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Western Watersheds Project v. Hall |
Plaintiff Western Watersheds Project filed the instant action challenging the “90-Day Finding” issued by the Defendants United States Fish and Wildlife Service that denied protection of the Interior Mountain Quail as endangered or threatened under the Endangered Species Act. The Service determined that the Petition had failed to provide information demonstrating that the Interior Mountain Quail population is discrete under the ESA. The District Court stated that, in order to qualify as a DPS, a population must “be both discrete and significant.” The court found that the Service's conclusion appropriately determined that this discreteness standard was not met and it provided a rational basis for concluding the Petition had failed to provide evidence of a marked separation between the populations of the same taxon.
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Western Watersheds Project v. Kraayenbrink |
Plaintiff environmental advocacy organization sued the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) for revisions to nationwide grazing regulations for federal lands. Plaintiff argued that the 2006 Regulations violated the Endangered Species Act (ESA), the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), and the Federal Land Policy and Management Act (FLPMA). The Court of Appeals found for the plaintiff, holding that BLM violated NEPA by failing to take a “hard look” at the environmental consequences of the proposed regulatory changes. BLM also violated the ESA by failing to consult with Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) before approving the revisions. The FLPMA claim was remanded.
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Western Watersheds Project v. Kraayenbrink |
Plaintiff environmental advocacy organization sued the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) for revisions to nationwide grazing regulations for federal lands, arguing that the revisions violated the Endangered Species Act (ESA), the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), and the Federal Land Policy and Management Act (FLPMA). The Court of Appeals held that BLM violated NEPA by failing to take a “hard look” at the environmental consequences of the proposed changes, and violated the ESA by failing to consult with Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) before approving the revisions.
Opinion Amended and Superseded on Denial of Rehearing en banc by:
Western Watersheds Project v. Kraayenbrink,
632 F.3d 472 (9th Cir., 2010).
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Western Watersheds Project v. Michael |
Wyoming enacted statutes that imposed civil and criminal penalties for data collection on private land or when private land was crossed to reach public land without landowner permission. The pair of statutes (one criminal and one civil) prohibited individuals from entering “open land for the purpose of collecting resource data” without permission from the owner. The criminal statute imposed penalties that were stricter than Wyoming’s general trespass provision. The Plaintiffs, who were advocacy organizations, filed suit to challenge the statutes alleging that the statutes violated the Free Speech and Petition Clauses of the First Amendment, the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and that the statutes were preempted by federal law. The District Court found for the Plaintiffs on the free speech, petition, and equal protection claims, but did not feel that the Plaintiffs stated a preemption claim. Wyoming then amended the statutes and the Plaintiffs amended their complaint re-alleging free speech and equal protection claims. The district court found for the defendants on a motion to dismiss. The Plaintiffs then appealed. Both Plaintiffs and Defendants had filed cross motions for summary judgment. The Court granted the Plaintiffs’ Motion for Summary Judgment and denied Defendants’’ Motion for Summary Judgment. The Court ultimately found that the Wyoming statutes were facially unconstitutional and in violation of the First Amendment to the Constitution. The State of Wyoming was permanently enjoined from enforcing the statutes. |
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Western Watersheds Project v. USDA APHIS Wildlife Services |
This action considers motions for summary judgment by both parties. At issue here is a plan by a branch of the USDA called Wildlife Services (WS), which is responsible for killing or removing predators and other animals that prey on wild game animals, threaten agricultural interests, or pose a danger to humans. The decision to kill the animals comes from requests from individuals or other state and federal agencies rather than a decision by WS. For this case, the facts center on an expanded operation to kill game animals and protected species in Idaho (mainly coyotes and ravens) known as PDM. As part of this process, WS prepared and circulated a draft Environmental Assessment (EA) to other federal agencies, stakeholders, and the public seeking comment to the expanded plan. However, instead of taking the criticisms and suggestions from the EA and then undertaking a more comprehensive Environmental Impact Statement (EIS), WS instead rejected most responses and labeled them as unconvincing or invalid. This led plaintiff to file suit against WS, arguing that the agency acted in an arbitrary and capricious manner by not preparing the EIS after comments to the EA. For example, the BLM, the Forest Service, and the Idaho Department of Fish and Game (IDFG), found that the EA was not an "objective analysis" and instead sounded "like a pre-decisional defense of lethal methods." These agencies warned WS that the predator control methods were "likely to be futile over the long-term" and