PETA lawsuits span more than four decades and include some of the strangest cases in American courts: a criminal prosecution of a federally funded researcher, a Thirteenth Amendment challenge brought on behalf of five orcas, a copyright claim filed for a monkey, and a $7.3 million suit brought against PETA itself over a family’s chihuahua. The organization has won landmark rulings on undercover investigations and lost sweeping bids to have animals recognized as legal persons. Taken together, the cases map the outer edges of what American law will and will not do for animals.
The Silver Spring Monkeys
The case that built PETA’s reputation began in 1981, when a PETA colleague went undercover at the Institute for Behavioral Research in Silver Spring, Maryland. The investigator documented 17 monkeys in rusted wire cages caked with feces, with untreated wounds and no veterinary care. The lab’s lead researcher, Edward Taub, had severed the monkeys’ spinal nerves and used electric shocks and food deprivation to force them to try using the disabled limbs.
PETA handed the evidence to police. What followed was a string of firsts: the first criminal conviction of an animal experimenter for cruelty, the first court-ordered confiscation of abused animals from a laboratory, and eventually the first U.S. Supreme Court case to address the treatment of animals in experiments. IBR closed permanently, and public outcry contributed to amendments to the Animal Welfare Act strengthening protections for research animals.
The SeaWorld Orca Slavery Suit
In October 2011, PETA filed a federal complaint in San Diego naming five orcas — Tilikum, Katina, Corky, Kasatka, and Ulises — as plaintiffs, arguing that SeaWorld’s captivity violated the Thirteenth Amendment’s ban on slavery and involuntary servitude. PETA acted as “next friend” to the whales, a role usually reserved for prisoners or people unable to represent themselves.
In February 2012, the court dismissed the case for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. The judge concluded that the Thirteenth Amendment applies exclusively to human beings, pointing to the amendment’s text (including the phrase “except as a punishment for crime”) as evidence that only persons subject to criminal conviction were contemplated. The ruling called slavery and involuntary servitude “uniquely human activities.”1Justia Case Law. Tilikum et al v. Sea World Parks and Entertainment, Inc. et al, No. 3:2011cv02476 – Document 32 (S.D. Cal. 2012)
The legal answer was an unequivocal no, but the media coverage was enormous, which was arguably the point.
Naruto and the Monkey Selfie
In 2011, a crested macaque named Naruto picked up wildlife photographer David Slater’s unattended camera on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi and took several photos of himself. When Slater published the images in a book, PETA sued on Naruto’s behalf in September 2015, arguing the monkey was the “author” of the photographs and should own the copyright.2Justia. Naruto v. Slater, No. 16-15469 (9th Cir. 2018)
The district court dismissed the case, and in April 2018 the Ninth Circuit affirmed. The appellate court’s reasoning split in two. Naruto did have constitutional standing under Article III: the complaint alleged he was the author, owned the photos, and had suffered real economic harm when others profited from them. That was enough to get through the courthouse door.3UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT. Naruto v. Slater
But Naruto lacked statutory standing. The Copyright Act does not expressly authorize animals to file infringement suits, and the court noted that references in the Act to “children,” “grandchildren,” “widow,” and “widower” imply humanity and exclude animals. The Ninth Circuit granted Slater attorney’s fees on appeal and sent the specific amount back to the district court. Before that was resolved, PETA and Slater settled, with Slater agreeing to donate 25 percent of future earnings from the book to charities protecting crested macaque habitat.2Justia. Naruto v. Slater, No. 16-15469 (9th Cir. 2018)
Maya the Chihuahua
Not every PETA lawsuit involves novel legal theories, and not every one has PETA as plaintiff. In October 2014, PETA workers entered a mobile home community in Accomack County, Virginia, and took a family’s chihuahua named Maya from a porch. Security camera footage showed a PETA employee seizing the dog after first trying to get neighborhood children to lure her over. PETA euthanized Maya before the family knew she was gone. Three days later, two PETA representatives arrived at the family’s home with a fruit basket and told them the dog was dead.
The family sued PETA in Norfolk Circuit Court in November 2015, seeking $7.3 million in compensatory and punitive damages for trespassing and emotional distress. Virginia fined PETA $500 for failing to hold the dog for the minimum period required by state law before euthanasia. The case settled in August 2017, with PETA paying the family $49,000 and donating $2,000 to a local SPCA in Maya’s honor. The incident became one of the most frequently cited criticisms of PETA and fueled broader scrutiny of euthanasia rates at its Norfolk shelter.
