United States
Title |
Summary |
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| Friedli v. Kerr |
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| Friends of Animals v. The United States Bureau of Land Management |
Friends of Animals, an animal welfare organization, filed suit for a preliminary injunction against the Bureau of Land Management (BLM). Friends of Animals filed suit after the BLM started organizing a new “gather” which is a a term used for the removal of wild horses. The BLM planned to “gather” wild horses from a range in Utah and the Friends of Animals challenged the decision on three grounds: (1) the decision to gather was not grounded on any National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) document such as a environmental assessment (EA); the BLM failed to honor its previous commitment to include new EAs for any new gathers; and (3) the gather violates the Wild Horses Act on the basis that the BLM failed to make a excess population determination before authorizing the gather. The court reviewed the three claims separately and determined that Friends of Animals’ challenges to the gather were not likely to succeed and there was not a sufficient irreparable harm to warrant a preliminary injunction. First, the court found that under NEPA, an agency is able to rely on a previous EA so long as “new circumstances, new information or changes in the action or its impacts not previously analyzed [do not] result in significantly different environmental effects.” The court found that previous EAs were sufficient because they had assessed an “essentially similar” capture method. Additionally, the court determined that although BLM had previously agreed to provide new EAs for any new gathers, the BLM was not legally required to do, so the Friends of Animals argument regarding this issue would not succeed. Lastly, the court found that the BLM had not violated the Wild Horses Act because the BLM had in fact conducted an excess population determination. Lastly, the court analyzed whether or not the gather created an irreparable harm that would warrant a preliminary injunction. The court found that there was not sufficient evidence to prove any irreparable harm. As a result, the court denied the preliminary injunction and held in favor of the BLM. |
| Friends of Animals v. Ashe | Friends of Animals, a non-profit animal advocacy organization, filed suit against the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service ("the Service") in 2013, after the Service issued no initial or final determinations for 39 species of sturgeon the organization petitioned as endangered or threatened. The Endangered Species Act (ESA) requires that the Service must make a determination within 90 days for an initial determination or 12 months for a final determination after a petition is received from an interested party. However, there is also a provision in the ESA that the plaintiff must give the Service 60-days notice before filing suit. The District Court held that Friends of Animals did not give the Service adequate notice before filing suit and dismissed the complaint. On appeal, this court agreed, finding that Friends of Animals "did not wait until after the issuance of the positive initial determinations to provide 60 days' notice of the allegedly overdue final determinations." In dicta, the Court noted that "[t]he Service's approach may not be the most efficient," but the deadlines are mandatory in the statutes. Thus, its suit to compel the final determination on the listings was barred and the judgment of the District Court was affirmed. |
| Friends of Animals v. Bernhardt | Appellants consisting of conversation organizations and a safari guide challenged a series of actions of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (“FWS”) governing imports of sport-hunted animal trophies from Africa. The Appellants challenged certain findings that the Service made allowing animal trophies to be imported. The Court had reviewed a similar set of findings in another case and concluded that they were legislative rules illegally issued without notice and comment. FWS subsequently withdrew all its findings that were issued without notice and comment including the ones that were challenged by the Appellants in a subsequent memorandum. The Appellants still desired to contest the withdrawn findings. The Appellants alleged that it was illegal for the FWS to abandon its prior findings without engaging in APA informal rulemaking and that it was illegal for the FWS to announce its intent to the make the necessary findings through informal adjudications in the future. The Appellant’s claims fell into three categories: (1) challenges to the 2017 Zimbabwe findings that sport-hunting of elephants would enhance the survival of the species; (2) challenges to the memorandum by the FWS withdrawing their prior findings; and (3) challenges to the memorandum’s announcement that the FWS intends to making findings on a case-by-case basis when considering individual permit applications. The Court found that since the FWS had withdrew the 2017 findings, they no longer caused the appellants any injury which made any challenges to them moot. The Appellants attempted to argue that the flaws in the 2017 Zimbabwe elephant finding were capable of repetition yet would evade review. The Court rejected this argument. As for the second challenges regarding the memorandum’s withdrawal of its prior findings, the Court found that the withdrawal caused no injury to the Appellants. The Court rejected the challenges to the memorandum’s announcement that the FWS intended to make findings on a case-by-case basis. Ultimately the Court affirmed the district court’s judgment. |
