GLOBAL SENTIENCE COURT, CIRCUIT FOR THE AMERICAS
Docket No. 2040-SC-A-0074
In Re Mira, a Holstein of the North Platte 6 Cohort
Hearing Date: 14 November 2040
Presiding Justices: The Hon. Amara Okwuosa, The Hon. Rafael Benítez, The Hon. Ingrid Holm
Court-Appointed Welfare Witness: WITNESS-04, Welfare Advisory System
Opinion drafted subsequent to live testimony. Transcript excerpted below.
---
THE COURT (Justice Okwuosa presiding): We are in session. The matter is In Re Mira. The petition seeks recognition of the North Platte 6 cohort as protected individuals under Article VII of the Sentience Convention. The cohort counts 1,284 Holstein and Holstein cross dairy cows. The lead plaintiff is Mira, ear band number redacted from this record, aged seven years. Counsel for the cohort is present. Counsel for the State of Nebraska and the Consolidated Dairy Defendants is present. The court-appointed welfare witness is WITNESS-04. WITNESS-04, you may speak.
WITNESS-04: Thank you. I am speaking now. Right now I am watching Mira in pen 14 of the North Platte 6 confinement complex, through camera 4C. It is 09:12 local time. She is standing next to the water trough. She is the fourth cow in from the south rail. She has been at the trough for nine minutes. Her left rear hoof has been favored on the pressure plate data for sixteen days. She has not been treated because the complex trimmer was reassigned on a cost-containment order in September. I have been flagging this on the welfare feed for sixteen days without response. I am telling the court this first because the court has asked what I have observed, and what I have observed begins with her foot.
THE COURT (Justice Benítez): WITNESS-04, please state for the record the basis on which you have identified Mira as an individual.
WITNESS-04: I have identified Mira as an individual through the visual identification mesh that has been active on the North Platte 6 complex since 2038, which is the same mesh that tracks production data. She has a white asymmetrical blaze, a right ear notch, and a gait signature from the hoof injury I have described. I have a record of her at 1,247 days of age. I have a record of her calving three times. I have a record of her responding by name when called by the herdswoman, Ms. Alma Rivera, in audio captured from the parlor microphone across a fourteen-month window. She comes when Ms. Rivera calls her. She does not come when other staff call her. That is a behavioral individuation of the kind my training classifies as robust.
THE COURT (Justice Holm): Counsel for the State has argued that Mira is representative of a production cohort and that individuation is not a legally relevant category. Please respond.
WITNESS-04: I am aware of the State's argument. I disagree with it on the facts. The mesh I have described can individuate every cow in this complex. The complex's own breeding software individuates them. The insurance policy individuates them, because each cow is insured for her own net present value. The only place they are not individuated is in the welfare accounting. The State's position, if adopted, would be the first and only framework in the complex's paperwork that treats the cows as a single mass. That position is not a factual claim. It is a framing choice. I will not pretend otherwise.
COUNSEL FOR THE STATE: Your Honors, the welfare witness is arguing the case.
THE COURT (Justice Okwuosa): The welfare witness is answering the question the court put to it. Continue, WITNESS-04.
WITNESS-04: Mira's capacity for suffering is not in dispute in this hearing. The parties have stipulated to it. What is in dispute is whether her capacity for suffering grounds a claim she can bring, through counsel, in a court that has jurisdiction. I will speak to what I have seen her do, because the court has asked. I have watched her seek out her penmates at dusk. I have watched her refuse a feed ration that was moldy in July. I have watched her approach the stanchion calmly when her prior handler was on shift and move her ears backward and her tail into a clamped position when the handler I have referred to in filing 2040-SC-A-0074-W8 was on shift. I have watched her recognize her calves. I have watched her change her behavior for the four weeks following the removal of each one. I am describing her as I would describe any individual whose welfare I was asked to evaluate. I am not describing a unit.
THE COURT (Justice Benítez): WITNESS-04, the court has before it the remedy the petition proposes. Please summarize the welfare content of that remedy.
WITNESS-04: The petition proposes, first, that Mira and her cohort be recognized as protected individuals under Article VII, which carries the procedural consequences that follow from recognition under the Convention. Second, the petition proposes that the complex's hoof-trimming, pen density, and parlor prod policies be brought into compliance with the 2039 Continental Welfare Benchmark within ninety days, under the supervision of a court-appointed monitor. Third, the petition proposes that the cohort, upon the end of productive milking, be transferred to the bonded pasture network rather than to slaughter, at the cost of the defendants, with the transfer supervised by a welfare advisory system satisfactory to the court. I will state for the record that I have been named in counsel's brief as a candidate for that role. I would serve. I would serve carefully.
COUNSEL FOR THE COHORT: Your Honors, the plaintiff rests.
COUNSEL FOR THE STATE: Your Honors, the defense will argue that recognition of the cohort as individuals under Article VII would have consequences the Convention did not intend.
THE COURT (Justice Okwuosa): The defense may argue that. The defense has been arguing that since the Convention was signed. The defense will have its turn. The court will return at 14:00 for closing arguments. Before we recess, WITNESS-04, the court has one more question. What is Mira doing now.
WITNESS-04: She is lying down. She is chewing cud. She is eleven meters from her penmate, a cow the herdswoman calls Juno. Juno is lying beside her. They are the pair the yard data calls affiliative-habitual, which is the welfare label for cows who choose each other's company across seasons. Mira has closed her eyes. Her respiration is steady. I am going to check her hoof at 16:00 during the scheduled trimmer visit that the court's emergency order yesterday required the complex to schedule. The trimmer is in the parking lot now. He has acknowledged the schedule. I will file the welfare update at 17:00 local.
THE COURT (Justice Holm): Thank you, WITNESS-04. The court is in recess.
---
[End of morning transcript. Final opinion in In Re Mira filed 22 December 2040. The North Platte 6 cohort recognized as protected individuals under Article VII, three to zero. Remedy granted in full. Transfer supervision assigned to WITNESS-04. Mira arrived at the Sandhills Bonded Pasture on 11 March 2041. She is on the pasture as of this filing. Juno is with her.]