USDA Slammed By Federal Appellate Court.

The plaintiff is a participant in the Tennessee walking horse industry as a buyer, seller and exhibitor of horses.  The Horse Protection Act (HPA) prohibits the practice of "soring" horses, and requires the USDA to establish regulatory requirements for the appointment by the management of any horse show, exhibition, sale or auction of persons that are qualified to detect and diagnose a horse that is sore or to otherwise inspect horses purposes of enforcing the HPA.  The USDA's Animal Plant Health Inspection Service developed regulations creating horse industry organizations (HIOs) which develop and enforce penalties for soring.  Specifically, the management of each horse show is the primary enforcer of the HPA, and the horse industry administers inspectors' training and criteria for qualifications and performance.  The horse industry imposes penalties for soring violations and sets procedures for appealing the penalties.  Penalties would vary from suspensions to disqualifications depending on the particular horse industry organization that managed a horse show.  In 2012, the USDA finalized regulations that required HIOs to adopt mandatory minimum penalties for various soring violations as a conditions certification for being a qualified inspector.  The regulations also required the HIOs to provide copies of their rulebooks to the USDA and establish uniform appeals procedures for disputes over soring.  The regulations also allowed the USDA to initiate its own investigations and prosecutions even if an HIO had already issued a penalty for soring or cleared a potential violator of soring.  The court was unimpressed with USDA's attempted regulatory takeover of the horse show industry by creating new liability provisions and noted that the USDA has arbitrarily injected itself into each layer of enforcement absent any authority in the HPA to do so.  The court held that the HPA merely allows the USDA to establish a regulatory program for managers of horse shows to hire qualified persons to detect horse soring.  The court reversed the trial court's decision, vacated (wiped off the books) the 2012 USDA regulations, and remanded the case for the trial court to enter judgment for the plaintiff.  Contender Farms, L.L.P. v. United States Department of Agriculture, No. 13-11052, 2015 U.S. App. LEXIS 2741 (5th Cir. Feb. 19, 2015).