Victory for the First Amendment is a Victory for Animal “Shelter“ Reform

A defamation lawsuit filed by Larry Gross, the former President of the Board of Animal Services Commissioners in Los Angeles, ended in victory for Joy Freiberg, a shelter reformer. In addition to dismissing the case against Frieberg, the Court ordered Gross to pay her attorney fees.

Gross unsuccessfully claimed Freiberg falsely and maliciously accused him of enabling animal abuse, misusing donations, and covering up misconduct at Los Angeles animal shelters. In response, Freiberg filed a special motion to strike the complaint under California’s anti-SLAPP statute (Code of Civil Procedure § 425.16), which is designed to protect individuals from lawsuits intended to silence free speech on public issues.

The court evaluated Freiberg’s motion using the two-step anti-SLAPP analysis. First, it considered whether the defendant’s actions were protected under the right to free speech. It found that Freiberg’s social media statements, which addressed animal welfare, public funding, and Gross’s role as a public official, constituted speech on matters of public interest.

Next, the court assessed whether Gross could demonstrate a likelihood of success on his defamation claims. Although he denied the accusations and offered evidence of their falsity, the court determined that Freiberg’s statements were not made with “actual malice” — the necessary standard for public figures like Gross to prevail in defamation cases. Freiberg presented evidence supporting her claims and demonstrated a history of activism and concern about shelter conditions, which undermined the allegation of reckless disregard for the truth.

For example, Freiberg has been instrumental in exposing widespread neglect, abuse, and corruption at Los Angeles Animal Services (LAAS). In addition to an increase in killings, dogs spend weeks or months inside their filthy kennels without a walk, often without clean water and soft beds to lie on. As a result, they experience increased stress, giving LAAS an excuse to kill the dogs as “unadoptable” even though they are healthy and of good temperament outside their kennels.

In addition, cat rooms are mostly empty and, in some cases, entirely empty, while staff at the pound turn stray cats away, leading to mass abandonment. Across the street from one of the shelters, volunteers are forced to care for many of those abandoned cats.

A Los Angeles Times investigation also uncovered rabbits with gouged eyes, guinea pigs without food, and hamsters in cages soaked in urine and feces. And when an employee admitted to striking dogs, the volunteer who exposed him was punished, not the abuser.

The Board of Animal Services Commissioners is supposed to oversee the pound and hold the General Manager accountable for this abuse:

Pursuant to the Los Angeles City Charter and the Los Angeles Administrative Code, the Board of Animal Services Commissioners serves as the head of the Department of Animal Services. The Board is authorized to supervise, control, regulate, and manage the Department; make and enforce all rules and regulations necessary to exercise the powers conferred upon the Department by the Los Angeles City Charter; and provide instructions to the Department’s General Manager.

It has failed to do so.

Ultimately, the court granted Freiberg’s special motion to strike, ruling that Gross’s complaint lacked the necessary legal grounding to proceed. As a result, the defamation lawsuit was dismissed in its entirety, affirming the legal protections afforded to speech on matters of public concern.

Citizens not only have a First Amendment right to speak out against government policies with which they disagree, but they also have a constitutionally protected right to demand that the government correct the identified wrongs. This is true even when they use language that government actors consider insulting, offensive, or inappropriate.

As the U.S. Supreme Court has consistently ruled, “speech on public issues occupies the ‘highest rung of the hierarchy of First Amendment values’ and is entitled to special protection.” Indeed, such speech lies “at the heart of the First Amendment’s protection.”

When animal lives are at stake — as they are when animals enter LAAS, a pound that has not embraced a culture of compassion and lifesaving — allowing government officials to silence critics would be even more egregious given the life and death consequences. Thankfully, the First Amendment protects reformers. It certainly did in this case.

The ruling in Larry Gross v. Joy Freiberg (Case No. 23STCV10824) is here.