Farm Sanctuary v. United States Department of Agriculture

• Court: Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit
• Decided: April 16, 2026
• Docket: 24-382
• Status: Unpublished

Opinion

24-382-cv Farm Sanctuary v. United States Department of Agriculture

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SECOND CIRCUIT SUMMARY ORDER RULINGS BY SUMMARY ORDER DO NOT HAVE PRECEDENTIAL EFFECT. CITATION TO A SUMMARY ORDER FILED ON OR AFTER JANUARY 1, 2007, IS PERMITTED AND IS GOVERNED BY FEDERAL RULE OF APPELLATE PROCEDURE 32.1 AND THIS COURT’S LOCAL RULE 32.1.1. WHEN CITING A SUMMARY ORDER IN A DOCUMENT FILED WITH THIS COURT, A PARTY MUST CITE EITHER THE FEDERAL APPENDIX OR AN ELECTRONIC DATABASE (WITH THE NOTATION “SUMMARY ORDER”). A PARTY CITING A SUMMARY ORDER MUST SERVE A COPY OF IT ON ANY PARTY NOT REPRESENTED BY COUNSEL. At a stated term of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, held at the Thurgood Marshall United States Courthouse, 40 Foley Square, in the City of New York, on the 16th day of April, two thousand twenty-six. Present: GERARD E. LYNCH, WILLIAM J. NARDINI, STEVEN J. MENASHI, Circuit Judges. _____________________________________ FARM SANCTUARY, ANIMAL EQUALITY, ANIMAL OUTLOOK, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. 24-382-cv UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE, FOOD SAFETY INSPECTION SERVICE, Defendants-Appellees. ∗

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For Plaintiffs-Appellants: PIPER HOFFMAN (Jareb Gleckel, on the brief), Animal Outlook, Washington, DC.

For Defendant-Appellee: STEVEN H. HAZEL (Yaakov M. Roth, Michael DiGiacomo, Thomas Pulham, and Benjamin M.

∗ The Clerk of Court is respectfully directed to amend the caption as set forth above. Shultz, on the brief), United States Department of Justice, Washington, DC; Brigham J. Bowen, United States Department of Agriculture, Washington, DC.

Appeal from a judgment of the United States District Court for the Western District of New

York (Elizabeth A. Wolford, District Judge).

UPON DUE CONSIDERATION, IT IS HEREBY ORDERED, ADJUDGED, AND

DECREED that the judgment of the district court is AFFIRMED.

Plaintiffs-Appellants Farm Sanctuary, Animal Equality, and Animal Outlook appeal from

a judgment of the United States District Court for the Western District of New York, entered on

December 13, 2023, granting summary judgment in favor of Defendants-Appellees the United

States Department of Agriculture (“USDA”) and its component, the Food Safety Inspection

Service (“FSIS”).

Plaintiffs are three “nonprofit organizations working to protect animals, people, and

environments from industrial animal agriculture, and to ensure that laws intended to regulate

industrial agriculture are properly implemented.” Special App’x 1. Plaintiffs filed suit to

challenge the USDA’s and the FSIS’s adoption by rule of the New Swine Inspection System

(“NSIS”). See 84 Fed. Reg. 52300, 52345 (amending 9 C.F.R. Part 309). In their amended

complaint, Plaintiffs argued that the portion of the NSIS that revised the antemortem inspection

practices for pigs at participating slaughterhouses, 9 C.F.R. § 309.19, violates portions of the

Federal Meat Inspection Act (“FMIA”), 21 U.S.C. §§ 601-695, the Humane Methods of Slaughter

Act (“HMSA”), 7 U.S.C. §§ 1901-1907, and the Administrative Procedure Act (“APA”), 5 U.S.C.

§§ 701-706. Plaintiffs take issue primarily with the section of the NSIS that allows slaughterhouse

employees to conduct an antemortem pre-sorting of pigs eligible for slaughter and to dispose of

“unfit” pigs before they can be inspected by a USDA-trained inspector. 2 Defendants moved to dismiss the amended complaint for lack of jurisdiction, arguing that

Plaintiffs failed to allege an injury and therefore did not have standing to bring this suit. The

district court denied the motion. Upon completion of discovery, the parties filed cross-motions for

summary judgment. After the court reviewed the parties’ positions set forth in their respective

summary judgment motions, it ordered supplemental briefing on the issue of standing. Thereafter,

in an opinion granting Defendants’ summary judgment motion, the district court held that Plaintiffs

had organizational standing, but it did not reach the question of associational standing. The district

court proceeded to reject on the merits Plaintiffs’ contentions that the NSIS violated the FMIA,

the HMSA, and the APA. On appeal, Plaintiffs reassert their claims that the NSIS violates various

sections of those three laws. We assume the parties’ familiarity with the case.

