HumaneWatch

In 1988 a group of HSUS Board members asked the Washington, DC law firm of Harmon & Weiss to prepare a report detailing the organizational consequences of several financial irregularities.

During the previous years, a small "Deferred Compensation Committee"—originally set up to handle retirement benefits for HSUS senior staff—had expanded its role to include the assignment of fringe benefits to HSUS's top executives. These perks included rent-free housing, and the use of an HSUS-affiliate shell corporation to funnel extra income to HSUS president and treasurer.

This file contains the lengthy report that Gail Harmon, Esq. prepared for the group of "dissident" HSUS Board members who were concerned about the tax implications, and HSUS's legal liabilities, arising from the Deferred Compensation Committee's behavior.

This is a circulated draft of an agreement in principle reached on June 30, 2010 between:

• The Humane Society of the United States;
• Ohio Governor Ted Strickland; and
• The Ohio Farm Bureau Federation

It outlines a series of actions that the parties reportedly agreed to pursue as a condition of HSUS not pursuing a November 2010 ballot initiative in Ohio. HSUS's proposed ballot question would have dictated specific livestock standards to the state's Livestock Care Standards Board.

This is an opinion from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, issued on February 16, 1988.

HSUS and its then-associate general counsel Roger Kindler had previously sued the Secretary of the Interior over the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service's decision to expand hunting in wildlife refuges. A lower court had determined that HSUS did not have standing to bring the complaint.

The Court of Appeals reversed in part and affirmed in part the lower court's ruling.

In Friedlander v. Brunner, the Humane Society of the United States sought to invalidate an Ohio law holding that only residents of the state can gather signatures to put a legislative initiative on the ballot. The suit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio.

On May 13, 2010, U.S. District Court Judge Michael H. Watson declared the Ohio law unconstitutional, opening the door for HSUS to hire out-of-state workers as signature collectors.

The judge's decree still requires signature gatherers to truthfully disclose their permanent address; but it also restrains the Ohio Secretary of State from invalidating signatures that were gathered by non-Ohio residents.

The "Ohio Humane" campaign's public statements about its signature-gathering totals indicate that as a result of this ruling, HSUS began employing paid signature-gatherers almost immediately.

In March 2009, a group of plaintiffs organized by the Humane Society of the United States filed a class-action lawsuit against the Petland pet-store chain and one of its pet suppliers (The Hunte corporation), alleging that Petland had orchestrated a scheme to defraud its customers by selling sick puppies that were raised in "puppy mills" and other environments where veterinary illnesses are pervasive.

In August 2009, a federal judge in Arizona dismissed the entire lawsuit, but allowed the plaintiffs an opportunity to re-file the case.

In January 2010, most of the claims in that re-filed case were dismissed a second time. This document is the judge's ruling, which permitted only a few narrow claims to proceed against Petland.

One plaintiff sued Petland under the Maine Unfair Trade Practices Act. That claim survived the judge's scrutiny because she is a resident of Maine.

That same plaintiff and one other were also permitted to proceed with their lawsuit against Petland on the ground that the company received "unfair enrichment" because of fraud. This narrow claim was only allowed to proceed because those two plaintiffs alleged that specific Petland employees had toldthem that the dogs they purchased were not raised in "puppy mills" or other unsanitary conditions. (It's likely that Petland will contest their claims at trial.)

All other claims in this lawsuit—including the RICO claims—were dismissed.

In March 2009, a group of plaintiffs organized by the Humane Society of the United States filed a class-action lawsuit against the Petland pet-store chain and one of its pet suppliers (The Hunte corporation), alleging that Petland had orchestrated a scheme to defraud its customers by selling sick puppies that were raised in "puppy mills" and other environments where veterinary illnesses are pervasive.

Part of the complaint, which was drafted by HSUS lawyers, alleged violations of the RICO statute (racketeering).

In August of that same year, a federal judge in Arizona dismissed the entire lawsuit, but allowed the plaintiffs an opportunity to re-file the case. This document is the order granting the defendants' motion for dismissal.

The case was later re-filed and most of its claims were dismissed a second time.

