Latest / CattleUSA Daily / 92: Legal Tips Every Rancher Should Know to Prevent Cattle Theft with Jim Angell

Transcript

92: Legal Tips Every Rancher Should Know to Prevent Cattle Theft with Jim Angell · CattleUSA Daily

• 0:00
  Welcome back to another episode of the Cattle USA Daily podcast.
• 0:03
  Today we are welcoming Jim Engle on to the podcast.
• 0:08
  He is the managing partner at Kennedy Berkeley, which is one
• 0:11
  of the leading AG law firms here in the region of Kansas.
• 0:16
  We are so excited to bring Jim on today to talk all things AG
• 0:21
  law, just the basis of ag law, how ag law has kind of changed
• 0:25
  over the recent years. And then we get into the nitty
• 0:27
  gritty of our main topic today, which is cattle and what that
• 0:31
  looks like here in the state of Kansas and further out into the
• 0:35
  region of the Midwest. What we can be doing as
• 0:37
  producers to stay vigilant, be proactive and continue to
• 0:41
  protect ourselves against this new world type of AG theft and
• 0:46
  what cattle theft looks like. And how, you know, it's not
• 0:49
  always the midnight runs that we see in the movies.
• 0:52
  It looks a little different these days.
• 0:54
  And Jim does an amazing job of discussing that.
• 0:56
  So without further ado, let's go ahead and hop into this podcast
• 0:59
  episode with Jim. Welcome to the Cattle USA Daily
• 1:05
  Podcast, your go to source for the latest livestock markets,
• 1:09
  industry insights and the updates shaping agriculture
• 1:12
  today. I'm your host, Lauren Moylan, a
• 1:14
  passionate advocate for agriculture, here to keep you
• 1:17
  informed and connected. Now let's dive into today's
• 1:20
  episode. Jim, welcome to the podcast.
• 1:26
  I am so excited to have you on with us today.
• 1:30
  I would love it if you could just take it away, share a
• 1:33
  little bit about you, your story, how like growing up in AG
• 1:37
  and then what got you into AG law?
• 1:39
  Will do. Thank you, Lauren.
• 1:40
  I appreciate you having me on. I am an attorney at Kennedy
• 1:44
  Berkeley in Salina, KS. We've got offices kind of all
• 1:48
  over the all over the state and we've got offices in Kansas
• 1:51
  City. We've got offices in Garden,
• 1:53
  Garden City, Dodge City, Hayes and and Salina.
• 1:57
  I grew up in Downs, Kansas. It's a small North Central
• 2:01
  Kansas town, 800 people. So agriculture was obviously the
• 2:05
  backbone. I mean, as a kid, I grew up on
• 2:10
  the farm. I grew up working on the
• 2:11
  family's hog operation. And I also worked or on the side
• 2:16
  for several large local farmers and ranchers.
• 2:19
  And, and you know, I learned a couple of things, obviously
• 2:23
  learned the value of hard work. And also I learned that I wanted
• 2:28
  to get as far away from the farrowing sheds as possible.
• 2:32
  So, you know, they say farming and ranching gets in your blood.
• 2:36
  Well, hog farming doesn't. Hog farming kind of gets in your
• 2:39
  clothes and that's about it. It certainly doesn't get in your
• 2:42
  blood. So I, I wanted to get out of
• 2:45
  there and, you know, kind of moved on to graduated law
• 2:50
  school. I moved back to Salina.
• 2:51
  Salina is about an hour and 20 minutes from where I grew up.
• 2:54
  We're kind of in, we're at the crossroads of I-70 and I-35 kind
• 2:58
  of in the center of the state. AG made a lot of sense doing
• 3:01
  what we're doing. Most all of us are small town
• 3:04
  kids. So it was a progression.
• 3:07
  Pretty much everything that we do at the firm at some level
• 3:12
  touches AG. And so it made sense to go into
• 3:15
  AG and that's exactly what I did.
• 3:17
  Can. You share a little bit about
• 3:19
  some of the legal issues that you were seeing when you first
• 3:21
  started out as an attorney and how the nature of AG has kind of
• 3:26
  molded and shaped over the recent years.
