of information act requires the u s d a to expedite the production of records when doing so could save the life of an animal and the question is what's the meaning of the word individual that's right that's right so the specific question is whether the word individual is used in that provision must be limited to human beings or whether it should be construed to include nonhuman animals and the animal at the center of this case tony the tiger was unquestionably an individual his life and physical safety were important not only to the animal legal defense  of that word and in this case we cite numerous examples maybe but also and as any except in meeting legal meaning or at least a legal meaning within federal that may be more influential i mean there is no doubt that the term individual can be used for now and specially within biology within an environment  but within the us code there are several definitions where it seems directly relate that definition in the meaning of any act of congress the word person includes corporations companies so seasons from partnership societies in joint stock company as well as individuals that's right your honor and that's in the dictionary act and it may be that for purposes of the dictionary well that the with the dictionary acts as a predicate is that unless context dictates otherwise and here we have a statute where the word individual that's surrounded by terms life and physical safety that are characteristics that exceed i'm sorry life and physical safety which are the words in the expedited processing provision so the kinds of individuals for whom the protection matters are those who have life in physical safety and animals are unquestionably as far as congress is concerned the kinds of individuals with life and physical safety and so in the context of the freedom of information act a narrow reading of the word individual would be inconsistent with the congressional intent under the general federal regulatory scheme is individual human beings is an issue but not the same urgency with respect to processing when the life or physical safety of animals is concerned i mean that's you may not agree with the distinction of course but that's a rational distinction and  have anything beyond the word individual that tells us that the distinction between humans and animals is not drawn by the statute well the statute a silent on that specific question but we do know that congress doesn't fact value the life and physical safety of animals especially ones like tony the tiger who culture is charged with protecting the safety of them that's right there wouldn't be records to request in the st place that there wasn't a regulatory scheme under the animal welfare act that says there's a degree of protection in the question more narrowly here whether or not the free will ration act has been enlisted in that protection that's right and it's perfectly reasonable to assume that if congress cared enough about animals on the brink of extinction including tigers like tony that it would protect them against takes under the endangered species act if it cared enough about exhibited animals to create the federal regulatory scheme under the animal welfare act that it would want in cases where those animals life and does go safety is threatened to allow those requests to to be expedited had it wanted to restrict this term to strictly humans or natural persons that could have used that term instead it used the word individual which according to the rule of statutory construction that it be construed according to its common meaning and given that we cite numerous examples of its common meaning applying to non human animals the example not the case or are certainly it's used both in an adjectival form so the individual chimpanzee but it's also used in the noun form and in fact when we're talking about individuals and we're referring to an dictionary we give examples from periodicals that are some biological but some sort of normal popular media we give examples of the courts using that term the supreme court in  seventy i mean i think your point is fairly solid except for the fact that there are that in the u s code there seems to be also definition and and a consistency animal i wonder i wonder for and i don't know i haven't looked for example at the endangered species act and the one thing that i thought of is the the taking part of the is dangerously shoes actually i don't know what term that uses in what the operative term is there i don't think it's determinative i will say that you know many of the cases that we cite were courts are using individual as a noun to refer to animals are endangered species act cases and in fact i think the supreme court has even the protection of animal act from a crown it seems to me but it's not as in a generic usage it is which is why we sort of look to congress you know the freedom of information act pertains to records collected under all sorts of statutes so it may be that in creating an expedited processing provision congress was concerned with all of those individuals that it protects through various statutory schemes and so because one of those statutory schemes is the animal welfare act another one of the endangered species act those are the kinds of recognize interests that congress intended to protect and in fact the house report refers to the expedited processing provision as aimed at avoiding negative consequences to recognized interests and here it's undisputable the animals do have recognized interests under federal law through the endangers and the animal welfare and to go back to my my to your point judge perch on  about other instances in which individual seems to exclude animals within the federal code again it's not unusual for the same word to have different different statutes word individual might include corporations for purposes of the line item veto act but definition through the dictionary act in the dictionary act says these are the words that in the federal code have this meaning but i don't i think it's it would be quite reasonable to say that for purposes the dictionary act individual excludes animals because  to construe it that way would lead to absurd results right most of the times when the your word person is used in statutes it's conferring a procedural right on someone to initiate a lawsuit and of course this court has held that unless congress is explicit about conferring a right on animals to sue we're not