The Bobby Berosini Defamation Case
In 1989, Las Vegas entertainer Bobby Berosini sued PETA and the Performing Animal Welfare Society after undercover footage surfaced showing him striking his orangutans backstage before performances. His complaint alleged defamation, invasion of privacy, interference with contracts, and conspiracy. A jury awarded him $4.2 million.
The Nevada Supreme Court reversed the entire judgment. It found that the secretly recorded footage depicted matters of legitimate public concern and that Berosini had not met his burden on the defamation claims. PETA was awarded roughly $201,000 in costs on appeal. A separate $144,000 attorney’s fees award the lower court had granted PETA was vacated, the appellate court finding the trial court had abused its discretion in awarding it.4FindLaw. Bobby Berosini Ltd v. PAWS (1998) The ruling was an early confirmation that undercover animal welfare investigations could survive legal retaliation from the people they captured on camera.
Ag-Gag Challenges and the First Amendment
Some of PETA’s most consequential legal wins have come from challenging laws designed to criminalize the undercover investigations the organization relies on. Several states passed “ag-gag” laws that made it illegal to secretly record inside agricultural facilities, gain access to farms under false pretenses, or collect documents from employers without authorization. PETA joined coalitions challenging these statutes under the First Amendment.
The results have been largely favorable. A federal court in Idaho struck down that state’s ag-gag law in 2015 as a violation of the First and Fourteenth Amendments. A Utah federal court followed in 2017. In North Carolina, PETA was a named plaintiff challenging the state’s Property Protection Act, which allowed employers to sue anyone who secretly recorded on their premises. A federal district court ruled in 2020 that four provisions of the Act violated the First Amendment, and the Fourth Circuit affirmed in February 2023, holding that recording in an employer’s nonpublic areas as part of newsgathering is constitutionally protected speech.5United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, Inc. v. North Carolina Farm Bureau Federation, Inc., No. 20-1776
The North Carolina law carried penalties of $5,000 per day of violation plus attorney’s fees, which would have been financially devastating for advocacy groups if it had survived.5United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, Inc. v. North Carolina Farm Bureau Federation, Inc., No. 20-1776 These rulings extend beyond PETA, protecting journalists and whistleblowers who do undercover work on private property.
The Tiger King Big Cat Case
PETA’s litigation against figures associated with the Netflix documentary “Tiger King” produced concrete results that its more philosophical cases did not. PETA sued under the Endangered Species Act over the treatment of big cats held by operators connected to the show, including Jeff Lowe, who took over the zoo formerly run by Joe Exotic. A federal court in Oklahoma found that Lowe had treated four lions “with appalling cruelty,” feeding them only rancid meat, failing to provide adequate veterinary care, and keeping them in enclosures so deficient that one lion named Amelia had part of her paw amputated after a bite wound. The court also found Lowe had lied about the death of a lion named Kahari and left her body to decompose beyond the point where a necropsy could determine cause of death.
The rulings allowed PETA to rescue 25 big cats from the facility, including three cubs at the center of the original lawsuit. The court ordered Lowe to pay PETA roughly $183,500 in attorney’s fees and costs. Unlike the constitutional arguments in the SeaWorld or Naruto cases, this litigation worked within existing statutes and delivered tangible outcomes for specific animals.
Why Animal Standing Keeps Failing
A single legal question runs through nearly all of PETA’s most controversial cases: can an animal be a party to a lawsuit? The technical term is standing, and it requires a concrete injury, caused by the defendant, that a court can fix. PETA has repeatedly argued animals meet these requirements and that the organization should be allowed to represent them as “next friend,” a role typically used for minors or incapacitated people.
The federal standard for next friend standing has two requirements. The real party in interest must be unable to appear on their own behalf due to inaccessibility, mental incompetence, or other disability. And the proposed next friend must be genuinely dedicated to that party’s best interests and have a significant relationship with them, rather than a generalized grievance about the issue.6Constitution Annotated. Agency and Standing
Naruto is the closest an animal has come to clearing the federal standing hurdle. The court accepted constitutional standing but drew the line at statutory standing, finding Congress had not written the Copyright Act with animal plaintiffs in mind. The SeaWorld case never reached standing at all, dismissed on the threshold question of whether the Thirteenth Amendment applies to non-humans.
Animals remain property under American law, not rights-holders. PETA’s most effective litigation has worked within that framework, using the Endangered Species Act, the Animal Welfare Act, and state cruelty statutes to protect specific animals without asking courts to treat them as legal persons. Whether that boundary shifts depends less on PETA’s ambition than on whether Congress writes a statute that explicitly grants animals the right to sue.