A New Jersey court has ruled that an animal rights group cannot file a civil lawsuit against Huntingdon Life Sciences, a contract research organization in the U.S. and U.K. that has long been the target of militant animal rights group.

Wednesday (Oct 31) a three-judge panel in the Appellate Division threw out a lawsuit filed by the New Jersey Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals charging Huntingdon with animal cruelty and negligent hiring and training of staff. The lawsuit stemmed from undercover videotapes.

The judges ruled that the agency couldn't collect any of the research group's earnings from testing because the laboratory didn't cause the SPCA to suffer any losses. They also confirmed a trial court ruling that dismissed five remaining counts of a lawsuit against the lab. According to Newsday, the counts alleged that lab workers' negligence hurt the animals needlessly.

An NJSPCE spokesperson Matt Stanton told Newsday that the lawsuit was a "test," to see if the strategy worked, and the group will not appeal the decision. "We took this action to make a point ... using animals for the purposes of testing oftentime constitutes animal cruelty. Did we win the appeal? No. Did we make our point and make HLS think twice about how they treat animals? We sure hope we did," Stanton said.

Last year, a federal judge sentenced three animal rights activists to four to six years in prison and ordered them to help pay more than $1 million in restitution for inciting violence and terror against Huntingdon.