Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caDC-97-05074/USCOURTS-caDC-97-05074-1/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 890
Nature of Suit: Other Statutory Actions
Cause of Action: 

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United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued in banc May 13, 1998 Decided September 1, 1998

No. 97-5009

Animal Legal Defense Fund, Inc., et al.,

Appellees

v.

Daniel R. Glickman, Secretary of Agriculture, et al.,

and

National Association for Biomedical Research,

Appellants

Consolidated with

Nos. 97-5031, 97-5074

Appeals from the United States District Court

for the District of Columbia

(No. 96cv00408)

Stephen W. Preston, Deputy Assistant Attorney General,

United States Department of Justice, argued the cause for

appellants Daniel R. Glickman, et al., with whom Frank W.

Hunger, Assistant Attorney General, Wilma A. Lewis, United

States Attorney, Eric H. Holder, Jr., United States Attorney

at the time the briefs were filed, Michael Jay Singer and

John S. Koppel, Attorneys, were on the briefs.

Harris Weinstein argued the cause for appellant National

Association for Biomedical Research, with whom Michael G.

Michaelson and Gail H. Javitt were on the briefs.

Katherine A. Meyer argued the cause for appellees, with

whom Valerie J. Stanley was on the briefs.

Andrew L. Frey was on the briefs for amicus curiae

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Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America.

Leslie G. Landau, Susan Hoffman and Tiffany R. Hedgpeth were on the briefs for amicus curiae The Jane Goodall

Institute for Wildlife Research, Education and Conservation.

Before: Edwards, Chief Judge, Wald, Silberman,

Williams, Ginsburg, Sentelle, Henderson, Randolph,

Rogers, Tatel and Garland, Circuit Judges.

Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge Wald.

Dissenting Opinion filed by Circuit Judge Sentelle, with

whom Silberman, Ginsburg and Henderson, Circuit Judges,

join.

Wald, Circuit Judge: The 1985 amendments to the Animal

Welfare Act ("AWA") direct the Secretary of Agriculture to

"promulgate standards to govern the humane handling, care,

treatment, and transportation of animals by dealers, research

facilities, and exhibitors." Pub. L. No. 99-198, s 1752, 99

Stat. 1354, 1645 (1985) (codified at 7 U.S.C. s 2143(a) (1994)).

They further provide that such standards "shall include minimum requirements" for, inter alia, "a physical environment

adequate to promote the psychological well-being of primates." Id. Pursuant to this authority, the United States

Department of Agriculture ("USDA") issued regulations for

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primate dealers, exhibitors, and research facilities that included a small number of mandatory requirements and also

required the regulated parties to "develop, document, and

follow an appropriate plan for environment enhancement

adequate to promote the psychological well-being of nonhuman primates. The plan must be in accordance with the

currently accepted professional standards as cited in appropriate professional journals or reference guides, and as directed by the attending veterinarian." 9 C.F.R. s 3.81

(1997). Although these plans must be made available to the

USDA, the regulated parties are not obligated to make them

available to members of the public. See id.

The individual plaintiffs, Roseann Circelli, Mary Eagan,

and Marc Jurnove,1 challenge these regulations on the ground

that they violate the USDA's statutory mandate under the

AWA and permit dealers, exhibitors, and research facilities to

keep primates under inhumane conditions. The individual

plaintiffs allege that they suffered aesthetic injury during

their regular visits to animal exhibitions when they observed

primates living under such conditions.2 A divided panel of

this court held that all of the plaintiffs lacked constitutional

standing to pursue their claims. See Animal Legal Defense

Fund, Inc. v. Glickman, 130 F.3d 464, 466 (D.C. Cir. 1997).

__________

1 Audrey Rahn, a fourth individual plaintiff, also appeared

before the district court in this case. However, Rahn's claim

focused only on the USDA's allegedly inadequate enforcement of its

existing regulations, an issue not before this court on appeal. See

Animal Legal Defense Fund, Inc. v. Glickman, 943 F. Supp. 44, 51,

62-64 (D.D.C. 1996).