Before reaching the merits, this Court must first resolve the threshold issue of whether

Plaintiffs have standing. See Va. House of Delegates v. Bethune-Hill, 587 U.S. 658, 662 (2019). 1

We review de novo a district court’s determination of standing. Centro de la Comunidad Hispana

de Locust Valley v. Town of Oyster Bay, 868 F.3d 104, 109 (2d Cir. 2017).

“Article III of the Constitution limits the jurisdiction of federal courts to ‘Cases’ and

‘Controversies.’” Murthy v. Missouri, 603 U.S. 43, 56 (2024). “A proper case or controversy

exists only when at least one plaintiff establishes that she has standing to sue.” Id. at 57. To

establish standing, “a plaintiff must demonstrate (i) that she has suffered or likely will suffer an

injury in fact, (ii) that the injury likely was caused or will be caused by the defendant, and (iii) that

the injury likely would be redressed by the requested judicial relief.” Food & Drug Admin. v. All.

for Hippocratic Med., 602 U.S. 367, 380 (2024).

1 Unless otherwise indicated, when quoting cases, all internal quotation marks, alteration marks, emphases, footnotes, and citations are omitted. 3 “An organization can have standing to sue in one of two ways.” N.Y.C.L. Union v. N.Y.C

Transit Auth., 684 F.3d 286, 294 (2d Cir. 2012). Under the theory of organizational standing,

organizations may “sue on their own behalf for injuries they have sustained,” All. for Hippocratic

Med., 602 U.S. at 393, so long as they demonstrate that they were “directly injured as an

organization,” Conn. Parents Union v. Russell-Tucker, 8 F.4th 167, 172 (2d Cir. 2021). An

organization may also sue on behalf of a member—that is, assert associational standing—if it

shows “that some particular member of the organization would have had standing to bring the suit

individually.” N.Y.C. Transit Auth., 684 F.3d at 294. Plaintiffs Farm Sanctuary, Animal Equality,

and Animal Outlook all contend that they have organizational standing, and Farm Sanctuary

asserts that it also has associational standing on behalf of one of its members. For the reasons that

follow, we disagree.

I. Plaintiffs Lack Organizational Standing

Plaintiffs assert that the NSIS’s adoption has had “involuntary and material impacts on

[their] core activities,” Conn. Parents Union, 8 F.4th at 174-75 (emphasis omitted), by frustrating

their missions and forcing them to divert resources. Farm Sanctuary rescues farm animals and

coordinates their “placement at and transportation to other sanctuaries.” App’x 76. Farm

Sanctuary alleges that the NSIS will increase its expenditures by increasing the number of pigs

that it will need “to find placement, and provide transport and care for.” App’x 78. Animal

Equality conducts corporate engagement, training, and education to encourage companies to

“implement policies and increase standards to benefit the animals in their supply chains” in order

to “garner consumer goodwill.” App’x 88, 93. Animal Equality claims that the NSIS will force it

to “incur significant costs” to overhaul its corporate engagement programs, re-train its volunteers,

and develop new education materials. Id. Animal Outlook aims to protect non-ambulatory

4 animals through litigation, investigation, and public education. App’x 60-61. And Animal

Outlook alleges that the NSIS’s changes will cause it to lose access to information on which it

relies for its advocacy work—that is, the information on which it relies to advance its social

interests and to advocate against government policies it disfavors. App’x 65-66. All of these

alleged injuries to Plaintiffs involve voluntary expenditures to advocate against policies embodied

in the NSIS or the diversion of resources from other aspects of their missions to rescue pigs they

allege will be affected by these new policies.

Both the Supreme Court and this Court have held that these types of injuries—the diversion

of an organization’s resources or frustration of its mission—are inadequate to establish standing.

In Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, the Supreme Court held that “incurring costs to oppose [an

agency’s] actions” is not a “concrete injury.” 602 U.S. at 394. Similarly, it rejected the existence

of standing “simply based on the intensity of the litigant’s interest or because of strong opposition

to the government’s conduct, no matter how longstanding the interest and no matter how qualified

the organization.” Id. Put differently, the Court held that a “plaintiff must show far more than

simply a setback to the organization’s abstract social interests” to establish an injury and therefore

standing. Id. Relying on Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, this Court recently reaffirmed the

principle that a plaintiff “cannot spend its way into standing simply by expending money to gather

information and advocate against the defendant’s action.” Conn. Fair Hous. Ctr. v. CoreLogic

Rental Prop. Sols., LLC, 167 F.4th 605, 619 (2d Cir. 2026). Because binding precedent forecloses

the possibility that an organization may “manufacture its own standing,” All. for Hippocratic Med.,

602 U.S. at 394, Plaintiffs have failed to allege a concrete injury, and therefore, organizational

standing.

