BOSTON (Legal Newsline) – Litigation that challenges Massachusetts’ laws that target how hogs are treated will be on hold while the U.S. Supreme Court decides a similar case.
The National Pork Producers Council was one of a handful of plaintiffs who filed recently filed suit in Boston federal court, and it’s the plaintiff in a similar case against California that has already made its way to the nation’s highest court.
So both sides in the Massachusetts case agreed many of their issues can be resolved by the SCOTUS decision that is expected between December and June.
Laws in both states forbid the sale of pork that was harvested from pigs who were forced to live in tight quarters. In Massachusetts, restaurant and hospitality groups argue they have been given only weeks to comply with new regulations after being promised years.
Voters passed a measure that would create the Pork Rules in November 2016 and give the pork industry until 2022 to comply - two years after a deadline for the state attorney general to finish them.
But AG Maura Healey missed this deadline, and in December 2021 rulemaking authority was given to MDAR. On June 10, it issued rules that said breeding pigs must always be able to turn around without touching the side of its enclosure or another animal, to go into effect in August.
"So instead of two years, the pork industry has been given roughly eight weeks to adapt," the suit says.
The rules were amended to apply to all pigs harvested, instead of born, after the Aug. 15 effective date. They apply to distributors in the state who sell to out-of-state companies, too.
The U.S. Court of Appeals in July 2021 rejected the challenge to California’s law, leading to the appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. The Ninth Circuit found the plaintiffs failed to show Proposition 12 violated the dormant Commerce Clause by compelling out-of-state producers to change their operations to meet California’s standards.
The case has drawn significant interest from groups like the Humane Society, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce (Legal Newsline is owned by the U.S. Chamber Institute for Legal Reform), the federal government and state attorneys general.