2 The Animal Legal Defense Fund ("ALDF"), an animal welfare organization, alleges that the USDA violated the notice and

comment provisions of the Administrative Procedure Act ("APA"), 5

U.S.C. s 553 (1994), by failing to provide adequate opportunity to

comment on the agency's decision to require regulated entities to

keep their plans at their own facilities, see 9 C.F.R. s 3.81(e)(3),

thereby protecting these plans from disclosure under the Freedom

of Information Act, 5 U.S.C. s 552 (1994). The panel opinion held

that ALDF lacked standing to sue, and the in banc court limited

itself to considering Marc Jurnove's standing.

This court subsequently vacated that judgment and granted

rehearing in banc.

We hold that Mr. Jurnove, one of the individual plaintiffs,

has standing to sue. Accordingly, we need not pass on the

standing of the other individual plaintiffs. See Mountain

States Legal Found. v. Glickman, 92 F.3d 1228, 1232 (D.C.

Cir. 1996) ("For each claim, if constitutional and prudential

standing can be shown for at least one plaintiff, we need not

consider the standing of the other plaintiffs to raise that

claim."). We leave consideration of the merits of the individual plaintiffs' case to a future panel of this court to be

selected by the usual means.

I. Background

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A. Marc Jurnove's Affidavit

Mr. Jurnove's affidavit is an uncontested statement of the

injuries that he has suffered to his aesthetic interest in

observing animals living under humane conditions. See Animal Legal Defense Fund, Inc. v. Glickman, 943 F. Supp. 44,

49 (D.D.C. 1996) (granting summary judgment to plaintiffs on

all legal claims except one that plaintiffs have not appealed;

defendants did not allege any genuine disputes of material

fact, but instead moved only to dismiss for lack of standing).

For his entire adult life, Mr. Jurnove has "been employed

and/or worked as a volunteer for various human and animal

relief and rescue organizations." Jurnove Affidavit p 3. "By

virtue of [his] training in wildlife rehabilitation and [his]

experience in investigating complaints about the treatment of

wildlife, [he is] very familiar with the needs of and proper

treatment of wildlife." Id. p 6. "Because of [his] familiarity

with and love of exotic animals, as well as for recreational and

educational purposes and because [he] appreciate[s] these

animals' beauty, [he] enjoy[s] seeing them in various zoos and

other parks near [his] home." Id. p 7.

Between May 1995 and June 1996, when he filed his

affidavit, Mr. Jurnove visited the Long Island Game Farm

Park and Zoo ("Game Farm") at least nine times. Throughout this period, and since as far back as 1992, the USDA has

not questioned the adequacy of this facility's plan for the

psychological well-being of primates.

Mr. Jurnove's first visit to the Game Farm, in May 1995,

lasted approximately six hours. See id. While there, Mr.

Jurnove saw many animals living under inhumane conditions.

For instance, the Game Farm housed one primate, a Japanese Snow Macaque, in a cage "that was a distance from and

not in view of the other primate cages." Id. p 14. "The only

cage enrichment device this animal had was an unused

swing." Id. Similarly, Mr. Jurnove "saw a large male chimpanzee named Barney in a holding area by himself. He could

not see or hear any other primate." Id. p 8. Mr. Jurnove

"kn[e]w that chimpanzees are very social animals and it upset

[him] very much to see [Barney] in isolation from other

primates." Id. The Game Farm also placed adult bears next

to squirrel monkeys, although Jurnove saw evidence that the

arrangement made the monkeys frightened and extremely

agitated. See id. p 11.

The day after this visit, Mr. Jurnove began to contact

government agencies, including the USDA, in order to secure

help for these animals. Based on Mr. Jurnove's complaint,

the USDA inspected the Game Farm on May 3, 1995. According to Mr. Jurnove's uncontested affidavit, however, the

agency's resulting inspection report "states that [the USDA

inspectors] found the facility in compliance with all the standards." Id. p 18. Mr. Jurnove returned to the Game Farm

on eight more occasions to observe these officially legal

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conditions.

