The Louisiana Supreme Court has ruled in favor of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) in the group’s public records lawsuit against Louisiana State University.
In a June 28 opinion, the court ruled the school must turn over records related to university experimenter Christine Lattin’s experiments on songbirds she captures, cages and kills. PETA called the taxpayer-funded experiments “cruel and deadly.”
“The Public Records Law must be construed expansively in favor of free and unrestricted access to public documents,” the 4-3 majority wrote.
In a statement, the university said it was “reviewing the opinion and evaluating the impact on our proprietary research. We will determine what we need to do in due course after our review and analysis.”
PETA filed its lawsuit in December 2020 after LSU failed to release documents pursuant to Public Records Law requests. LSU said some of the documents PETA sought were governed by federal law, not Louisiana law, and therefore not subject to disclosure.
The court disagreed, saying the documents are public records because public funds were used to conduct the research.
“The fact that a public employee used a private email account or private cell phone, or even a private attorney to conduct business does not make public records ‘private,’” the majority wrote.
The court went on to say the Public Records Law “must be construed expansively in favor of free and unrestricted access to public documents” and ruled that the university must turn over veterinary-care records for birds who have been captured, tormented and killed in Lattin’s experiments.
It also said videos of the experiments and records related to her work to change Baton Rouge’s bird-protection ordinance should be turned over. The ordinance prohibited trapping or harming wild birds, but it was changed in 2020 to exempt experimentation, which PETA says came following pressure from Lattin.
“PETA is elated that the Louisiana Supreme Court is requiring that LSU abide by the law — and that the school must finally release video footage and documents detailing its cruel and deadly experiments on songbirds,” PETA Senior Vice President Kathy Guillermo said of the July X opinion. “These birds were trapped in their own homes, caged, tormented, and killed at a public university that can’t operate in secrecy, hiding atrocities masquerading as ‘science.’
“Wild birds were seized from their natural homes, caged, mutilated, and killed at a public university that masquerades atrocities as science and has made every attempt to keep the public in the dark about what went on. PETA thanks the Louisiana Supreme Court for requiring Louisiana State University to abide by the law and calls on the school to shut down Lattin’s shameful experiments.”
PETA says Lattin has trapped hundreds of wild birds for her “curiosity-driven” experiments since at least 2008. It says Lattin has pumped the birds “full of drugs and hormones, fed them crude oil, wounded their legs, plucked their feathers, exposed them to terrifying predator sounds and forced them to endure other forms of torment. At the end of the experiments, she kills them.”
PETA has had its eye on Lattin for years, claiming she torments birds after capturing them. PETA has questioned Lattin’s experiments since she was at Yale studying stress in sparrows.