| Friends of Animals v. Clay | Friends of Animals (“FOA”) appeals an order of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York granting summary judgment in favor of defendants-appellees William Clay in his official capacity as a Deputy Administrator in the Department of Agriculture-APHIS and the FWS. FOA challenged FWS's issuance of a “depredation permit” to the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey authorizing the emergency “take” of migratory birds that threaten to interfere with aircraft at JFK Airport. FOA argues that FWS's own regulations unambiguously prohibit it from issuing such a permit and that the permit should therefore be set aside as the product of agency action that was “arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, or otherwise not in accordance with law.” The District Court granted summary judgment for defendant FWS. On appeal, this court affirmed that ruling. FOA pointed out that the "emergency take" regulation at 50 C.F.R. § 21.41 does not authorize FWS to issue a permit that allows the emergency take of a migratory bird irrespective of its species, but instead requires a "species-specific" inquiry. However, this court disagreed, finding that "§ 21.41 does not place Port Authority officials in the untenable position of having to choose between violating federal law and deliberately ignoring serious threats to human safety." Further, the court found the specific requirements in § 21.41 concern only applicants seeking a permit and not the FWS itself. In this situation, the court found the 2014 permit's emergency-take provision satisfied § 21.41. The District Court's order was affirmed. |
| Friends of Animals v. Jewell | Friends of Animals (FOA) filed a citizen petition under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) to get the Department of Interior to determine whether the spider tortoise and flat-tail tortoise were endangered species. After waiting two years for an answer, FOA filed suit, arguing the Department’s silence had caused the group various injuries. The district court, however, found the supposed harms did not rise to the level of “concrete and particularized” injuries in fact, and granted the Department's motion to dismiss FOA's complaint for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction. |
| Friends of Animals v. Salazar |
Plaintiffs brought an action against the Department of Interior and the Fish and Wildlife Service of the Department of Interior (“Defendants”) alleging that Defendants unlawfully promulgated a rule (the “Rule”) under the Endangered Species Act (“ESA”) exempting three endangered antelope species from the import, take and other prohibitions under the ESA. On the parties’ cross motions for summary judgment, the United States District Court, District of Columbia granted Defendants’ motion in part and denied Defendants’ motion in part, finding Plaintiffs lack representational standing with respect to wild antelope and antelope in captivity, but have organizational standing under Section 10(c) of the ESA. The Court granted Plaintiffs motion with respect to their Section 10(c) claim, finding that the promulgated rule violates Section 10(c) of the ESA. |
| Friends of Animals v. Salazar |
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| Friends of Animals v. Salazar |
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| Friends of Animals v. United States Bureau of Land Management | This case involves a motion for a preliminary injunction by the group Friends of Animals to prevent the Bureau of Land Management from gathering and removing excess horses inside and adjacent to the Onaqui Mountain Herd Management Area (“Onaqui Mountain HMA”) to reduce the number of horses to the low end of the appropriate management level (“AML”). The BLM contends such an accelerated removal is necessary because of the historic drought that has gripped the American West. The court first examined the language and legislative history of the Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act (WHA), noting that the overarching goal of the act is provide balance between the horses and ecological impact on the lands. The WLA requires the Secretary to strike this balance by setting appropriate management levels and deciding on how to deal with excess animals. In addition, the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) is also implicated with decisions to gather horses which is done primarily through the Environmental Assessment (EA) process. The court denied the motion for preliminary injunction finding the advocacy organizations were unlikely to succeed on merits. |