5 II. Plaintiff Farm Sanctuary Lacks Associational Standing

Alone among the Plaintiffs, Farm Sanctuary also argues that it has associational standing,

which requires that (among other things) at least one of its members have “standing to sue in their

own right.” Fac., Alumni, & Students Opposed to Racial Preferences v. New York Univ., 11 F.4th

68, 75 (2d Cir. 2021). To make this showing, Farm Sanctuary must demonstrate that its member

has suffered an injury-in-fact that is “concrete, particularized, and actual or imminent; fairly

traceable to the challenged action; and redressable by a favorable ruling.” Clapper v. Amnesty

Int’l USA, 568 U.S. 398, 409 (2013). The Supreme Court has explained that the “threatened injury

must be certainly impending to constitute injury in fact, and that allegations of possible future

injury are not sufficient.” Id. Farm Sanctuary relies on a sworn declaration provided by its member

David Washburn, who is both a consumer of pork products and a professional chef at a college

dining hall who prepares and serves pork products. Washburn averred that he is “concerned that

potentially faster line speeds, privately conducted inspections, and a reduced number of FSIS

inspectors on the line will increase the likelihood that I may contract foodborne illnesses from

contaminated pork and that I may expose others to such illnesses.” App’x 69.

Fatal to Farm Sanctuary’s purported associational standing, the record lacks any indication

that Washburn faces an injury that is actual or imminent. To be sure, in Baur v. Veneman, we held

that an individual plaintiff’s “allegation that he faces an increased risk of contracting a food-borne

illness from the consumption of downed livestock constitutes a cognizable injury-in-fact for

Article III standing purposes.” 352 F.3d 625, 631 (2d Cir. 2003). That type of heightened risk

can qualify as an injury-in-fact. But, as Clapper reminds us, a plaintiff must also allege facts

showing that such a risk is actual or imminent. That is, a complaint must set forth facts establishing

6 a “direct risk of harm which rises above mere conjecture,” id. at 636, not merely a “speculative

risk of disease transmission from downed livestock,” id. at 633.

In Baur, there were “two critical factors” that made the plaintiff’s injury-in-fact concrete

and not merely speculative: the purported injury was attributable to an established government

policy, and there were government studies and statements confirming the plaintiff’s key

allegations. Id. at 637. Although Farm Sanctuary has alleged that the purported harm to Washburn

arises from an established government policy—that is, NSIS—noticeably missing from its

allegations are concrete facts (such as the government studies and statements involved in Baur)

that confirm the existence of the risks Washburn claims he will face. Without such corroboration,

the risk of disease transmission from pigs at the NSIS slaughterhouses to Washburn is too

speculative to support his standing in this case. For Washburn to suffer the injury that he alleges

from consuming contaminated pork, a highly conjectural and attenuated chain of events would

need to occur. This would entail, for example: (1) an increased number of slaughterhouses

adopting the NSIS’s new antemortem presorting procedures; (2) a diseased pig entering a

slaughterhouse that has implemented the NSIS; (3) the slaughterhouse’s antemortem presorting

under the NSIS leaving more contaminated pork to be inspected by USDA inspectors; (4) the

USDA inspectors missing the contaminated pork during their inspections; (5) the contaminated

pork entering into the food supply; and (6) Washburn contracting an illness from the contaminated

pork. Even more remote is the possibility that Washburn would suffer an injury from serving

contaminated pork to others; in addition to the attenuated chain of events above, one of the dining

hall patrons would need to consume the contaminated pork, contract a foodborne illness, and then

Washburn would have to suffer a consequence from that consumer’s illness (say, being sued or

fired). Such “speculative chain[s] of possibilities do[] not establish that injury based on potential

7 future [foodborne illness] [are] certainly impending or [] fairly traceable” to the NSIS. Clapper,

568 U.S. at 414; see also Food & Water Watch, Inc. v. Vilsack, 808 F.3d 905, 915-17 (D.C. Cir.

2015) (holding that consumers lacked standing to challenge the similar New Poultry Inspection

System because the consumers did not “allege that there is a substantially increased risk of

foodborne illness” without relying on speculation). Because “[i]t is not sufficient to speculate that

a traceable injury might happen some day,” Doe v. Hochul, 139 F.4th 165, 187 (2d Cir. 2025),

Farm Sanctuary has failed to demonstrate an injury-in-fact on the part of Washburn that is

sufficient to accord him standing. Farm Sanctuary therefore does not, in turn, have associational

standing based on Washburn’s allegations.

* * *

Because Plaintiffs do not have standing, the judgment of the district court is AFFIRMED.

FOR THE COURT:

Catherine O’Hagan Wolfe, Clerk