Case ID: f3d_91/html/0015-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "PER CURIAM.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

SANI-DAIRY, a DIVISION OF PENN TRAFFIC CO., INC.; John P. Strittmatter, d/b/a Strittmatters Dairy; Delbert Thomas; Ed Thomas; Lowell Friedlin; Arthur Bloom; James L. Harteis v. Clayton YEUTTER, Secretary of Agriculture, United States Department of Agriculture; Commissioner of Agriculture and Markets, State of New York. MILK MARKETING, INC. v. Clayton YEUTTER, Secretary of Agriculture, United States Department of Agriculture, Clayton Yeutter, Secretary of Agriculture, United States Department of Agriculture; Dan Glickman, Secretary of Agriculture, United States Department of Agriculture and United States of America, Appellants.
    No. 95-3304.
    United States Court of Appeals, Third Circuit.
    Submitted Under Third Circuit LAR 34.1(a) March 15, 1996.
    Decided July 31, 1996.
    As Amended Aug. 29, 1996.
    Marvin Beshore, Milspaw & Beshore, Harrisburg, PA, for Appellees Sani-Dairy, a division of Penn Traffic Co., Inc., John P. Stritt-matter, dba Strittmatters Dairy, Delbert Thomas, Ed Thomas, Lowell Friedlin, Arthur Bloom, James L. Hartéis.
    Glen W. Wagner, Port Clinton, OH, for Appellee Milk Marketing, Inc.
    Edward R. Cohen, United States Department of Justice, Washington, DC, for Appellants.
    
      Before: NYGAARD, SAROKIN and ALDISERT, Circuit Judges.
    
      
       Pursuant to Rule 12(a), F.R.A.P.
    
   OPINION OF THE COURT

PER CURIAM.

Several Pennsylvania dairy farmers and a dairy cooperative challenge the validity of the Secretary of Agriculture’s regulations governing the marketing of fluid milk in the New York-New Jersey milk marketing area. Plaintiffs allege that the Secretary’s regulations, promulgated under the Agricultural Marketing Agreement Act of 1937, 7 U.S.C. § 601 et seq., violate 7 U.S.C. § 608c(5)(G), which states:

No marketing agreement or order applicable to milk and its products in any marketing area shall prohibit or in any maimer limit, in the ease of the products of milk, the marketing in that area of any milk or product thereof produced in any production area in the United States.

The district court found that the Secretary’s regulations governing the marketing of fluid milk in the New York-New Jersey milk marketing area, as applied to plaintiffs, constituted a prohibited economic trade barrier to milk producers and sellers outside the New York-New Jersey milk marketing area. See Lehigh Valley Cooperative Farmers, Inc. v. United States, 370 U.S. 76, 91-98, 82 S.Ct. 1168, 1175-1180, 8 L.Ed.2d 345 (1962). The district court awarded plaintiffs restitution and interest. We will now affirm, and in so doing adopt the reasoning of the district court expressed in Sani-Dairy v. Yeutter, 935 F.Supp. 608 (W.D.Pa.1995) and Sani-Dairy v. Espy, — F.Supp.-, NO. CIV.A 90-222J, CIV.A. 90-236J, 1993 WL 832147 (W.D.Pa. Dec.30, 1993). 
      
      . As set forth by the district court in its December, 1994 opinion at footnote one “By Memorandum Order dated October 29, 1991, (Docket No. 22), the Secretary's motion to dismiss the complaint filed by plaintiff Sani-Dairy was granted because Sani-Daiiy, a milk producer, or "handler" as that term is defined by 7 C.F.R. 1002.7 failed to exhaust its administrative remedies before seeking judicial review.”
     
      
      . The marketing area is defined in 7 C.F.R. § 1002.3.