Legal News

Meat Company Prez Has Rough Ride in Front of Congress

By Dan Slater

As an 18 year-old, the Law Blog spent a summer working on a cattle ranch in Colorado. Fortunately, we never saw a “downer” cow — or a cow that can’t walk. That changed today, when we watched this disturbing footage (embedded within a larger news story), filmed by the Humane Society at California-based Westland/Hallmark Meat Company.

Apparently, Westland/Hallmark’s president, Steve Mendell, watched the video for the first time today as well. Appearing before a congressional panel this afternoon, Mendell, whose slaughterhouse is at the center of the largest beef recall in U.S. history, reportedly bowed his head as the video ran. It depicts cows being dragged by chains, jabbed by forklifts and shocked in order to get them into the slaughter box. If cows who are too sick to stand, it’s illegal to slaughter them, and force them into the food supply.

Though the video’s reportedly been widely available for several weeks, Wendell said he’d never seen it before. In his written testimony, he claimed that no ill cows from his plant entered the food supply. (Here’s the AP story.) The panel’s chairman, Bart Stupak (D., Mich.) asked Mendell whether it was logical to conclude from the video that at least two downer cows entered the nation’s food supply.

“That would be logical, yes sir,” said Mendell, who was making his first public appearance since the undercover video led to the shutdown of Westland/Hallmark’s slaughterhouse, and last month’s recall of 143 million pounds of beef. “I had not seen what I saw here today.” Mendell’s lawyer is former congressman Asa Hutchinson.

Mendell, who reportedly said he’s received death threats, noted that no illnesses have been reported from the recalled beef and the Agriculture Department has found no evidence of problems with it. Nevertheless, two workers shown mistreating the cattle on the Humane Society video were reportedly fired and are facing animal cruelty charges from San Bernardino County prosecutors in an ongoing criminal investigation.

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on March 12, 2008 (boomark / email).