This decision was issued by U.S. District Court Judge Harold Baer, Jr., on May 6, 2010. It's an order granting Summary Judgment to the Humane Society of the United States in a lawsuit the group filed against Hudson Valley Foie Gras, a duck farm in upstate New York. As part of its long crusade to force foie gras (duck liver) out of the reach of Americans, HSUS had alleged in 2009 that the farm was violating its pollution permits under the federal Clean Water Act (CWA).

While HSUS asked the judge to impose somewhere from "$550,000 to over $600 million in civil penalties," the ruling awarded no money at all. And despite a boastful press push by HSUS after the ruling was issued, the only penalty handed down was a nine-month probationary period during which the farm will be subject to outside environmental audits. The judge also told the farm to spend $50,000 on "an environmental project to remediate its CWA violations."

In 2006, HSUS unsuccessfully sued the state of New York (HSUS v. Empire State Development Corporation) in an attempt to stop this same farm from receiving a $420,000 grant to improve its manure treatment and other pollution-related operations. In effect, HSUS sued the state to prevent the farm from improving its environmental practices, and then (after that suit was dismissed) HSUS sued the farm for not being "green" enough.

This is a copy of the lawsuit that Norman Pang filed against HSUS, stemming from a rescue operation at his animal shelter.

Realizing that he could not take care of 400 animals after his wife passed away, Pang accepted an offer from HSUS and the Oahu SPCA to transfer them elsewhere. Even though the purpose of Pang's shelter was to care for any animal—no matter how sickly—HSUS took the opportunity to film the rescue. It posted video footage on its website and accused Pang of animal cruelty.

But the Hawaiian prosecutor found no sign of abuse. Pang sued HSUS on September 11, 2009 for defaming him and depriving him of his rights. Among other things, Pang specifically alleges:

HHS [the Hawaiian Humane Society] and HSUS both launched a media campaign of vilification against [Pang], accusing him of animal abuse and neglect and other unsupportable acts of criminal conduct.

The case is filed in United States District Court, District of Hawaii (case number CV09-00434). Along with HSUS itself, HSUS staffers Scotlund Haisley, Inga Gibson, and Rowdy Shaw are named as defendants.

In Friedlander v. Brunner, the Humane Society of the United States sought to invalidate an Ohio law holding that only residents of the state can gather signatures to put a legislative initiative on the ballot. The suit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio.

Beatrice M. "Bee" Friedlander, a Michigan lawyer who serves as Managing Director of the Animals & Society Institute (and was a past president of Michigan's "Attorneys for Animals" group), was the first named plaintiff.

HSUS's stated reason for litigating this in late April 2010 is that it had "filed a Form 15 with the Ohio Secretary of State, stating that it will provide compensation to an individual or entity for supervising, managing, or otherwise organizing an effort to obtain signatures on a statewide initiative petition."

A reasonable analysis is that HSUS suddenly found that (1) it was behind schedule gather signatures exclusively through the use of in-state volunteers; and that (2) it was legally prohibited from bringing a "hired gun" in from out-of-state.

This is a ruling by South Dakota Magistrate Court Judge Tami Bern. It concerned a motion to suppress a search warrant executed (in part) by the Humane Society of the United States, in a September 2009 raid on a hunting dog breeder. The judge noted that "the warrants were largely executed by agents from the Humane Society of the United States" with the assistance of two animal control officers.

Judge Bern ruled that the warrant was wrongfully obtained, and found that an animal control officer requesting the warrant "intentionally misled the issuing court by omitting material information in her affidavits and supplemental testimony."

The animal control officer had not told the court that she had already requested a warrant days earlier, resulting in the discovery of dogs on the property that were in good health.

This is the full text of Iowa HF 2280, a bill signed by Gov. Chet Culver that regulates commercial dog breeders.

In its published language, a "commercial breeder" is defined as anyone who keeps more than three dogs for breeding purposes.

But HSUS promoted this law's passage as an effort to "broaden state oversight of large-scale puppy producing operations, known as puppy mills," and said it "gives state officials the authority to inspect mass-scale puppy production facilities."

This is a ruling issued by U.S. District Court judge Emmitt Sullivan in the case of ASPCA et al v. Feld Entertainment. It was issued on December 30, 2009.