did not consider cascading effects on both cyclic and non-cyclic prey populations. In analyzing the factors, this court found that WS failed to consider "several federal agencies with long experience and expertise in managing game animals and protected species" when proposing to expand the expanded PDM program. There was a lack of crucial data to support WS' assumptions in its modeling that was exacerbated by use of unreliable data, according to the court. In addition, the court found that WS failed to "explain away scientific challenges to the effectiveness of predator removal." Not only was the court troubled by the lack of reliable data used by WS, but the WS’ “unconvincing responses” to agencies that had substantial experience managing wildlife and land-use concerns demonstrated to the court that the PDM is controversial and the environmental impacts were uncertain. This in and of itself necessitated an EIS under NEPA. The court held that the lack of reliable data, the unconvincing responses from WS, combine to trigger three intensity factors that combine to require WS to prepare an EIS. The plaintiffs' motion for summary judgment was granted and the defendant's motion for summary judgment was denied (the motion by plaintiff to supplement the administrative record was deemed moot). |
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White v. U.S. |
The Plaintiff-Appellants are citizens (show bird breeders, feed store owners, and game bird judges) who allege that the AWA amendments to § 2156 concerning animal fighting ventures have caused them various individual and collective injuries. The plaintiffs-appellants allege that these provisions are unconstitutional insofar as they constitute a bill of attainder; violate the principles of federalism contained in, inter alia, the Ninth, Tenth, and Eleventh Amendments to the United States Constitution; and unduly impinge on the plaintiffs-appellants' First Amendment right of association, constitutional right to travel, and Fifth Amendment right to due process for deprivations of property and liberty. The district court dismissed the lawsuit for lack of Article III standing. The Sixth Circuit held that while economic injuries may constitute an injury-in-fact for the purposes of Article III standing, the plaintiffs' alleged economic injuries due to restrictions on cockfighting are not traceable only to the AWA. Additionally, because the AWA does not impose any penalties without a judicial trial, it is not a bill of attainder. The decision of the district court was affirmed.
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Whiteaker v. City of Southgate |
The plaintiff (“Whiteaker”) filed this action against Defendant, the City of Southgate, Michigan for violations of the Fair Housing Act (“FHA”) and Michigan's Persons with Disabilities Civil Rights Act (“PDCRA”). Specifically, Whiteaker contends that the City violated the FHA by denying Whiteaker's request for an exemption from City Ordinance 610.13, which prohibits City residents from maintaining chickens (or other typical farm animals) on their property. The events underlying this action began after Whiteaker moved to Southgate in early March 2021. On March 24, 2021, Whiteaker was issued a citation by the City for a violation of Ordinance 610.13. Whiteaker appeared in district court to defend himself, claiming he had a right to keep the chickens under Michigan's Right to Farm Act. However, it turned out the Right to Farm law was inapplicable because Whiteaker's chicken coop was within 250 feet of a dwelling. Thus, Whiteaker was issued a second citation in May and was denied a permit to keep the chickens by the city. Since Whiteaker was a longtime sufferer of depression and anxiety, he sought a waiver from the ordinance as a reasonable accommodation for his disability and presented a letter from his mental health provider as support. Again, his request was denied by the City. In the instant motion for summary judgement by the City, the court examined the "reasonableness" of Whiteaker's request for a reasonable accommodation under the FHA. The court found that the balancing test required under the FHA, to wit, weighing Whiteaker's disability-related need to keep the chickens as a source of comfort and support against the City's claims that the chickens pose a threat to public health, is a triable issue of fact. Indeed, the court observed that the City's citation of documentation from the CDC only lists the "potential dangers" chickens can pose to public health without sufficient evidence to supports its claim that the chickens will burden the City financially and administratively. In contrast, Whiteaker claims a disability and has provided evidence of his disability. Likewise, as to the remaining elements of necessity and equal opportunity for a reasonable accommodation claim, the court again cites Whiteaker's evidentiary support for his claim of disability and need for the chickens to alleviate those symptoms against the fact the City has not presented any testimony, affidavits, or "evidence of any kind" to support its claim. Thus, the court denied the motion for summary judgment. |
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Wildearth Guardians v. Kempthorne |
In its suit for declaratory and injunctive relief alleging that Defendant, the Secretary of the Interior, failed to comply with his mandatory duty under the Endangered Species Act (“ESA”) to make a preliminary 90-day finding on two ESA listing petitions brought by Plaintiff, Plaintiff moved for leave to amend its Complaint to include a new claim against Defendant stemming from Defendant’s denial of an additional petition submitted by Plaintiff requesting that a small subset of species which had been included in one of the petitions at issue in the original Complaint be given protection on an emergency basis.