• 3:28
  For sure. So I started 26 years ago and 26
• 3:32
  years ago things were just a lot simpler from a farming and
• 3:37
  ranching perspective. I mean, my, my, my work focused
• 3:40
  mainly on kind of fairly simple estate planning, boundary
• 3:44
  disputes, fence disputes, you know, yeah, we'd have some
• 3:48
  traditional kind of night haul theft.
• 3:51
  We've had, we have some, some issues with, with, with banks
• 3:55
  and, and cattle and, and and sorting out security issues.
• 4:00
  But for the most part it was pretty simple traditional stuff.
• 4:05
  Now if if you look, you know, you look kind of where we're at
• 4:09
  now, I will coin a term that my 13 year old likes to use a
• 4:14
  little bit when she says, oh, honey, oh honey is exactly
• 4:18
  right. I mean, we're farming and
• 4:20
  ranching now is big business. It's it's huge business.
• 4:24
  You know, I mean, Kansas agriculture is a powerhouse.
• 4:26
  We've got over 6,000,000 cattle. We've got one of the leading
• 4:31
  beef roll rolls in beef exports and we're contributing billions
• 4:36
  to the economy. But farmland has absolutely
• 4:39
  soared in value. Equipment costs have soared.
• 4:44
  And so there's just been this economic boom.
• 4:47
  So in the, in the last, you know, in the last 25 years, you
• 4:54
  know, I, I don't want to say the small family farm has died
• 4:57
  because that's not right. There is this a lot of, of
• 5:01
  smaller family farms out there. But, but even though smaller
• 5:05
  family farms are now big business, you know, with ground
• 5:08
  at, at the price that it's AT and, and equipment at the price
• 5:12
  that it's AT and cattle at the price that it's at right now.
• 5:15
  And there's just, there's just a lot of issues there's, you know,
• 5:18
  we deal with with now large, large complex disputes.
• 5:23
  We deal with issues regarding, you know, multi $1,000,000
• 5:27
  estates. We've got a lot the
• 5:29
  industrialization that's happened.
• 5:31
  And there's a lot more issues around loans and leases and
• 5:35
  insurance. We've got stricter environmental
• 5:37
  stuff. Water has become a big issue.
• 5:40
  And when I start obviously and when I started, you know, 26
• 5:44
  years ago, water was an issue, but but not anywhere near it is
• 5:48
  now. And I mean, we get into things
• 5:50
  now like, you know, intellectual property and, and seed
• 5:54
  modification and, you know, just data precision in agriculture,
• 5:59
  you know, climate change or so-called climate change has
• 6:02
  added all sorts of things like droughted to adaptation and, you
• 6:06
  know, understanding what carbon credits are.
• 6:09
  So just a whole new world that we're, we're, we're living in.
• 6:14
  So it, I mean, it's the Skyler when she says, oh, honey, it's
• 6:17
  right, honey, it is changed dramatically.
• 6:22
  Yeah, absolutely. You've been working with
• 6:24
  ranchers for decades, obviously, and on a platitude of different
• 6:29
  topics, issues, things that you've been seeing.
• 6:32
  What makes the Kansas cattle producer unique as far as the
• 6:36
  legal standpoint goes? I, I think, I mean, I, I, I
• 6:39
  think we're, I, I mean, I think we're unique in the sense that I
• 6:43
  think we're, we're, we, we're really good at scale and
• 6:47
  efficiency. I mean, we've got some of the
• 6:49
  biggest feed, feed lots in the nation, some of the bigger
• 6:52
  ranches, obviously not as big as some of the other states.
• 6:55
  But I think we need to we make a pretty smart use of the pasture
• 6:59
  land that we we do have. And I think it's kind of AI know
• 7:03
  this is cliche, but it's a tight knit community.
• 7:06
  I mean, it really is. I mean, they're, they're guys in
• 7:09
  Northeast Kansas that know the cattle producers in southwest
• 7:13
  Kansas. There's, there's, you know,
• 7:17
  there's a big range. And I, I think that, you know,
• 7:20
  the Kansas Livestock Association is good.
• 7:22
  I think we do a good job of, of supporting one another in
• 7:26
  resources. I know that all sounds cliche,
• 7:28
  but it's true. Yeah, absolutely.
