Federal

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Titlesort descending Summary
Szabla v. City of Brooklyn Park, Mn.


A homeless man was mistaken for the driver of a crashed car while sleeping in a public park and was bitten by a police dog.  The homeless man brought claims under Section 1983 claiming his Fourth Amendment rights had been violated.  The trial court granted summary judgment in favor of the police department and city, but the Court of Appeals remanded the issue of excessive force.

Rehearing en Banc Granted in Part,


Opinion Vacated in Part by


Szabla v. City of Brooklyn Park, MN

, 429 F.3d 1289 (8th Cir., 2006).
Tarquinio v. City of Lakewood, Ohio (unpublished)


Plaintiffs sought a declaratory judgment from the court that Lakewood City Ordinance (“LCO”) 506.01, which bans pit bull dogs or those dogs with "appearance and characteristics of being predominantly of such breeds," unconstitutional under the Ohio Constitution Home Rule provisions. In this motion, plaintiffs argue that LCO 506 conflicts with and impermissibly expands the provisions of Ohio Revised Code § 955.22. The court found that while § 955.22 outlines requirements that must be met by a person who houses vicious dogs, including all pit bulls, it does not explicitly permit pit bulls. The court found that the General Assembly intended to allow municipalities to regulate the possession of pit bulls.
Terranova v. United States Dep't of Agric. Petitioners seek review of a decision and order of the USDA/APHIS determining that they violated various provisions of the Animal Welfare Act (“AWA”) and its implementing regulations, imposing civil penalties, and revoking the exhibitor license granted to Terranova Enterprises, Inc. Petitioners were licensees who provide wild animals like tigers and monkeys for movies, circuses, and other entertainment. In 2015 and 2016, APHIS filed complaints against petitioners that they willfully violated multiple provisions of the AWA and knowingly violated a cease and desist order issued in 2011 to avoid future violations of the AWA. After consolidating the complaints, the Administrative Law Judge ("ALJ") found that petitioners willfully committed four violations, so the ALJ issued a cease and desist order, suspended petitioners' license for 30 days, and assessed a $10,000 penalty and an $11,550 civil penalty for failing to obey the prior cease and desist order. On appeal by both parties to the Judicial Officer of the USDA, petitioners' exhibitor license was revoked and the penalties were increased to $35,000 and $14,850, respectively. On appeal here to the Fifth Circuit, petitioners claim that the determinations of the Judicial Officer were not supported by substantial evidence and that she abused her discretion in revoking their exhibitor license. This court found there was sufficient evidence to support the violations, including failing to allow APHIS officials to conduct compliance investigations and inspections, faulty tiger enclosures, insufficient distance/barriers between tigers and the public, failure to make an environmental enrichment plan, and failings involving tiger enclosure and protection from inclement weather, among other things. With regard to petitioners' claim that the Judicial Officer abused her discretion in revoking the exhibitor license, this court court found that petitioners committed more than one willful violation of the AWA so revocation was not unwarranted or without justification. The court concluded that the USDA Secretary’s order was not arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, or otherwise not in accordance with the law, and that it was supported by substantial evidence. Therefore, the court denied the petition for review.
Test Drilling Service Co. v. Hanor Company


Owner of oil and gas mineral rights sued the operators of commercial hog confinement facilities for negligence, claiming that the operator's allowed hog waste to escape the confines of the facility and flow into the mineral rights.   The District Court held that plaintiff's alleged damages were not barred by a rule prohibiting recovery of economic loss in tort actions; that defendant's alleged violations were evidence of negligence, but not negligence per se; and that defendant's owed a duty of ordinary care to plaintiff.
Texas Beef Group v. Winfrey

Cattle ranchers in Texas sued the 

The Oprah Winfrey Show

and one of its guests for knowingly and falsely depicting American beef as unsafe in the wake of the British panic over “Mad Cow Disease.” The matter was removed from state court to federal court. The federal district court granted summary judgment as a matter of law on all claims presented except the business disparagement cause of action, which was eventually rejected by a jury. The court alternately held that no knowingly false statements were made by the appellees. This court affirmed on this latter ground only, finding that the guest's statement and the producers' editing of the show did not violate the Texas False Disparagement of Perishable Food Products Act. 
Thacker ex rel. Thacker v. Kroger Co.


Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed district court decision that Thacker family failed to link an injury to ground beef on which the USDA requested a recall.
The Ecology Center v. Russell


The instant case is a Petition for Review of Agency Action, brought by The Ecology Center and The Aquarius Escalante Foundation (Plaintiffs). Plaintiffs seek review of a Record of Decision (ROD) issued by the Acting Forest Supervisor of the Dixie National Forest (the DNF), an agency of the United States Department of Agriculture. The decision in question is the final approval by the DNF of the Griffin Springs Resource Management Project, (the Project) in which the DNF approved a plan to allow logging in the Griffin Springs area of the DNF. Plaintiffs seek declaratory and injunctive relief to stop the implementation of the plan, claiming that the ROD violates the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), the National Forest Management Act (NFMA), and the Administrative Procedures Act (APA).  Of particular concern, is the effect upon the

northern goshawk.
THE FUND FOR ANIMALS, INC., ET AL., appellants v. U.S. BUREAU OF LAND MANAGEMENT, ET AL., appellees


The Fund for Animals and individuals dedicated to protecting animals brought an action against Bureau of Land Management (BLM) challenging its implementation of its restoration strategy for wild horses and burros on public lands. The approved budget request made by the BLM, which contained outlines of the reinvigorated wild horses and burros program and set broad goals and strategies, was not an “agency action” subject to review. Finally, plaintiffs request for a permanent injunction, to prevent BLM from carrying out specified removal actions, was moot because the “gathers” have already occurred and what happens in the future is based on unknown variables.
The Humane Society of the United States, et al v. Mike Johanns, et al


Before the Court is Plaintiffs’ Motion for a Temporary Restraining Order and for a Preliminary Injunction, and Request for a Hearing requesting that the Court, “temporarily and preliminarily enjoi[n] and declar[e] unlawful a Final Rule just promulgated by the Food Safety and Inspection Service (“FSIS”) of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (“USDA”) that creates a “fee-for-service” inspection system designed to facilitate the continued transport and slaughter of American horses for human consumption abroad.” In an memorandum opinion, the court denied plaintiff's motion for a TRO and preliminary injunction because it found that plaintiffs do not demonstrate the factors necessary for the court to issue a preliminary injunction.
The Least of the Sentient Beings' and the Question of Reduction, Refinement, and Replacement The subjects of this article are biomedical research and animals. In raw percentage terms, the animals involved in experimentation are now overwhelmingly rats and mice, and, perhaps because they are rats and mice, they are used in large numbers, numbers in thousands and tens of thousands at some institutions. Legal, ethical, and practical accommodation to this fact on the ground presents a host of questions. There are questions of the cost of care. There are questions of the training of veterinarians, principal investigators, and laboratory personnel. With mice particularly, there are questions about the creation of conditions in an animal that do not yet exist, a future animal, by knocking out a gene and, as we say, "seeing what happens": new questions, really, that move us away from the traditional focus on the details of how an investigator treats a living animal. Then there are the central questions of weighing costs and benefits, of justification and the application of the three R's of reduction, refinement, and replacement, where it is not dogs or primates or marine mammals that are concerned, but rats and mice - for many, the least on the scale of concern for animals. Rats, mice, and birds have of course been recently exempted from the Animal Welfare Act. But that may be viewed as making the questions only that much more difficult, thrown back into the laps of researchers themselves and review boards, veterinarians, laboratory assistants, and university and corporate administrators, who for the moment can expect to have that much less outside guidance or mandate in deciding what to do. The overarching problem, which is how to think about rats and mice, not a new problem at all, but newly pressing.

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