The Perfect Storm
18 months of protests, harassment result in furrier forced to pay legal fees for animal rights groups

By Simon Ward, Communications Director, and Teresa Platt, Executive Director, FCUSA

A Portland judge has dismissed the targets of a civil rights lawsuit filed in federal court by Gregg and Linda Schumacher and Schumacher Furs & Outwear, and told the furriers to pay the animal rightists almost $100,000 in legal fees.

With this legal bill added to hundreds of thousands of dollars in security, legal and PR costs accumulated over two years, the Schumachers threw up their hands and dropped their lawsuit against the City of Portland for not protecting their shop, its employees and the Schumacher family adequately in the first place.

In January 2007, the Schumachers announced their intention to close their store, blaming 18 months of almost non-stop demonstrations which were raucous and often obscene, combined with vandalism, threats and harassment targeting owners, employees and customers. On occasion, as many as 200 people dressed in oil-based synthetics assembled outside, loudly declaring their disdain for natural fibers.(1) 

After a court hearing in which Judge Michael Mosman declared, "You are in the unenviable position of being harmed by people whose names you do not know," the judge issued a temporary restraining order against several protestors.(2) The order was promptly violated and the police called. No arrests were made.

Left with little alternative, the Schumachers reviewed the evidence their security firm had gleaned and identified who they thought were the regular and key players. They then filed a multi-million dollar civil rights lawsuit in federal court against PeTA, In Defense of Animals and more than 20 protesters, plus the underground and shadowy Animal Liberation Front, a regular after-hours visitor to the store.

In a separate suit, they accused Portland's law enforcement of turning a blind eye to illegal acts by the demonstrators.

The Achilles heel of the first suit was that the Schumachers could not point to a list of official arrests of individual law-breaking protesters since law enforcement had not been aggressive in its policing, which was the crux of the second suit against the City of Portland.

Instead, the Schumachers showed Mosman 11 minutes of video and audio gleaned from 500 hours of surveillance which was backed up by meticulous notes taken by a security firm hired by the Schumachers to protect their enterprise. They hoped to have their suit accepted and move on to the electronic discovery phase of the case which they believed would reveal two smoking guns: coordination by the large animal rights corporations which appeared to be paying the bills related to the protests, and records within the police department revealing more detail on illegal actions that had not been acted upon.

Jury denied

Ultimately, they planned to show all the evidence compiled by the security firm hired by the Schumachers and to bring in witnesses and statements attesting to the harassment by various players. And they had hoped to do all this before a jury of their peers. But they were denied.

Reversing his earlier stand where he ruled that there was enough evidence of illegal action to trigger a restraining order, Mosman ruled in January 2008 that the suit against those named was "an extraordinary abuse of the litigation process" and ordered the Schumachers to pay $96,870 to cover legal fees.

In essence, since Mosman could not review a trail of evidence created by the police doing their job of arresting or issuing warnings related to illegal acts by the various parties accused, he felt the suit "disparaged their reputations with accusations of criminal conduct, terrorist affiliations, and responsibility for 'shutting down' a business whose financial solvency was questionable before the protesting activities began."

This statement ran counter to the fact that the Schumacher family has been in the fur business since 1895, and the new and improved Schumacher Furs & Outwear, opened in November of 2005, was a spectacular store by any measure, with great potential for success. The store was also doing brisk business despite the protests which began on the first day customers walked through the door seeking natural fiber cold-weather clothing.

Mosman acknowledged the strength of the Schumachers' evidence of continuous lawbreaking. "Certainly, Plaintiffs' had photographic and video graphic evidence of people clearly violating municipal prohibitions on public nudity and harassment," he wrote, referring to the short, 11-minute preview of coming attractions compiled by the Schumachers' security firm. The judge also acknowledged the alleged role of Portland's laissez faire policy toward protests combined with harassment and lawbreaking. "I also recognize Plaintiffs' repeated arguments that the City's failure to protect against and investigate these incidents lies at the heart of why Plaintiffs cannot do more to identify protestors."

But at the end of the day, the judge felt the named defendants could not be blamed for the actions of various lawbreakers based on the 11 minutes of video and small amount of other evidence he'd reviewed up to that time.

"I granted the Motions to Strike because Plaintiffs did not produce evidence the prevailing defendants did anything illegal," said the ruling. "... although Plaintiffs may have had meritorious claims against people whose names they did not know, or even against the City of Portland, they sued people against whom they had no evidence ... I find that awarding fees in this case will properly serve to deter putative plaintiffs from filing multi-million dollar suits against non-profit groups and private citizens engaged in First Amendment activities until they have thoroughly investigated the facts and researched the law."

With bills already in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, and exhausted from the battle, the Schumachers called it a day and dropped the case against the City, demonstrating once again that lawsuits are costly and battling animal rights groups with dozens of on-staff lawyers is more costly still.

New Portland targets

In the months following the closure of the Schumachers' store, animal rightist-affiliated corporations blessed by the federal government with tax-exempt public benefit "charitable" status have hit various targets around Portland, including researchers, restaurants, and, yes, another furrier.

Meanwhile, within minutes of where Schumacher Furs & Outerwear once was, activists crowed over the closure of a KFC restaurant,(3) and restaurateur Thomas Hurley served his last culinary masterpiece on New Year's Eve 2007, locked the doors and walked away.

Hurley admitted he'd never recovered from the beating he took from foie gras protesters who camped outside his restaurant in 2004. He moved to Seattle where he hopes to practice the fine art of cooking, with plant and animal products, in peace and security.(4)

A few more of these fiascos around the country and some smart lawyer will be thinking about a pro bono class action lawsuit in defense of the targeted and harassed.(5) And the Schumachers have over 500 hours of evidence to contribute to the cause!

In the meantime, the Schumachers would appreciate donations to help pay their legal bills. You can find directions on how to contribute to a legal defense fund at www.schumacherfurs.com.

Notes:

(1) See "Plastic Bags on Our Backs," FCUSA commentary, Mar. 14, 2008.

(2) See "Judge orders fur protester to stay away from Schumacher's owners," Associated Press, May 18, 2007.

(3) See "Another KFC is closed!" by chicken little: "After 5 years of protesting, another KFC has closed down."

(4) See "Hurley leaves foie gras mess, and PDX, behind," The Oregonian, Jan. 17, 2008.

(5) See UC Berkeley hopes to halt 'harassment': University seeks restraining order against protesters who rally outside of homes of researchers, Mercury News, Mar. 6, 2008. See also The War on Animal Research, by P. Michael Conn (who is also based in the Portland area and is a favorite target of animal extremists), The Scientist, Apr. 1, 2008; Judge issues temporary restraining order to stop animal rights extremists from harassing UCLA employees, UCLA Today, Feb. 21, 2008; and Six animal rights terrorists marching off to the slammer, National Ledger, Mar. 4, 2006; Keep scientists safe: Universities must address violence that threatens biomedical research, Chicago Tribune, Mar. 25, 2008.

Further reading:

"Of mice and men. In response to radical animal rights protests UC-sponsored legislation aims to protect animal researchers from harrassment," UCSD Guardian, Apr. 21, 2008.

For further information contact: Teresa Platt, Executive Director, Fur Commission USA, PMB 506, 826 Orange Avenue, Coronado, CA 92118-2698 USA, (619) 575-0139, (619) 575-5578/fax, furfarmers@aol.com, www.furcommission.com. See also Teresa's blog and Facebook.

To take a cyber-tour of a fur farm, visit FCUSA's Fur on Film.

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