• 7:30
  Kansas really is the Midwestern cliche.
• 7:33
  We fall into every single one of them.
• 7:36
  So I couldn't agree more on that.
• 7:38
  I want to talk about Kennedy Berkeley for a second and
• 7:40
  specifically what you guys focus on when it comes to AG clients
• 7:44
  and what kind of work you and your team are doing.
• 7:46
  Well, I mean, we, we do a lot of different types of work.
• 7:50
  I'm really, you know, AG does touch on almost everything that
• 7:54
  we do. I mean it really does and it and
• 7:57
  it ranges in such a wide variety.
• 7:59
  I mean, we've got large, we've got large, you know, regional
• 8:04
  and national corporations that that we work for.
• 8:07
  We've we've got big feed lots that we work for, we've got
• 8:12
  Packers that we work for. We've got tons of co-ops.
• 8:17
  It just kind of and then obviously the producers which
• 8:21
  are our main clients. So I mean, it kind of runs the
• 8:25
  gambit. I like to think that, you know,
• 8:29
  again, talk cliches, but I like to think that we we kind of try
• 8:33
  to solve problems and understand, we understand the ag
• 8:37
  industry. I mean every single one of our
• 8:40
  guys, I mean, I think save one of our 11 attorneys are all
• 8:44
  small town kids that grew up on farms.
• 8:46
  And I think that helps because I think that helps us, you know, I
• 8:50
  talked to people, I talk to our crew everyday about, you know,
• 8:54
  we need to, we need to understand the industry.
• 8:58
  I mean that that's the key. The key is not understanding the
• 9:01
  law, the law, the law we can, we can use to adapt.
• 9:05
  The key is understanding what our clients need and what the
• 9:07
  industry has to offer. So I mean, I think, you know, a
• 9:12
  lot of times the bigger city firms are just, are just less
• 9:17
  practical. And I and I like to think that,
• 9:20
  you know, we get in there and we're able to be more proactive
• 9:23
  and try to prevent problems that come down the line.
• 9:26
  But but we've got a wide range of, you know, I may, I may talk
• 9:30
  to, you know, I may talk to a producer that that that got six
• 9:37
  years stolen on Tuesday. And then I might be talking to,
• 9:42
  you know, a group in Liberal about carbon credits on
• 9:46
  Thursday. I mean, just two kind of
• 9:49
  diametrically opposed things, but I don't know that's what we
• 9:52
  do. Yeah, absolutely.
• 9:54
  I want to dive right into our main topic that we're here to
• 9:57
  talk about today, and that's cattle theft.
• 9:59
  And this, to a lot of people, it may seem like something that
• 10:03
  belongs in Hollywood, but it's still a real issue and it's
• 10:06
  something that we're still dealing with in the 21st
• 10:08
  century, actually, arguably maybe even more than we dealt
• 10:12
  with it long ago. So can you share a little bit
• 10:15
  about cattle theft and what you have been seeing recently?
• 10:19
  Sure. I mean, so we are dealing with
• 10:21
  it more and it, I mean, largely it's because of the, it's
• 10:24
  because of the price, it's because of the value that we've
• 10:28
  seen unprecedented, well, at least for my, from my
• 10:32
  perspective, unprecedented I'm sure runs up in values of the,
• 10:36
  of the livestock. And so I mean, it makes it a
• 10:39
  high, high target for, for, for theft.
• 10:42
  And you know, we, the theft, the theft that that is I guess you
• 10:49
  know, more romanticized is kind of the nighthall theft where we
• 10:53
  go snatch and grab cattle and try to try to sell them.
• 10:57
  And that's out there, that's out there and that's a problem.
• 11:01
  And that's a problem that we'll kind of talk a little bit more
• 11:04
  about trying to address later. But you know, from for quote UN
• 11:09
  quote, small amounts of cattle. Now again, I mean, we know the
• 11:12
  value of somebody takes 5 cows, that's a lot of value, right?
