of Rights.” Id. at 1544 n.5.

January 9, 2024 by John M. Simpson

Eighth Circuit Animal Rights “Ag Gag Law” Challenge Fail – Part II

Yesterday, we reported on a decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit that rejected a challenge by animal rights activists to a so-called “ag gag law” in Iowa. In a parallel decision the same day, the court issued another opinion rejecting a First Amendment challenge by animal rights groups to another aspect of the same law. Animal Legal Defense Fund v. Reynolds, No. 22-3464 (8th Cir. Jan. 8, 2024). Continue reading “Eighth Circuit Animal Rights “Ag Gag Law” Challenge Fail – Part II”

January 8, 2024January 9, 2024 by John M. Simpson

Animal Rights Challenge to Iowa “Ag Gag Law” Fails in Eighth Circuit

On January 8, 2024, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit rejected a constitutional challenge brought by the Animal Legal Defense Fund, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) and other groups to an Iowa statute that prohibits “agricultural facility fraud.” Animal Legal Defense Fund v. Reynolds, No. 22-1830 (8th Cir. Jan. 8, 2024). Statutes like this are often termed “ag gag laws” by their opponents. The district court had declared that the law violates the First Amendment, but the court of appeals reversed. Continue reading “Animal Rights Challenge to Iowa “Ag Gag Law” Fails in Eighth Circuit”

February 22, 2023 by John M. Simpson

PETA Open Records Case Takes an Interesting Turn

On February 17, 2023, a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reversed a preliminary injunction that had restrained the University of Washington from releasing records containing personal identifying information of current and former members of the University’s Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC). The records request had been submitted by animal rights organization, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA). The appellate panel ruled that the district court erred in determining that the IACUC members had raised a serious issue that their First Amendment right of association would be infringed by release of the records, but did not reach the other arguments raised by the IACUC members which presumably will be addressed on remand. Sullivan v. University of Washington, No. 22-35338 (9th Cir. Feb. 17, 2023). Continue reading “PETA Open Records Case Takes an Interesting Turn”

August 10, 2021 by John M. Simpson

Eighth Circuit Upholds Part of Iowa “Ag Gag” Law

Today, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit upheld, in part, the constitutionality of an Iowa law that makes it a criminal offense to obtain access to an agricultural facility by false pretenses. Animal Legal Def. Fund v. Reynolds, No. 19-1364 (8th Cir. Aug. 10, 2021). The court reversed in part a district court ruling that the law violated the First Amendment. Continue reading “Eighth Circuit Upholds Part of Iowa “Ag Gag” Law”

October 23, 2019 by John M. Simpson

House Passes Bill Amending “Crush Video” Prohibition

by John M. Simpson.

On October 22, 2019, the U.S. House of Representatives passed H.R. 724, entitled the “Preventing Animal Cruelty and Torture Act” or “PACT Act.” The measure would retain the existing prohibition in 18 U.S.C. § 48 on the creation and distribution of “crush videos” but would also criminalize an intentional act of animal crushing. Continue reading “House Passes Bill Amending “Crush Video” Prohibition”

October 8, 2019October 11, 2019 by Michelle Pardo

Court Rejects Tofurky’s Request for Preliminary Injunction to Halt Enforcement of Missouri’s Meat Advertising Law

By Michelle C. Pardo

We previously blogged about the case of Turtle Island Foods, et al. v. Mark Richardson, 2:18-cv-04173, pending in federal court in the Western District of Missouri. Turtle Island Foods, doing business as The Tofurky Company (“Tofurky”) which produces plant-based products, together with The Good Food Institute (an organization founded in part by Bruce Friedrich, former director of PETA’s vegan campaigns), sued Missouri prosecutors over its 2018 amended meat advertising law. The law requires that in order for a product to be labeled as “meat” it must come from “any edible portion of livestock, poultry, or captive cervid carcass or part thereof.” Mo. Rev. Stat. § 265.300(7). Under the amended law, plant based products, such as Tofurky’s veggie burgers or sausage, would be deemed to be misleading unless the labels contain an appropriate qualifier such as “plant-based,” “veggie,” “lab grown,” or “lab created.” Lab-grown or cultured meat products (also referred to as “clean meat”) is a new technology in which meat is grown from in vitro animal cell culture instead of from slaughtered animals. These products have not yet debuted in the marketplace. Continue reading “Court Rejects Tofurky’s Request for Preliminary Injunction to Halt Enforcement of Missouri’s Meat Advertising Law”

July 24, 2019 by Michelle Pardo

The Beef Goes On: Tofurky Challenges Arkansas Meat Labeling Law

by Michelle C. Pardo

Tofurky goes to court – again. On July 22nd, Turtle Island Foods (doing business as The Tofurky Company) filed a federal lawsuit in the Eastern District of Arkansas against the Arkansas Bureau of Standards to challenge the constitutionality of an amended Arkansas law that prohibits “purveyors of plant- or cell-based meats” from using the words “meat” and related terms like “beef,” “pork,” “roast,” and “sausage.” See Ark. Code Ann. § 2-1-305. Violations of the law, which goes into effect on July 24, 2019, may be punished by civil penalty up to $1,000. Counsel for Tofurky includes animal activist group Animal Legal Defense Fund, the ACLU Foundation, and The Good Food Institute, a Washington, DC based advocacy group (whose founder previously ran vegan campaigns for PETA). All of these organizations previously teamed up with Tofurky to challenge Missouri’s amended meat advertising law. Continue reading “The Beef Goes On: Tofurky Challenges Arkansas Meat Labeling Law”