On July 17, 18, and 19, 1995, he found "virtually the same

conditions" that allegedly caused him aesthetic injury during

his first visit to the Game Farm in May. Id. p 20. For

instance, Barney, the chimpanzee, and Samantha, the Japanese Snow Macaque, were still alone in their cages. See id.

This time, Mr. Jurnove documented these conditions with

photographs and sent them to the USDA. See id. pp 19-20.

Nevertheless, the responding USDA inspectors found only a

few violations at the Game Farm; they reported "nothing"

about many of the conditions that concerned Mr. Jurnove and

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that he had told the agency about, such as "the fact that

numerous primates were being housed alone" and the lack of

adequate stimulation in their cages. Id. p 21.

Mr. Jurnove devoted two trips in August and one in

September to "videotaping the conditions that the inspection

missed," and on each trip he found that the inhumane conditions persisted. Id. pp 22-28. At the end of September, the

USDA sent three inspectors to the Game Farm in response to

Mr. Jurnove's continued complaints and reportage; they

found violations, however, only with regard to the facility's

fencing. See id. p 29.

Mr. Jurnove returned to the Game Farm once more on

October 1, 1995. Indeed, he only stopped his frequent visits

when he became ill and required major surgery. See id. p 30.

After his health returned, Mr. Jurnove visited the Game

Farm in April 1996, hoping to see improvements in the

conditions that he had repeatedly brought to the USDA's

attention. He was disappointed again; "the animals [were] in

literally the same conditions as [he] had seen them over the

summer of 1995." Id. p 33. Mr. Jurnove's resulting complaints prompted the USDA to inspect the Game Farm in late

May 1996. For the fourth time, the agency found the facility

largely in compliance, with a few exceptions not relevant to

the plaintiffs' main challenge in this case. See id. p 42. In

June 1996, Mr. Jurnove filed the affidavit that is the basis of

his claim here. He concluded this affidavit by stating his

intent to "return to the Farm in the next several weeks" and

to "continue visiting the Farm to see the animals there." Id.

p 43.

B. The Plaintiffs' Complaint

The plaintiffs' complaint elaborates a two-part legal theory

based on the factual allegations in the individual plaintiffs'

affidavits. First, the plaintiffs allege that the AWA requires

the USDA to adopt specific, minimum standards to protect

primates' psychological well-being, and the agency has failed

to do so. See, e.g., First Amended Complaint p 97 ("In

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issuing final Part 3 regulations, USDA violated its statutory

obligation [under 7 U.S.C. s 2143(a)(2)(B)] to set standards

'for a physical environment adequate to promote the psychological well-being of primates,' and instead delegated this

responsibility to regulated entities by requiring that regulated entities devise 'plans' for this purpose."); id. p 106 ("Instead of issuing the standards on this topic, USDA's regulation [at 9 C.F.R. s 3.81] simply states that the 'plans' must be

in accordance with currently accepted professional standards."); id. p 107 ("By providing that animal exhibitors and

other regulated entities shall develop their own 'plans' for a

physical environment adequate to promote the psychological

well-being of non-human primates, USDA has failed to satisfy

the statutory requirement that it set the 'minimum' standards.").

Second, the plaintiffs contend that the conditions that

caused Mr. Jurnove aesthetic injury complied with current

USDA regulations, but that lawful regulations would have

prohibited those conditions and protected Mr. Jurnove from

the injuries that he describes in his affidavit. See id. p 53

("Marc Jurnove has been and continues to be injured by

USDA's failure to issue and implement standards for a physical environment adequate to promote the psychological wellbeing of primates because this harms the nonhuman primates

he sees at the Long Island Game Farm and Zoo which in turn

caused and causes him extreme aesthetic harm and emotional

and physical distress."); id. ("[B]ecause USDA regulations

permit the nonhuman primates in zoos, such as the Long

Island Game Farm and Zoological Park to be housed in

isolation, Marc Jurnove was exposed to and will be exposed in

the future to behaviors exhibited by these animals which

indicate the psychological debilitation caused by social deprivation. Observing these behaviors caused and will cause

