BREAKING: Farm Forward’s abuse investigation results in class action lawsuit against Alexandre Family Farm, Certified Humane

The fraud, corruption, and systemic animal abuses of Alexandre Family Farm revealed by Farm Forward have resulted in the filing of a consumer class action lawsuit against the mega-dairy. Humane Farm Animal Care, the group behind the “Certified Humane” label, has also been sued as part of the action. This civil case follows a criminal case brought against Alexandre in California in late 2024, which indicts the dairy for serious and pervasive animal abuses.

The new civil case alleges that Alexandre and Certified Humane falsely represented Alexandre products as “humane” while Alexandre engaged in shocking and widespread acts of animal cruelty. For example, Farm Forward’s investigation found that Alexandre staff poured salt into the eyes of hundreds of cows, sawed off the horns of more than 800 cows through tissue laced with nerves without any pain management, cut off a cow’s teat with an unsanitized pocketknife, dragged a cow who was unable to walk across concrete, for years provided no routine veterinary or hoof care management, and transported sick, injured, and lame cows to auction rather than treating or euthanizing them.

If the court finds that Alexandre and/or Certified Humane engaged in false, fraudulent, misleading, unfair, deceptive, and/or unlawful conduct in their representations about the humane status of Alexandre products, the suit could result in Alexandre having to pay affected consumers more than $5,000,000. This lawsuit puts producers everywhere on notice that today’s consumers will hold them accountable for humanewashing—false promises of animal welfare. 

In addition to holding Alexandre accountable, the lawsuit builds on questions our investigative report raised “about whether the Certified Humane program adequately or effectively audits businesses approved to use their label” (“Dairy Deception” page 31). The suit alleges that, based on Certified Humane’s own representations, Certified Humane was aware of the conditions at Alexandre in the years leading up to our report, yet took no action to remove Alexandre from its certification program or prevent Alexandre from using the Certified Humane logo on Alexandre’s products or website.

Consumers in the class action suit will be represented by Richman Law & Policy (RLP), an experienced litigation firm that focuses on consumer protection and the domestic food supply. RLP has represented and/or co-counseled with groups including Socially Responsible Agriculture Project, Global Witness, GC Resolve, and Food and Water Watch. RLP served as lead counsel in Jones v. Monsanto (W.D. Mo.), which resulted in a $39.55 million fund for consumers, along with agreed-upon changes to Roundup weedkiller products labels. RLP was co-lead counsel in Goldemberg v. Johnson & Johnson Consumer Companies, Inc. (S.D.N.Y.), which resulted in a $7 million fund for consumers and agreed-upon changes to the marketing of Aveeno personal care products.

Lawsuit includes new findings of Alexandre’s animal abuses and Certified Humane’s complicity

While primarily relying on the evidence uncovered by Farm Forward, the lawsuit also reveals new findings of an independent investigator, previously unknown to Farm Forward, who visited Alexandre during the period covered by our investigation. 

The investigator found calves in barred hutches who were covered in feces, urine, and mud, many of them standing in pools of waste rising above the calves’ hooves, the slurry completely covering the only area where the calves could lie down. 

In clear violation of Certified Humane standards, calves in these hutches could not set one foot outside, had no access to an exercise area, and were left in hutches for a full month longer than the eight week maximum allowed by Certified Humane standards. One calf had an ear tag that appeared to show a birth date four months prior to the investigator’s visit, suggesting that the calf had been hutched for two months beyond Certified Humane’s eight week age limit. 

The investigator, who has observed many calf hutches on many farms, describes the hutches as the least sanitary the investigator had ever seen.

Certified Humane is incriminated by these conditions as much as Alexandre. Certified Humane assures customers that animal products bearing the Certified Humane Raised & Handled logo “come from operations that meet precise, objective standards for farm animal treatment.” Yet Certified Humane took no action to prevent Alexandre from using the Certified Humane logo on Alexandre’s products or website, despite Certified Humane’s standards requiring that the calves must be:

• kept clean
• isolated in individual hutches no later than eight weeks of age
• provided access “at all times” to an area for laying down that is bedded, comfortable, dry, and sloped to provide drainage 
• provided an outdoor exercise area when weather conditions permit 
• able to lie down and rest “without hindrance” 

A turning point for humanewashing

Together, the Farm Forward investigation, the Atlantic article, and now this class action lawsuit are a turning point in holding producers accountable for humanewashing—the common practice of marketing animal products with deceptive packaging, labels, and certifications to promote the illusion of animal well-being, while concealing the extent of animals’ abuse, neglect, illness, and suffering.

Animal agriculture’s worst animal abuses cannot be prevented by simply buying the animal products that farms and certifications themselves dishonestly claim are better. Ultimately, we need federal consumer protection laws that meaningfully define and enforce terms like “humane” and “sustainable” on products. Until we can secure those common sense regulations, we must use the legal system to hold companies and certifications accountable for humanewashing.  Since this case could begin a new chapter for both consumer protection and animal welfare, consumers, law firms, and meat, dairy, and egg companies across the country will watch closely how it unfolds.