Bogus Lawsuit Against Huntindgon Life Sciences Dismissed

Animal liberationists and those under their sway are striving to put the animal testing lab Huntingdon Life Sciences out of business, by hook or by crook, including tertiary targeting and terroristic threats. This is a test case for the future of animal industries.

Another wrongful tactic toward this end would seem to be the filing of unmeritorious lawsuits based on frivolously outdated claims and phony requests for restitution. Such would seem to be the nature of a now defunct case filed in New Jersey last year by the New Jersey Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, which sought among other orders, a prohibition on further testing by the lab and restitution. The case was dismissed last year by a trial judge, a decision now affirmed on appeal.

Case dismissed. Here are a few excerpts:

On January 17, 2006, plaintiff filed an amended complaint containing fifty counts. The complaint contained allegations…which sets out a lengthy series of acts constituting animal cruelty…

A permanent injunction requires proof that…the injunction is necessary to preventing continuing irreparable injury…The only specific acts alleged in the amended complaint date from 1996 to 1997…more than 9 years ago. Such acts cannot be the basis for an injunction in 2006. [Quoting the trial court decision to dismiss.]…

There is no basis for [financial] restitution. Restitution is available where one party received a benefit at the expense of another party. NJSPCA does not allege, and there is nothing to support a claim that the HLS profited at NJSPCA’s expense.

This would seem to border on abuse of legal process. The time has come for victimized animal industries to sue back. Legitimate litigation is one thing, but lawsuits intended to just harass, wrongdoing against which courts should come down hard.