• Home
  • keyboard_arrow_right iROAR member
  • keyboard_arrow_right
  • keyboard_arrow_right The Case of the Overlooked Law: Challenging Animal Confinement Through Forgotten Legislation
play_arrow

iROAR member

The Case of the Overlooked Law: Challenging Animal Confinement Through Forgotten Legislation

Our Hen House 31 October 2025


Background
share close

Attorneys Will Lowrey (Animal Partisan) and Jessica Blome (Greenfire Law) join Mariann to discuss their battle to use California’s century-old animal protection laws to help dairy calves confined in tiny hutches. Despite having clear evidence that a dairy farm was violating Penal Code Section 597t by denying calves adequate exercise, they encountered a frustrating maze of procedural obstacles that prevented them from obtaining a search warrant under Section 599a.

This episode explores:

  • How a 120-year-old California law requiring exercise for confined animals, including farmed animals, is being systematically unenforced
  • The procedural barriers that prevent animal advocates from using existing legal tools to help farmed animals
  • How courts effectively nullify animal protection laws without legislative input
  • How the dairy industry confines calves in violation of California law with impunity
  • The creative legal strategies being developed to overcome institutional resistance to animal protection cases

ABOUT OUR GUESTS

Will Lowrey is the founder and Legal Counsel for Animal Partisan, a legal advocacy organization focused on challenging unlawful conduct in animal agriculture and experimentation. Will has engaged in numerous lawsuits, as well as criminal and administrative enforcement actions against the government, industrial agriculture, and research laboratories, including cases involving federal slaughter laws, public records, false advertising, public nuisance, animal cruelty, and others. Prior to his current role, Will worked for another animal protection nonprofit where he divided his time between civil litigation and providing counsel for undercover investigations. Will currently teaches Animal Law at the University of Oklahoma College of Law and has also taught at Vermont Law and Graduate School and the University of St. Thomas School of Law.

Jessica Blome, a Shareholder of Greenfire Law, P.C. in Berkeley, California, is an animal, environmental, open government, and land use attorney with nearly 20 years of experience in complex litigation. Jessica represents a wide range of clients from individuals to grassroots organizations to national non-profit organizations in cases involving the status of animals, protection of wildlife, or conservation of the environment under state, federal, and tribal law.

We are thrilled to expand the accessibility of our podcast by offering written transcripts of the interviews! Click here to read this episode’s interview.

**********

You can listen to the Animal Law Podcast directly on our website (at the top of this page) or you can listen and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, YouTube, or your favorite podcatcher. Also, if you like what you hear, please rate it on Apple Podcasts, and don’t forget to leave us a friendly comment! Of course, we would be thrilled if you would consider making a donation or becoming a member of our flock (especially if you’re a regular listener). Between now and December 31, every donation up to $20,000 will be tripled! Contributions of any amount will go towards our fundraising goal and are hugely appreciated. Our Hen House is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, so it’s tax-deductible. Thank you for helping us create quality content!

Don’t forget to also listen to the award-winning,  weekly signature OHH podcast — now in its fifteenth glorious year!

Join hostesses Jasmin Singer and Mariann Sullivan on this unique and fun award-winning podcast that focuses on changing the world for animals.

SUBSCRIBE: iTunes | Android | Google | Stitcher | RSS

Previous episode
Our Hen House
play_arrow
share playlist_add
close

iROAR member

The Hen Report: “The Status Update Of Your Life” | Monkeys on the Loose, Stolen Surfboards, and Birthday Banter

Our Hen House 30 October 2025

In this episode of The Hen Report, Jasmin (celebrating her birthday) and Mariann deliver a delightfully chaotic news roundup featuring animals who seem to be staging their own revolution. From escaped lab monkeys to surfboard-stealing sea otters in Santa Cruz, …continue

Read more trending_flat

Proudly brought to you by: Our Hen House 30 October 2025

Our Hen House
play_arrow
share playlist_add
close

iROAR member

Spycops & Farm Propaganda: Exposing Animal Agriculture’s Self-Mythology | Rising Anxieties

Our Hen House 2 December 2025

This week, Mariann dives headfirst into the murky waters of the UK’s “Spycops Scandal,” where undercover officers infiltrated animal rights groups with tactics ranging from the questionable to the downright duplicitous. Then, brace yourself for Mariann’s special brand of eye-rolling …continue

Read more trending_flat

Proudly brought to you by: Our Hen House 2 December 2025

Our Hen House
play_arrow
share playlist_add
close

iROAR member

Animals and the Constitution with Michael Dorf

Our Hen House 28 November 2025

In this intellectually stimulating episode of the Animal Law Podcast, Mariann Sullivan speaks with constitutional law expert Michael Dorf about his innovative course “Animals and the Constitution.” Dorf shares how fundamental legal principles intersect with animal protection, revealing both the …continue

Read more trending_flat

Proudly brought to you by: Our Hen House 28 November 2025