Appeals Court and Congress steal ALDF victories

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, Jan/Feb 1998:

WASHINGTON D.C.––A threejudge
panel representing the U.S. Court of
Appeals for the District of Columbia
Circuit on December 9 reversed an October
1996 verdict by the late Federal Judge
Charles Richey that USDA rules for enforcing
the Animal Welfare Act violate the
intent of Congress in passing 1985 AWA
amendments that require animal vendors,
exhibitors, and researchers to provide for
the psychological needs of dogs and nonhuman
primates.


The reversal reprised a July 1994
verdict, also by a three-judge panel, representing
the same appellate court, which
reversed an almost identical finding rendered
by Richey in March 1991.
Each case was argued by Valerie
Stanley of the Animal Legal Defense Fund.
Each time the appellate court held that the
ALDF and individual plaintiffs lacked
standing to sue, since they suffered no
direct harm from the USDA regulations.
The appellate judges also found
that the plaintiffs’ alleged emotional distress
over the plight of dogs and nonhuman
primates held for commerce, exhibition, or
research would probably not be relieved,
even if the regulations were to be rewritten
as Judge Richey twice ordered.
The October 1996 verdict was
Richey’s last in a major case; he died on
March 20, 1997.
Earlier, in mid-November,
Congress stripped ALDF of a landmark
November 3 Supreme Court ruling, affirming
a 1994 Federal Court of Appeals verdict,
which held that proceedings of the
National Academy of the Sciences are subject
to the 1972 Federal Avisory Committee
Act. Under the new law, the Academy is
exempted from the 1972 law, but now must
publish the names of people it nominates to
committees, and must act to prevent conflicts
of interest.

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