• 11:18
  We know that. But, but you know, kind of what
• 11:21
  we're, we're seeing is, you know, we're, we're seeing more
• 11:25
  brand tampering and more fraudulent stuff that that's
• 11:29
  coming up. You know, there was a, there's a
• 11:32
  recent case in southeast Kansas where 17 steers that were
• 11:36
  stolen, They actually had someone at the yard identify the
• 11:38
  blank and caught it that way, which you think about, you know,
• 11:43
  you're hauling them from Southeast Kansas to Oklahoma
• 11:45
  City. For someone to identify the
• 11:47
  brand was a pretty big deal. And I think that shows why
• 11:51
  vigilance and proper identification is, is critical
• 11:55
  because you can do those, but but the real losses that we see
• 12:00
  actually come from your partners, you know, like one
• 12:03
  example that we're kind of working on now, running a lot of
• 12:07
  pairs now makes sense. I mean, it just does.
• 12:09
  But the problem is do you have enough grass, right?
• 12:12
  So even the big operators don't have enough grass for all those
• 12:15
  pairs. And so often times they're,
• 12:19
  they're, they're in loose partnerships where they maybe
• 12:23
  have a couple of of, you know, 33 by 5 tickets that, that
• 12:28
  aren't even in English as far as what was purchased.
• 12:33
  And then they let, they let an operator take, take these cows
• 12:38
  sometimes hundreds and hundreds of miles away.
• 12:42
  You know, if the operator is not on the level, if the operator
• 12:46
  has got several people that they're dancing with, which is
• 12:50
  usually the case, and they've got several different owners
• 12:54
  that are coming in that the operator is explaining, you
• 12:59
  know, the operator saying, Oh, these are your cattle.
• 13:02
  And using the same cattle to, to identify for multiple owners
• 13:06
  that are coming in, it becomes an issue.
• 13:09
  We're we're involved in a, in a case right now where there were,
• 13:12
  there's five, 500 cows, 5500 cows are missing.
• 13:18
  And obviously there's been, you know, 2 birth cycles since then.
• 13:22
  So you can imagine the value of 500 cows.
• 13:25
  And, and it, it, it, it was, it was a dirty, it was a dirty
• 13:30
  operator. It was a dirty operator.
• 13:32
  So, you know, I mean, you have to trust, but verify.
• 13:37
  We've got a lot, you know, a lot of what we do is build on trust.
• 13:41
  And, and sometimes if, if a partner's out to get you, it's
• 13:45
  almost impossible to stop them, but you've got to trust, you've
• 13:48
  got to verify. You've got to put your lay eyes
• 13:51
  on these cattle. You've got to make darn sure
• 13:54
  that you're doing it fairly regularly.
• 13:57
  Some of the stuff I talk to guys and they'll say, well, what
• 14:00
  you're asking me to do, Jim, is not practical.
• 14:02
  And I understand that. But I also understand that we've
• 14:06
  got to verify these things. And if not, that's where it,
• 14:10
  that's where it kind of slips off into the end of the night.
• 14:13
  So, so the bigger issues that we're dealing with and we'll
• 14:16
  talk about some of the new criminal protections here, but
• 14:19
  some of the bigger issues that we're dealing with aren't just
• 14:23
  criminal. I mean, they're, they're civil
• 14:24
  because we're, we're, we're talking multi, multi $1,000,000
• 14:28
  lawsuits. That is kind of partner theft.
• 14:31
  Wow, that is it's crazy to put it into perspective of truly how
• 14:36
  impactful it can be. When you say 500 pairs, like 500
• 14:40
  cows and then two calving cycles.
• 14:42
  That's a lot like that is multi, multi, $1,000,000 theft and
• 14:47
  everything that goes along with it as far as theft goes.
• 14:51
  What are some legal protections that these Kansas ranchers or
• 14:55
  ranchers across the Midwest should know about, should be
• 14:58
  looking into and and should be covering their butts on for
• 15:01
  their operations? Well, specifically in Kansas, I
• 15:04
  mean, right now we have basic laws, theft laws that are on the
• 15:10
  books which make it a felony for anything above $1500 to be
• 15:14
  stolen, which again, that doesn't take very long to get
• 15:17
  there. The problem that we we have is
• 15:20
  that it's got varying levels of severity.
• 15:23
  And I'm not a criminal lawyer. I've had to learn criminal law
• 15:26
  in in how we're enforcing some of this cattle theft stuff.
