_{Thumbnail: Cows mill about at Alexandre Family Farm’s operation on Lower Lake Road last spring. | Photo by Jessica Cejnar Andrews}

The matriarch of Alexandre Family Farm says a new consumer class-action lawsuit against her family’s dairy operation, stemming from allegations of animal cruelty that are nearly a year old and revealing new claims, is without merit.

The animal cruelty allegations levied against the Alexandres in an April 11, 2024 exposé from the nonprofit organization Farm Forward forms the basis of this new lawsuit, Taylor v. Humane Animal Farm Care and Alexandre Family Farm. It also accuses the Alexandres and Humane Animal Farm Care — the organization behind the Certified Humane logo — of deceiving consumers.

According to the complaint, Humane Animal Farm Care allowed the Alexandres to continue to display its logo despite knowing that the farm didn’t meet the organization’s “advertised standards of animal welfare.”

The lawsuit may result in Alexandre Family Farm paying the plaintiffs more than $5 million, Farm Forward Director of Education John Millspaugh wrote in a March 10 post on the organization’s website.

In a written statement to Redwood Voice Community News on Friday, Stephanie Alexandre said she and her family looked forward to disproving those allegations in court.

“Our mission is to farm in harmony with nature and to honor the Earth and all the animals under our stewardship,” she said via email. “Our commitment to our animals is unwavering. We take any allegations — particularly those related to animal welfare — extremely seriously.”

The class action lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court of the Southern District of California on March 7 by the Irvington, New York-based firm Richman Law & Policy.

It comes alongside a separate civil case Sacramento-based Legal Impact for Chickens filed against the Alexandres in October. That case cites the same allegations brought up in the April 11, 2024 Farm Forward exposé and was filed in Humboldt County Superior Court.

Attorneys for Legal Impact for Chickens and the Alexandres appeared before Humboldt County Judge Timothy Canning in a demurrer hearing Friday. According to Sage Max, legal operations specialist for Legal Impact for Chickens, the defendants are asking the court to dismiss the lawsuit.

After hearing from both parties, Canning said he’d issue a ruling in about 90 days or “hopefully less.”

The plaintiff in the new lawsuit is San Diego resident Leilani Taylor and other unnamed consumers. According to the complaint, between 2018 and 2024, Taylor regularly purchased Alexandre Family Farms half and half and eggnog at Jimbo’s, an organic grocery store chain based in the San Diego area. However, “absent the use of the [Certified Humane] logo, Plaintiff Taylor would not have paid as much for the products and likely would have chosen other products that represented more humane treatment of animals used for food.”

The Alexandres have used the Certified Humane logo on its milk, half and half, yogurt, sour cream, kefir, cheese, milk powder and eggnog since 2021, according to the complaint.

According to Humane Animal Farm Care, only operations that have earned certification from its organization may display its logo, the complaint states. The organization states that “if a farm cannot or will not correct their nonconformances… HFAC will no longer continue to certify them. They are removed from the program and the logo is removed from the product,” according to the lawsuit.

In addition to relying on evidence outlined in Farm Forward’s April 2024 report, the law firm behind the class action lawsuit also used an independent investigator who visited Alexandre Family Farm and allegedly found that the animals there were “subjected… to horrific abuse.”

According to the complaint, the investigator observed calves left in dirty hutches “covered in filth” without outdoor access and for a month longer than Humane Animal Farm Care allows.

HAFC states that calves may be kept in individual hutches until they’re eight weeks old, according to the complaint. They must be kept clean, be able to turn around, lie down and rest without hindrance and have access to an outside exercise area. And the hutches  must be arranged so that the calves can see and hear other calves.

However, the lawsuit states the investigator in November 2022 documented calves Iiving in “filth consisting of feces, urine and mud. The filth covered the floors, denying the calves bedding, and covered the calves themselves as well.”

Alexandre Family Farm employees told the investigator that the farm “did not clean the hutches at all while the calves were using them,” the lawsuit states. According to the complaint, confining an animal without providing an adequate exercise area is a misdemeanor under the California Penal Code.

Other allegations of animal cruelty in the complaint were first revealed by Farm Forward and an April 12, 2024 article in the Atlantic. These include pouring salt into cows’ eyes and gluing on denim patches in an attempt to alleviate infection and cancer and using a pocket knife to cut a cow’s teat off.

In her statement to Redwood Voice, Alexandre said they have a policy of “required reporting if any incidents of concern” are observed. Alexandre Family Farm also works with a leading veterinarian and animal nutritionist to update its animal welfare protocols.

“We perform rigorous staff oversight and update training of all employees to ensure that they continue to have the knowledge and tools needed to comply with our commitment to animal welfare,” she said.