Feld is the company that runs the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus.

The plaintiffs included the Fund for Animals (FFA, which later merged with HSUS); the Animal Protection Institute (API); the Animal Welfare Institute (AWI), the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA), and a former Feld employee named Tom Rider (who worked for Feld between 1997 and 1999, largely cleaning up after elephants).

Rider, the animal rights groups' star witness, was declared "not a credible witness" by the Court. Judge Sullivan wrote that "Mr. Rider often gave conflicting answers and was repeatedly impeached on the witness stand."

Sullivan also found that the plaintiffs had paid Rider more than $190,000 "to secure [his] initial and continuing participation as a plaintiff." He wrote that Rider had lied under oath about the money he was being paid for his testimony.

Most of the payments to Rider were made through the plaintiff's own attorneys (the DC firm of Meyer Glitzenstein & Crystal) and through a "Wildlife Advocacy Project" (WAP) organization which those attorneys used as a pass-through device. The plaintiffs even got a tax deduction for paying their witness, since WAP was a 501(c)(3) nonprofit.

According to Sullivan's ruling, the FFA paid Rider $4,400 directly, and "donated" another $11,500 to the Wildlife Advocacy Project with the knowledge that it would end up in Rider's pockets. Michael Markarian, the FFA President who is now HSUS's Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer, played dumb in his own testimony. But Judge Sullivan wrote:

While FFA/HSUS (Mr. Markarian) testified that it was not certain whether WAP used its “donations” for other purposes as well, this testimony is undermined by the documents underlying FFA/HSUS’s “donations,” which indicate that the money was specifically for use in connection with this litigation. FFA/HSUS’s testimony also is questionable given that in 2003, plaintiffs’ counsel, Ms. Meyer, specifically sent an email to the representatives of the organizational plaintiffs, including Mr. Markarian, requesting funds to support Mr. Rider’s advocacy efforts regarding the elephants and the lawsuit, and expressly suggesting that the funds for Mr. Rider could be contributed to WAP so that they would be tax deductible.

The dismissal of this lawsuit ended nine years of pointless animal rights litigation against the Ringling circus, during which time millions of dollars in needless legal fees were spent on both sides.

This document is a federal lawsuit filed on February 16, 2010 by Feld Entertainment (the parent company of the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus) under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act.

Feld is suing:

• The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS);
• The Fund for Animals (which merged with HSUS in 2004);
• Jonathan Lovvorn, an attorney employed by HSUS;
• Kimberly Ockene, an attorney employed by HSUS;
• The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA);
• The Animal Welfare Institute;
• The Animal Protection Institute (d/b/a/ Born Free USA);
• Tom Rider (a discredited witness in a recently dismissed lawsuit against Feld, who a judge ruled was paid at least $190,000 for his testimony);
• Meyer Glitzenstein & Crystal (the outside law firm which handled that lawsuit against Feld);
• Katherine Meyer (of Meyer Glitzenstein & Crystal);
• Eric Glitzenstein (of Meyer Glitzenstein & Crystal);
• Howard Crystal (of Meyer Glitzenstein & Crystal); and
• The Wildlife Advocacy Project (a nonprofit organization founded and managed by Meyer Glitzenstein & Crystal, which was used as a pass-through vehicle to allow animal rights groups to pay Tom Rider for his discredited testimony against Feld).

The central claim of the lawsuit (see page 13 of the PDF) is:

[D]efendants have perpetrated and continue to perpetrate multiple schemes to permanently ban Asian elephants in circuses, to defraud FEI of money and property and/or to unjustly enrich themselves, with the ultimate objective of banning Asian elephants in all forms of entertainment and captivity. To carry out these schemes, defendants conspired to conduct and conducted the Enterprise through a pattern of, among other things, bribery and illegal gratuity payments (in violation of both state and federal law), obstruction of justice, mail fraud, wire fraud and money laundering. (emphasis addad)

This is a complete photocopy of the bylaws of the Humane Society of the United States, as published in October 2004.

This is the original "Articles of Incorporation" document filed in Delaware by the National Humane Society (which later became HSUS) in 1954.

This copy was retrieved from the District of Columbia Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs on March 4, 2008.