• 15:29
  But basically the way it was was set up before and the way it's
• 15:35
  set up now, it's very difficult. Yes, you can get people
• 15:39
  convicted for cattle theft. You've got to get your District
• 15:42
  Attorney involved. You got to get them rolling.
• 15:45
  But even then, the severity and how they're doing it and the
• 15:49
  punishment that can be handed out and the rights of the owner
• 15:54
  are are limited now. But there's actually a new bill
• 15:59
  that's been put into the state of Kansas.
• 16:01
  It was, it's not, it's a proposed bill.
• 16:03
  It's House Bill 2253. And it, it was introduced in
• 16:09
  February. And we hope it passes.
• 16:13
  But, but, and I think it will, but what it does is it makes all
• 16:16
  cattle theft a level 5 felony no matter what.
• 16:21
  So that means if you take one cow or you take 400, now you
• 16:25
  take 400. It gets even more severe than
• 16:27
  that, but you can be prosecuted for that.
• 16:30
  That also, and that covers farm equipment too, which we're not
• 16:34
  talking about now, but it covers that.
• 16:36
  But there's also some forfeiture rules in there which would allow
• 16:42
  the government to seize vehicles that have been used in the
• 16:46
  theft, can seize assets from the thief, bring those in as part of
• 16:52
  repayment of that. It's just some more teeth in the
• 16:55
  law, which which will hopefully kind of just discourage,
• 16:59
  especially those night hall kind of snatch and grab guys that are
• 17:03
  doing that. Hopefully there'll be some more
• 17:05
  teeth in that and I think there will be and hopefully that'll be
• 17:08
  a deterrent. Yeah, absolutely.
• 17:11
  So if someone is suspecting theft, what what are the action
• 17:14
  steps that they need to be taking for that?
• 17:18
  Well, if, if it's, if it's a, it's a kind of a snatch and grab
• 17:21
  thing. You know, the first thing is
• 17:23
  kind of the kind of the stuff you see on TV, you know, don't
• 17:25
  disturb the scene, right? There may be tire tracks, there
• 17:29
  may be footprints, there may be things like that.
• 17:32
  Got to notify local law enforcement first and get them
• 17:36
  involved, but then also, you know, notify the Kansas
• 17:40
  Department of Agriculture's Division on Animal health
• 17:43
  because they can track stolen livestock.
• 17:46
  Also, the KTLA Kansas Livestock Association has a $5000 award
• 17:51
  for information leading to convictions.
• 17:54
  So that's the case and then, you know, I consult with an attorney
• 17:59
  and especially probably when an attorney, your local attorney
• 18:03
  kind of help and monitor what's going on with the criminal side
• 18:06
  of it. And then there's also civil,
• 18:08
  civil things that can be done, especially in, you know, those
• 18:13
  kind of partnership situations that we we discussed where large
• 18:18
  amounts of cattle are getting moved around and tags are
• 18:21
  getting changed and. Absolutely, for sure.
• 18:25
  So Jim, this has been an awesome discussion.
• 18:27
  I have enjoyed talking about this so much and just continuing
• 18:31
  to inform our producer population here in the state of
• 18:33
  Kansas and outside of the state of what they can be doing.
• 18:37
  How they can be protecting themselves, advocating for
• 18:40
  themselves as far as just different ways that they can
• 18:43
  seek protection and continue to watch their backs on something
• 18:47
  that is not just part of old time movies, that is a part of
• 18:49
  our real lives every single day. It just looks a little different
• 18:53
  these days. So I would love to hear some
• 18:55
  advice that you have for ranchers how to protect their
• 18:58
  operations and what they need to be doing to be continue to move
• 19:02
  forward with this. Well, I mean, one of the things
• 19:05
  obviously is, you know, be proactive and keep your brand
• 19:08
  paperwork current and registered.
• 19:11
  You know, when you, when you, when you're, when you're
• 19:13
  partnering with somebody, you know, First off, there's large
• 19:17
  amounts of money changing hands. We all know this.
• 19:20
  So sometimes we can't do these deals on a handshake.
