## Facts

- Foie gras is made from duck or goose livers enlarged by force-feeding, which causes hepatic lipidosis (fat accumulation in the liver).
- The Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS), within the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), administers the Poultry Products Inspection Act (PPIA), which is aimed at keeping unwholesome or adulterated poultry products out of the human food supply.
- FSIS’s inspection guidance treated livers showing hepatic lipidosis differently depending on cause:
  - If hepatic lipidosis was linked to “natural disease,” FSIS condemned the livers, reasoning that the diseases producing hepatic lipidosis often came with other conditions that could make livers unfit for food.
  - FSIS did not bar force-fed livers used for foie gras solely because they displayed hepatic lipidosis.
- In 2007, the Animal Legal Defense Fund and other organizations and individuals petitioned FSIS to initiate rulemaking to exclude force-fed foie gras from the human food supply as an adulterated and diseased product under the PPIA.
- In 2009, FSIS denied the petition, concluding that force-fed foie gras had not been shown to be unwholesome or otherwise unfit for human food.
- Petitioners pointed to scientific materials, including a study attempting to link consumption of foie gras to secondary (AA) amyloidosis; FSIS found the study insufficient for drawing human-risk conclusions, noting limitations such as use of mice that were more susceptible to that condition.
- Plaintiffs sued under the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) to set aside FSIS’s petition denial as arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, or otherwise not in accordance with law.
- The government moved to dismiss for lack of Article III standing and, alternatively, sought summary judgment on the merits; plaintiffs filed a cross-motion for summary judgment.

## Issues

1. Whether plaintiffs had Article III standing (and were within the PPIA’s zone of interests) to obtain APA review of FSIS’s denial of their rulemaking petition.
2. Whether FSIS’s 2009 denial of the petition to ban force-fed foie gras was arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, or otherwise not in accordance with law under APA § 706(2)(A).

## Decision

- The court denied defendants’ motion to dismiss, holding plaintiffs had Article III standing and their asserted interests fit within the PPIA’s zone of interests for purposes of an APA claim.
- On the merits, the court granted defendants’ motion for summary judgment and denied plaintiffs’ cross-motion for summary judgment.
- The court upheld FSIS’s denial of the petition, concluding the agency gave a reasoned explanation for its decision and did not act arbitrarily or contrary to the PPIA.

## Legal Principles

- Under APA § 706(2)(A), a court sets aside agency action only if it is arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, or otherwise not in accordance with law; the court’s role is to ensure the agency examined the record and explained its decision.
- When an agency decision turns on scientific and technical evaluation, judicial review is highly deferential so long as the agency addressed the evidence before it and offered a rational account of why it reached its conclusion.
- Denial of a rulemaking petition is reviewable final agency action under the APA, but challengers must show the denial lacked a rational basis or ignored important aspects of the petition.
- Article III standing requires an injury in fact that is fairly traceable to the challenged agency action and likely to be redressed by the requested relief; organizational plaintiffs may rely on concrete harms tied to their activities and members.
- For APA claims, the “zone of interests” test is not especially demanding; where a statute’s purpose includes protecting the consuming public from unwholesome poultry products, consumer health-related interests may qualify.

## Conclusion

The court held that the plaintiffs could sue USDA/FSIS under the APA to challenge FSIS’s denial of their petition seeking to bar force-fed foie gras from the food supply, but it ultimately upheld the 2009 petition denial because FSIS reasonably evaluated the submitted studies and explained why the record did not justify treating force-fed foie gras as adulterated or unfit for human consumption under the PPIA.


Animal Legal Defense Fund v. United States Department of Agriculture, 223 F. Supp. 3d 1008 (2016)