U.S. Supreme Court Strikes Down State Law Criminalizing Use of Meat From Downed Livestock

January 24, 2012 | Erika Eckley

In a unanimous decision, the United States Supreme Court reversed a recent opinion of the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals which had found that California’s statute §599f was not preempted by the Federal Meat Inspection Act (FMIA) 21 U.S.C. §601 et seq. In its decision, the Supreme Court held that California’s provision making criminal a slaughterhouse’s acceptance, butchering, or holding of nonambulatory animals without immediate euthanization was preempted by the federal law.

The history of the case is rather short. In 2008, the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) released a graphic video showing workers mishandling sick and disabled (“downed”) cows. The video prompted a large recall of beef to prevent consumption of meat from potentially diseased animals. It also spurred California legislators to enact California Penal Code § 599f establishing criminal penalties for noncompliant treatment of downed animals by slaughterhouses. 

The National Meat Association sued in federal court to enjoin enforcement of the California statute on the grounds that FMIA preempts state law. The District Court granted the motion for preliminary injunction finding the statute was “expressly” preempted because it required swine “to be handled in a manner other than that prescribed by the FMIA.”  On appeal, however, the Ninth Circuit vacated the injunction finding instead that the state statute was not preempted because the law addressed only “the kind of animal that may be slaughtered” rather than the inspection or slaughtering itself as regulated by the FMIA.

On further review, the United States Supreme Court held that the FMIA’s preemption clause blocked the application of §599f, because the express language of the clause prohibited the State of California from imposing any additional or different requirements that concern a slaughterhouse’s facilities or operations. In essence, the Court found that the state and federal laws provided conflicting courses of action for how a slaughterhouse would handle a nonambulatory pig. Under federal law, the slaughterhouse would hold the pig that had not been condemned for further inspection. Under the California law, the slaughterhouse would be required to immediately euthanize the animal and prohibited the use of the animal for food regardless of post-mortem inspection. Because the California statute dictated requirements that were within the scope of the FMIA, the Court held that the FMIA clearly preempted the California statute.

The Court also determined that §599f cannot escape preemption by  the FMIA simply by characterizing the statute’s scope as a ban on the selling of the meat from nonambulatory animals for human consumption, which would regulate only the final stages of a slaughterhouse’s business. Typically, federal law does not usually preempt state regulations of commercial sales activities of slaughterhouses. In reviewing the argument, however, the Court reviewed the effect of the prohibition as a whole. The prohibition would mandate that slaughterhouses must structure their operations to remove nonambulatory animals from the production process altogether by criminalizing the sale of meat from these animals. Simply by characterizing the statute as a prohibition on the sale of the meat produced would allow any state to impose any regulation on slaughterhouses simply by framing the ban as a prohibition on the sale of meat produced in a specific way. This would effectively negate the FMIA’s scope and preemption. Instead, the sales ban effectively regulates the manner in which the slaughterhouse must operate, which clearly falls within the FMIA’s purview and State law is preempted.

The Court also rejected the characterization by the HSUS that the California statute excludes only classes of animals from the slaughter process. The Court held that even this characterization falls within the scope of the FMIA, because the FMIA regulates the inspection and handling of all animals on a slaughterhouse’s premises regardless of whether they will be slaughtered. The FMIA specifically excludes animals from the slaughtering process for testing positive for diseases or other disqualifications. Therefore, §599f covers only a difference in the classes of animals covered under the FMIA imposed requirements, which means that §599f’s requirements are not outside the scope of the FMIA and are expressly preempted by the federal law.  Accordingly, the Court reversed the Ninth Circuit’s decision and remanded the case.  National Meat Assn. v. Harris, No. 10–224, 2012 WL 171119 (U.S. Sup. Ct.  Jan. 23, 2012).