According to Animal Legal Defense Fund, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio has recognized hippos as legal persons for the first time in the United States, because a Community of Hippopotamuses Living in the Magdalena River is a litigant in a lawsuit filed in Columbia and the District Court granted a
More on the Alleged Right to Liberty for Happy the Elephant
On November 19, 2020, the First Judicial Department, Supreme Court of the State of New York, Appellate Court heard oral argument, remotely, regarding the Nonhuman Rights Project’s (the “Project”) appeal of the dismissal of their habeas corpus petition filed to establish personhood status for Happy an elephant housed at the Bronx Zoo. The purported purpose
What is the legal status of Sandra in the United States—the orangutan granted legal personhood status in Argentina?
As reported by the Associated Press on November 7, 2019, Sandra, a 33-year-old orangutan that was granted legal personhood by a judge in Argentina has moved to the Center for Great Apes in central Florida after being quarantined at a different zoo in Kansas, upon importation.
Judge Liberatori reportedly ruled that Sandra is legally
Another attempt to create legal standing for animals as plaintiff’s in lawsuits fails.
In Justice v. Gwendolyn Vercher, Case No. 18CV17601 (Oregon Judicial Department, Washington County Circuit Court, Twentieth Judicial District, Sept. 17, 2018) the Court dismissed a complaint filed by the Animal Legal Defense Fund, for Justice, the Plaintiff, a quarter horse. The Court held that an animal, including the equine Plaintiff, lacked the legal capacity to
Connecticut Court Dismisses Nonhuman Rights Projects’ Latest Attempt To Obtain Personhood Rights For Animals.
As they had promised, the Nonhuman Rights Projects, Inc. (the “petitioner”) filed another petition seeking personhood rights through a writ of habeas corpus for 3 elephants in Connecticut owned by R.W. Commerford & Sons, Inc. (the “Commerford Zoo”) on November 13, 2017.
Long before the scheduled status conference, which was to be held on
Words Matter-Chimpanzees are not “Clients”
You have probably heard of the decision by the First Judicial Department’s Appellate’s Division upholding the lower courts’ decision not to sign orders to show cause seeking the transfer of chimpanzees from one form of captivity to another, under the rejected narrative that writs of habeas corpus should be applied to the chimps because
Richard L. Cupp: Gorilla’s death calls for human responsibility, not animal personhood
Richard L. Cupp, Pepperdine University, writes for The Conversation:
My reaction to the killing of Harambe the gorilla at the Cincinnati zoo when a child went into the gorilla’s enclosure is probably typical: I am sickened and I am angry. This must not happen again.
One step that some advocates will surely
Reading List: “Cognitively Impaired Humans, Intelligent Animals, and Legal Personhood” by Pepperdine Law School Professor Richard Cupp
Pepperdine Law School Professor Richard Cupp has posted on SSRN.com an article that is forthcoming in the Florida Law Review entitled Cognitively Impaired Humans, Intelligent Animals, and Legal Personhood.
The article may be downloaded for free at http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2775288.
This Article analyzes whether courts should grant legal personhood to intelligent animal species, such as chimpanzees,