Marc Jurnove personal distress and aesthetic and emotional

injury."); id. p 58 ("Marc Jurnove experienced and continues

to experience physical and mental distress when he realizes

that he, by himself, is powerless to help the animals he

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witnesses suffering when such suffering derives from or is

traceable to the improper implementation and enforcement of

the Animal Welfare Act by USDA.").3

C. Procedural History

The United States District Court, Judge Charles R. Richey,

held that the individual plaintiffs had standing to sue, finding

in their favor on a motion for summary judgment. See 943

F. Supp. at 54-57.4 On the merits, the district court held that

9 C.F.R. s 3.81 violates the Administrative Procedure Act

("APA") because it fails to set standards, including minimum

requirements, as mandated by the AWA; that the USDA's

failure to promulgate standards for a physical environment

adequate to promote the psychological well-being of primates

constitutes agency action unlawfully withheld and unreasonably delayed in violation of the APA; and that the USDA's

failure to issue a regulation promoting the social grouping of

nonhuman primates is arbitrary, capricious, and an abuse of

discretion in violation of the APA. See id. at 59-61.

A split panel of this court held that none of the plaintiffs

had standing to sue and accordingly did not reach the merits

of their complaint. See 130 F.3d at 466. This court granted

rehearing in banc, limited to the question of Marc Jurnove's

standing.

__________

3 Although the crux of the plaintiffs' complaint alleges that the

USDA failed to promulgate minimum standards as required by the

AWA, the complaint also states that the USDA has inadequately

enforced even its existing regulations, by allegedly failing to inspect

facilities and by allegedly instructing its inspectors to avoid documenting violations. See First Amended Complaint pp 122-23. As

the district court found, see 943 F. Supp. at 62-64, the USDA's

decisions about whether to undertake enforcement actions are

generally unsuitable for judicial review, see, e.g., Heckler v. Chaney,

470 U.S. 821, 831 (1985). The plaintiffs have not appealed that

judgment to this court.

4 The district court also held that ALDF had standing to sue in

its own capacity on its notice and comment claim, see 943 F. Supp.

at 53-54, and found for ALDF on the merits, see id. at 61-62.

II. Analysis

"The question of standing involves both constitutional limitations on federal-court jurisdiction and prudential limitations

on its exercise." Bennett v. Spear, 117 S. Ct. 1154, 1161

(1997) (citation and quotation marks omitted). To meet the

"case or controversy" requirement of Article III, a plaintiff

must demonstrate: (1) that she has suffered "injury in fact;"

(2) that the injury is "fairly traceable" to the defendant's

actions; and (3) that a favorable judicial ruling will "likely"

redress the plaintiff's injury. Id.; see also Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555, 560-61 (1992). In addition, the

Supreme Court has recognized prudential requirements for

standing, including "that a plaintiff's grievance must arguably

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fall within the zone of interests protected or regulated by the

statutory provision or constitutional guarantee invoked in the

suit." Bennett, 117 S. Ct. at 1161.

We find that Mr. Jurnove's allegations fall well within these

requirements.

A. Injury in Fact

Mr. Jurnove's allegations solidly establish injury in fact.

As his affidavit indicates, Mr. Jurnove "enjoy[s] seeing [animals] in various zoos and other parks near [his] home"

"[b]ecause of [his] familiarity with and love of exotic animals,

as well as for recreational and educational purposes and

because [he] appreciate[s] these animals' beauty." Jurnove

Affidavit p 7. He decided to tour the primate cages at the

Game Farm "in furtherance of [his] appreciation for exotic

animals and [his] desire to observe and enjoy them." Id.

