Ninth Circuit Rejects Challenge to USDA Position on Humane Handling of Poultry

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has determined that animal rights activists and organizations lack standing to challenge the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA’s) interpretation of a 1958 humane animal slaughtering statute in a manner that excludes poultry from its application. Levine v. Vilsack, No. 08-16441 (9th Cir., decided November 20, 2009). The issue arose in a case alleging that “inhumane methods” of poultry slaughter increased the risk of food-borne illness to plaintiff consumers as well as health and safety dangers to plaintiff poultry workers. The court reversed a district court order granting USDA’s motion for summary judgment and remanded the case with instructions to dismiss.

According to the court, the plaintiffs had the burden of establishing that their alleged injury “was likely to be redressed by a favorable court decision.” The key to the court’s redressability determination was that the 1958 law’s only enforcement mechanism was later repealed. If the USDA secretary were ordered to interpret the phrase “other livestock” in the 1958 law to include poultry, there would be no way to compel poultry processors to comply with it.

This meant that the court would be forced to speculate that the USDA secretary would deem chickens, turkeys and birds to be “amenable species” under a 2005 amendment to a meat inspection law that had enforcement provisions for violations of humane animal treatment rules. Because the meat inspection law and its amendment were not at issue in the litigation, the court could not compel the secretary to add poultry as an “amenable species.” The court also noted that third parties not before the court, that is, poultry processors, would have to abide by whatever regulations the secretary chose to adopt “for any injury suffered to be redressed.” Third-party behavior, said the court, cannot be controlled or predicted.

Observing that the secretary’s decision on this issue “may be subject to a number of political and legal factors quite independent from this court’s determination with respect to the meaning of” the 1958 law, the court concluded that the plaintiffs’ claims were not redressable and “there is a lack of standing to proceed with this action.”