U.S. Supreme Court Declines Review of California’s Landmark Proposition 12 Animal Cruelty Law

On June 30, 2025, the U.S. Supreme Court denied a petition by the Iowa Pork Producers Association (IPPA) to review the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals’ dismissal of their lawsuit challenging California’s Proposition 12 — which voters overwhelmingly approved in 2018.

That ballot measure protects mother pigs, chickens used in egg production, and calves raised for veal from some of the cruelest forms of intensive confinement by preventing the sale of certain products in California that don’t comply with minimum space requirements for the animals. This includes the use of gestation crates that are barely bigger than the pregnant pigs themselves — preventing them from turning around and sometimes even from lying down. IPPA’s case was the third attempt by the meat industry to get the U.S. Supreme Court to allow their challenges to Proposition 12 to survive — despite every lower court having dismissed each of those claims.

In 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court did hear one of these industry challenges to Proposition 12 and upheld the 9th Circuit’s dismissal of National Pork Producers Council v. Ross — with the Justices agreeing 9-0 that such state animal welfare protections are indeed constitutional, even if they create a burden on out of state producers.

The Animal Legal Defense Fund was part of a coalition led by Humane World for Animals that was integral to that decision, and to getting Proposition 12 passed in the first place by ensuring the realities of the measure and the cruelty it would help mitigate were clear to voters — despite industry attempts to conceal how farmed animals actually are treated. ALDF again joined Humane World for Animals to intervene in the IPPA’s case and successfully opposed Certiorari, along with Animal Equality, The Humane League, Farm Sanctuary, Compassion in World Farming USA, and Animal Outlook.

The extreme confinement from gestation crates is not only cruel to animals, but also hazardous to public health. Keeping animals in cramped, stressful conditions puts them at increased risk of contracting and spreading zoonotic diseases that can spread among animals and humans.

Proposition 12 bans the sale of certain animal products in California if the animals were confined in housing systems that don’t meet the law’s space requirements. Proposition 12 provided a phase-in period of several years to allow producers to make the upgrades required to sell their products in California.