During this tour and the ones that followed, Mr. Jurnove

suffered direct, concrete, and particularized injury to this

aesthetic interest in observing animals living under humane

conditions. At this particular zoo, which he has regularly

visited and plans to keep visiting, he saw particular animals

enduring inhumane treatment. He developed an interest,

moreover, in seeing these particular animals living under

humane treatment. As he explained, "[w]hat I observed [at

the Game Farm] was an assault on my senses and greatly

impaired my ability to observe and enjoy these captive animals." Id. p 17 (emphasis added). "I want to observe, study,

and enjoy these animals in humane conditions." Id. p 43.

Simply put, Mr. Jurnove has alleged far more than an

abstract, and uncognizable, interest in seeing the law enforced. See Allen v. Wright, 468 U.S. 737, 754 (1984) ("This

Court has repeatedly held that an asserted right to have the

Government act in accordance with law is not sufficient,

standing alone, to confer jurisdiction on a federal court.");

Schlesinger v. Reservists Committee to Stop the War, 418

U.S. 208, 223 n.13 (1974) (rejecting standing of plaintiffs who

alleged nothing but "the abstract injury in nonobservance of

the Constitution"); Humane Society v. Hodel, 840 F.2d 45,

51-52 (D.C. Cir. 1988). To the contrary, Mr. Jurnove has

made clear that he has an aesthetic interest in seeing exotic

animals living in a nurturing habitat, and that he has attempted to exercise this interest by repeatedly visiting a particular

animal exhibition to observe particular animals there. This

interest was allegedly injured, however, when Mr. Jurnove

witnessed the actual living conditions of the primates described and named in his affidavit. It is, of course, quite

possible that many other people might visit the same zoo,

observe the same animals there, and suffer similar injuries

upon seeing these animals living under inhumane conditions.

But the fact that many may share an aesthetic interest does

not make it less cognizable, less "distinct and palpable."

Allen, 468 U.S. at 751 (citation and quotation marks omitted);

Clinton v. City of New York, 118 S. Ct. 2091, 2101-02 (1998)

("[It is a] self-evident proposition that more than one party

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may have standing to challenge a particular action or inaction.

Once it is determined that a particular plaintiff is harmed by

the defendant, and that the harm will likely be redressed by a

favorable decision, that plaintiff has standing--regardless of

whether there are others who would also have standing to

sue."); FEC v. Akins, 118 S. Ct. 1777, 1786 (1998) ("Often the

fact that an interest is abstract and the fact that it is widely

shared go hand in hand. But their association is not invariable, and where a harm is concrete, though widely shared, the

Court has found 'injury in fact.' "); United States v. SCRAP,

412 U.S. 669, 688 (1973) ("To deny standing to persons who

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are in fact injured simply because many others are also

injured, would mean that the most injurious and widespread

Government actions could be questioned by nobody."); Sierra

Club v. Morton, 405 U.S. 727, 734 (1972) ("Aesthetic and

environmental well-being, like economic well-being, are important ingredients of the quality of life in our society, and

the fact that particular environmental interests are shared by

the many rather than the few does not make them less

deserving of legal protection through the judicial process.").

The Supreme Court has repeatedly made clear that injury

to an aesthetic interest in the observation of animals is

sufficient to satisfy the demands of Article III standing.

Defenders of Wildlife states explicitly that "the desire to use

or observe an animal species, even for purely esthetic purposes, is undeniably a cognizable interest for purpose of

standing." 504 U.S. at 562-63 (emphasis added). Similarly,

in Japan Whaling Association v. American Cetacean Society,

478 U.S. 221 (1986), the Court found that the plaintiffs had

"undoubtedly ... alleged a sufficient 'injury in fact' in that

the whale watching and studying of their members will be

adversely affected by continued whale harvesting," id. at 231

n.4 (citing Sierra Club v. Morton, 405 U.S. 727 (1972); United

States v. SCRAP, 412 U.S. 669 (1973)); see also Animal

Legal Defense Fund, Inc. v. Espy ("ALDF I"), 23 F.3d 496,

505 (D.C. Cir. 1994) (Williams, J., concurring in part and

dissenting in part) ("Japan Whaling Association and Defenders of Wildlife clearly recognize people's affirmative aesthetic

interest in viewing animals enjoying their natural habitat.").