going to presume that that's the case but that's a far away from what this case is about so you know where as interpret an individual to confer personhood rights on animals could lead to absurd results for purposes of those that say the a p a history besides this reference to protected interests suggests that individuals intend to be inclusive with respect to animals there's nothing substantive at all about which kinds of adventurous are intended to be protected here so that's why i think it makes sense to look at it against the backdrop of all of the federal statutes for which records are created that for is intended  to to give access to on an expedited basis and of course where an animal's life hangs in the balance if expedited processing means you know that animal gets saved that's completely consistent with what congress intended throughout scheme i think i'll reserve the balance of my time for rebuttal let's hear from the other side thank you if you get a chance to respond little to add to to our briefs the district court opinion and the colloquy between the court and opposing counsel there is simply no support in the foyer itself or for that matter in any other federal i understand it the government if the information that was requested would endanger the life or physical safety of a police dog or a six revision where the where congress changed the language from law enforcement personnel to individual in order to encompass other human beings other direction right excuse me argue in the other direction i e that in wanting to be personnel they want to be well but there's no indication in the legislative history of that that they were thinking about anything other than other human beings for instance family members of this whole an don't believe that's the case and i think that the government would take the consistent position that it does not apply that seven f does not apply to non human beings that it is also limited to natural persons and it wouldn't it would not try to do it to withhold information regarding police dogs say under under under that provision if the issue of the meaning and scope of the you no your honor i believe we we've identified everything everything that we've found that's relevant in our in our brief regarding it with respect to both the statutory language and the legislative history of oil but there so looking at the at the history of the language the language of the statute the ordinary meaning the statutory text in context the legislative history and the case law in particular the supreme court's decision in the mohammad case which is admittedly involved individual in different contexts under the torture victims protection act but there they held that it did not apply a not to nonhuman individuals in that case a corporation but there's no basis for distinguishing corporations or other entities with respect to individual either in either in that statute or what language the endangered species act is with regard to takes incidental take permits and so on i don't know i don't know you're either on or of course i'm a civil civil attorney rather than environmental attorney but i do note that in situation community this court also held that person that it that it applied with respect to both the the a p a and the environment and the endangered species act it rejects the court rejected the but here but on a plain words notion about common language it's not so obvious that an individual is an individual at all because often that is in some contexts it certainly is the as as you've emphasized in the context that can be the case for instance in the if there's a contrast between an individual and a group or even in a statute not that the plane has identified one but it's theoretically possible that such that congress could have craft could craft such a statute where but to my knowledge there isn't even anything in the animal welfare act that uses the term individual try to read in the purposes of the animal welfare act here that would be extremely that that would be at odds with the notion that the that the foyer is a government wide statute and there there are other could also apply to defense department statutes the plaintiffs could make that argument with respect to the activities that they want to know about concerning and concerning animals and it would open up an entire a few points on rebuttal of course the there are numerous instances in which courts have used the word individual to refer to animals and which agencies have used the word to refer to animals and its absence in the statutory scheme i think is not significant in context of the animal welfare act the u s d a itself uses the word individual to refer to animals the regulations refer to chimpanzees as compatible individuals  cite examples in our brief in the endangered species contexts for example idaho sporting congress be written house where the th circuit referred to kill a gated woodpecker's as individuals and so within those statutory schemes animals are talked about in common parlance as individuals that the statute doesn't refer to them that way is not particularly significant given that the rule of statutory construction and the rule that the court supreme court applied in the mamak case the methodology applied in the method is to start with the plain language of the statute as used in common parlance and there the court of course determined that individual didn't include organizations because nobody the court said it would hazard to guess referred to organizations as individuals in common parlance and yet when it comes to animals we do even the district court said that one might refer to their dog as quite and in an individual and so given that the rule where a statute la a definition is to look to common parlance not other statutes not to look at the general statutory scheme not to look at other statutes like the a p a but to look at common parlance and given the common parlance includes animals i think the should be that the expedited processing provision should protect animals the u s d a is charged with protecting these animals when it has records that might save their life and it refuses to produce them that's the kind of injury that i think congress ought to protect by allowing expedited processing in cases involving individuals which includes non human animals thank you think both sides with their arguments animal legal defense fund versus u s department of agriculture submitted for