The United States District Court, District of Columbia granted Plaintiff’s motion to amend the Complaint to clarify that only a total of 674 species are covered by the two non-emergency petitions, rather than the 681 as stated in the original Complaint, but denied Plaintiff’s motion for leave to supplement its Complaint with a new claim, finding that Defendant’s decision not to issue emergency listings is committed to agency discretion by law, and thus precludes judicial review under the Administrative Procedure Act.
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WildEarth Guardians v. Salazar |
Plaintiff, WildEarth Guardians, brought this action seeking judicial review of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s final agency actions pertaining to the Utah prairie dog. Specifically, Plaintiffs aver that the FWS erred in denying (1) their petition to reclassify the Utah prairie dog as an endangered species under the ESA and (2) their petition to initiate rulemaking to repeal a regulation allowing for the limited extermination (i.e., take) of Utah prairie dogs. With respect to Plaintiff’s challenge as to reclassification, the court concluded that Plaintiff’s motion for Summary Judgment should be granted on two grounds. However, the court denied Plaintiff's Motion for Summary Judgment (and granted Defendant’s cross-motion) insofar as Plaintiff asserted that the FWS’ refusal to initiate rulemaking was arbitrary, capricious, and not in accordance with the ESA.
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Wildearth Guardians v. U.S. Department of the Interior |
In this case, Wildearth Guardians filed suit to challenge the United States Fish and Wildlife Service’s designation of critical habitat for the Canada lynx. Wildearth argued that United States Fish and Wildlife Service wrongly excluded geographical areas in its final critical habitat designation. The areas that Wildearth argued should have been included in the designation were the Southern Rockies in Colorado, the Kettle Range of northeastern Washington, the state of Oregon, and certain National Forest lands in Montana and Idaho. Ultimately, the court reviewed Wildearth’s arguments and held that the Fish and Wildlife Service did wrongly exclude the Southern Rockies in Colorado and the National Forest lands in Montana and Idaho. With regard to the areas in Washington and Oregon, the court found that the Fish and Wildlife Service did not err in excluding in those areas from the critical habitat designation. The Fish and Wildlife Service used “primary constituent elements” (PCE) to determine which areas should be designated as a critical habitat for the Canada lynx. The court found that with respect to Colorado, there was a close call as to one of the of PCE’s and that the Service should have favored the lynx according to the standard set in the Endangered Species Act. Lastly, the court found that the Service also erred with respect to Montana and Idaho because it failed to comply with previous court orders to inspect the lands to determine whether or not the lands contained “physical and biological features essential to lynx recovery.” The court found that had the Service complied with these orders, it would have found that Montana and Idaho should have been included in the designation. The plaintiffs motions were granted in part and the matter was remanded to the Service for further action consistent with this order. The final rule remains in effect until the Service issues a new final rule on lynx critical habitat, at which time the September 2014 final rule will be superseded. |