• 19:24
  Sometimes we need to be a little more proactive about clarifying
• 19:29
  roles and making sure that we understand the partnership
• 19:33
  that's in place and you know, what's what's, what's going to
• 19:37
  be paid to the operator, what isn't, because that often
• 19:42
  becomes in dispute. And then, you know, again, I
• 19:48
  conduct as many live counts as you can conduct if they're, if
• 19:53
  they're in the, if they're in the trees, don't, don't take the
• 19:58
  operator's word for it. Get out there, get it.
• 20:01
  Get a drone if necessary to try to put head counts on
• 20:04
  everything. Make sure that when they're on
• 20:06
  grass, if you're running pairs when they're on grass, we've
• 20:09
  identified them and we know they're they're they're still
• 20:12
  there. Obviously build relationships
• 20:14
  with neighbors and you know, to monitor suspicious activity.
• 20:17
  I think most people have that. Consider security cameras.
• 20:21
  I mean, I know all of our feedlots are all, we've got all
• 20:24
  our feedlots just, I would assume most all of our feedlots,
• 20:27
  hopefully all of them, you know, tacked up to the hilt to make
• 20:30
  sure that we're, we're, we're monitoring that, you know, kind
• 20:35
  of stay informed on the local law.
• 20:37
  Hopefully that, you know, hopefully that House Bill 202053
• 20:42
  will pass and strengthen those productions and the protections
• 20:46
  and then, you know, good fences make good neighbors and good
• 20:50
  records help us make good recoveries.
• 20:53
  So I guess that that's what I would close it with.
• 20:58
  Absolutely, and I think it all comes back to one of those
• 21:00
  situations that you never think it's going to be you until
• 21:03
  you're in that situation. So continue to be proactive,
• 21:07
  have your records straight, have a good relationship with an
• 21:10
  attorney that is walking you through these partnerships and
• 21:13
  these deals and people are signing papers instead of just
• 21:16
  handshaking on it and calling it a day because you never want to
• 21:20
  it. Honestly, a good contract, a
• 21:23
  good relationship with that takes all the guesswork out of
• 21:26
  it. Then you don't have to approach
• 21:27
  a buddy down the road who's got some of your cows and be like,
• 21:30
  then you have an awkward conversation, right?
• 21:32
  It's all written out. The expectations are there,
• 21:35
  everyone is clear, straightforward, records are
• 21:37
  kept, everything like that. And I think kind of, we touched
• 21:40
  on it a little bit, but Kansas is not a brand mandatory state,
• 21:44
  but it does cover your butt if you do brand.
• 21:48
  And so taking that into consideration to making sure
• 21:50
  your tattoos are up to date, your branding, all of your
• 21:52
  calves, you're putting eyes on everything to continue to be
• 21:57
  proactive in ways that you can because you never think it's
• 22:01
  going to be you until you're in that situation.
• 22:03
  And God forbid you have to call Jim and say, hey, some of my
• 22:07
  cows got stolen. Let's talk.
• 22:09
  Hopefully you're calling Jim and saying, hey, I would like to set
• 22:12
  up an like an estate and a trust and all of these things that
• 22:16
  just normal day-to-day operational things.
• 22:18
  And not because your cattle are getting stolen, but continue to
• 22:21
  be proactive, set yourself up for success.
• 22:24
  And for all of you listeners out there, we have an amazing
• 22:27
  working relationship with the team at Kennedy Berkeley.
• 22:30
  We've had Paige on before, who is one of their other attorneys
• 22:32
  and a close friend of mine. We will have all of the Kennedy
• 22:35
  Berkeley links down below for you guys.
• 22:37
  So if you need anything setting up just a relationship with an
• 22:41
  attorney, you need specific help on different projects, drafting
• 22:45
  contracts, anything like that, Make sure you check out those
• 22:47
  show notes and they will have all of the contact information
• 22:50
  get you in contact with the right team member that is able
• 22:53
  to help you in your region in the state of Kansas.
• 22:55
  And if not, if you're not in the state of Kansas, look, help your
• 22:58
  local AG law attorneys or reach out to the Kennedy Berkeley team
• 23:01
  and they might have some great network connections outside of
• 23:04
  the state as well. So for all of you listeners,
• 23:06
  thank you for listening to another episode and we will see
• 23:08
  you all next time. And Jim, thank you for joining
• 23:10
  us. Thank you.
• 23:11
  Appreciate it.