California egg farmers reverse course, defend welfare laws in federal suit

Attorneys involved in animal welfare cases are taking a victory lap after an association representing California egg farmers moved to defend state regulations they once opposed.

But it is hardly the only business organization to change its position on controversial Golden State regulations in recent years. Like car makers who moved to defend California's emissions standards during the Biden administration, farmers have seen the economic facts on the ground change.

"The Association of California Egg Farmers sees the writing on the wall," Vanessa T. Shakib, an attorney and co-founder of Advancing Law for Animals in Redondo Beach, who is not involved in the litigation, said in an email. "Consumers in California--and across the country--have made clear at the ballot box that they don't want eggs from sick chickens cramped in tiny, dirty cages. Washington bureaucrats should mind their own business and respect the will of California voters."

On Friday, the farmers group, ACEF, moved to intervene in a Trump administration lawsuit that seeks to block a series of California laws regulating the treatment of egg-laying hens. But the motion filed by attorney Brian M. Boynton describes the shift as driven more by economics than morality. The chair of the Government and Regulatory Litigation Group at Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr LLP in Washington, D.C. argued the group's members have a "significant protectable interest" in seeing the regulations continue.

"As another district court in this Circuit explained in granting ACEF's motion to intervene in the earlier challenge to AB 1437, ACEF ...'has a significantly protectable economic interest in the outcome of the litigation' because '[i]ts members directly benefit from the protections of AB 1437 and [a related regulation] by way of a stable consumer egg demand in California.'"

Those interests include substantial investments in providing hens with more space, improved hygiene and less stressful living conditions.

"As an organization whose members are responsible for 50% of the egg-laying hens in California, have followed stringent food quality standards for nearly two decades, and produce eggs both in California and in other States, ACEF brings unique expertise to this litigation."

Boynton declined to comment when reached on Wednesday.

The U.S. Justice Department sued last month to invalidate regulations created under Proposition 12, a 2018 initiative that changed standards for confining farm animals. That effort built on Proposition 2, passed in 2008, and AB 1437, signed in 2010.

John Bailey, counsel with the department, wrote that California's "overly burdensome and unnecessary regulations" are contributing to "a historic cost-of-living crisis." United States of America v. the State of California, 2:25-cv-06230-MCS-AGR (C.D. Cal., filed July 9, 2025).

"The State of California has contributed to the historic rise in egg prices by imposing unnecessary red tape on the production of eggs," Bailey wrote. "Through a combination of voter initiatives, legislative enactments, and regulations, California has effectively prevented farmers across the country from using a number of agricultural production methods which were in widespread use--and which helped keep eggs affordable."

The association opposed Proposition 2, though the no campaign was led by a national group, United Egg Producers. That initiative requires that hens, calves, and pigs have the space to perform basic motions like turning around and lying down. It also set off years of litigation over how much California can regulate its own enormous agricultural industry when the rules have spillover effects on farmers in other states.

But, as Boynton pointed out in a memorandum supporting the association's right to intervene, the regulations came years before the recent run-up in egg prices--and the association long ago switched sides.

"ACEF has defended AB 1437 and Proposition 12 against repeated legal challenges filed over the last decade that have been uniformly rejected," he wrote. "ACEF was a defendant-intervenor in a 2014 challenge to AB 1437 brought by a coalition of States."

"As outlined in their memorandum to intervene, California egg producers actually supported California in the case brought by the pork industry to challenge Proposition 12," Sarah A. Thompson, a partner with Ryther Law Group, LLP in Murrieta, said in an email.

Thompson, whose firm often takes animal welfare cases but is not involved in the egg litigation, added, "California egg producers have already been required to comply with the new laws like Proposition 12. As such, their investment to do so would effectively be nullified by the relief sought by the Trump administration. And egg producers who have not or do not wish to comply with Proposition 12 could arguably be given an advantage by the laws being nullified."

Five carmakers made similar arguments in 2022 when they intervened to defend a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency decision to restore California's authority to set its own standards for vehicle emissions and electric cars. This came after Ford Motor Co., Honda Motor Co. Ltd. and others reached a voluntary deal with California to comply with guidelines that were less stringent than those under President Barack Obama, but stricter than President Donald Trump's rollback.