## Facts

- The New Jersey Legislature amended animal-cruelty laws to give the New Jersey Department of Agriculture (NJDA) authority to promulgate minimum standards for the humane treatment of domestic livestock.
- NJDA adopted livestock-care regulations that created a broad safe harbor treating all “routine husbandry practices” as per se humane, later defining them as practices commonly taught by veterinary schools and agricultural agents.
- The regulations also included specific safe harbors for practices such as cattle tail docking; certain crating and tethering systems for veal calves and swine; transportation of sick or downed animals; and procedures like castration, debeaking, and toe-trimming when performed by a “knowledgeable individual” in a way that “minimize[s] pain.”
- Animal-welfare organizations, consumer groups, and individual farmers/consumers filed a facial challenge, arguing the regulations improperly insulated inhumane practices and lacked evidentiary and objective support for deeming certain practices “humane.”
- The Appellate Division upheld the regulations; the New Jersey Supreme Court granted review.

## Issues

1. Whether the livestock-care regulations were arbitrary, capricious, or unreasonable, or otherwise inconsistent with the statutory mandate to set “humane” minimum standards for domestic livestock.
2. Whether a blanket safe harbor for “routine husbandry practices,” defined by customary teaching rather than demonstrated humaneness, satisfied the statute.
3. Whether specific safe harbors (including tail docking, certain procedures, confinement systems, and transport of sick/downed animals) were supported by substantial credible evidence and enforceable under the statutory “humane” standard.

## Decision

- The court affirmed in part, reversed in part, and remanded.
- The regulatory scheme was not invalid “as a whole” under arbitrary-and-capricious review.
- The blanket safe harbor for “routine husbandry practices” was invalid because it did not ensure such practices were “humane” as required by statute.
- The safe harbor permitting cattle tail docking was invalid for lack of substantial credible evidence that the practice was humane.
- The safe harbor for castration, debeaking, and toe-trimming was invalid because the terms “knowledgeable individual” and “minimize pain” lacked objective standards needed to implement and enforce the statutory humane-treatment requirement.
- The safe harbors addressing crating and tethering of veal calves and swine, and transport of sick or downed animals, were upheld as supported by substantial credible evidence and not arbitrary or capricious.

## Legal Principles

- Courts generally defer to agency rulemaking, especially in technical fields, but will invalidate regulations that are arbitrary, capricious, unreasonable, or inconsistent with the enabling statute.
- An agency implementing a statutory “humane” standard must ground that determination in evidence and cannot treat industry custom or professional teaching alone as a substitute for statutory compliance.
- Broad categorical exemptions (“safe harbors”) must be tied to the statute’s substantive requirements; a rule that effectively immunizes practices without evaluating humaneness violates the legislative mandate.
- Regulations must contain sufficiently objective and workable standards to allow enforcement of the statutory requirement; undefined qualitative terms may render provisions invalid when they fail to ensure compliance.

## Conclusion

The New Jersey Supreme Court held that NJDA could regulate livestock welfare with deference to its expertise, but it could not deem practices humane through blanket exemptions or vague, unenforceable criteria; it struck the routine-husbandry safe harbor, tail-docking authorization, and certain procedure provisions while upholding confinement and transport rules supported by the administrative record.


N.J. Soc'y for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals v. N.J. Dep't of Agric., 196 N.J. 366, 955 A.2d 886 (2008)