The key requirement, one that Mr. Jurnove clearly satisfies, is that the plaintiff have suffered his injury in a personal

and individual way--for instance, by seeing with his own eyes

the particular animals whose condition caused him aesthetic

injury. As the Supreme Court noted in Defenders of Wildlife, "[i]t is clear that the person who observes or works with a

particular animal threatened by a federal decision is facing

perceptible harm." 504 U.S. at 566 (emphasis added); see

also id. at 582 & 584 n.2 (Stevens, J., concurring in the

judgment) ("In my opinion a person who has visited the

critical habitat of an endangered species, has a professional

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interest in preserving the species and its habitat, and intends

to revisit them in the future has standing to challenge agency

action that threatens their destruction.... [R]espondents

would not be injured by the challenged projects if they had

not visited the sites or studied the threatened species and

habitat.") (emphasis added); Animal Legal Defense Fund,

Inc. v. Espy ("ALDF II"), 29 F.3d 720, 726 (D.C. Cir. 1994)

(Mikva, C.J., concurring) ("Had the [plaintiffs] challenging

the Secretary's regulations alleged an interest in protecting

the well-being of specific laboratory animals (an interest

predating this litigation), I think [the plaintiffs] would have

had standing to challenge those regulations for providing

insufficient protection to the animals.") (emphasis added);

Didrickson v. United States Dep't of the Interior, 982 F.2d

1332, 1340-41 (9th Cir. 1992) (finding standing where plaintiffs "declared that they have observed, enjoyed and studied

sea otters in specific areas in Alaska.... The [plaintiffs] are

concerned with action harming sea otters in Alaska, where

[they] live and in particular areas that they frequent, unlike

the declarants in Defenders of Wildlife.") (emphasis added);

cf. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U.S. at 567 ("It goes beyond the

limit, however, and into pure speculation and fantasy, to say

that anyone who observes or works with an endangered

species, anywhere in the world, is appreciably harmed by a

single project affecting some portion of that species with

which he has no more specific connection.").

This court's precedent, moreover, specifically recognizes

that people have a cognizable interest in "view[ing] animals

free from ... 'inhumane treatment.' " Humane Society v.

Babbitt, 46 F.3d 93, 99 n.7 (D.C. Cir. 1995) (quoting Animal

Welfare Institute v. Kreps, 561 F.2d 1002, 1007 (D.C. Cir.

1977)); see also ALDF I, 23 F.3d at 505 (Williams, J.,

concurring in part and dissenting in part) ("Our own cases

have indicated a recognition of people's interest in seeing

animals free from inhumane treatment."). In Animal Welfare Institute v. Kreps, 561 F.2d 1002 (D.C. Cir. 1977), the

plaintiff organizations alleged, inter alia, an interest in "enjoy[ing] Cape fur seals alive in their natural habitat under

conditions in which the animals are not subject to ... inhuUSCA Case #97-5074 Document #378885 Filed: 09/01/1998 Page 12 of 55
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mane treatment," id. at 1007 (citation and quotation marks

omitted). This court held that these plaintiffs' aesthetic

interests satisfied the requirements of standing. See id. at

1007-10.5 Similarly, Humane Society v. Hodel found standing based on a complaint "that the existence of hunting on

wildlife refuges forces Society members to witness animal

corpses and environmental degradation, in addition to depleting the supply of animals and birds that refuge visitors seek

to view," 840 F.2d at 52. As this Court noted, "[t]hese are

classic aesthetic interests, which have always enjoyed protection under standing analysis." Id.6

__________

5 The dissent attempts to limit Animal Welfare Institute to

support standing only where the challenged governmental action is

"diminishing the opportunity to observe [the animal], not affecting

the quality of the observation." Dissent at 6. This statement does

not accurately reflect either the injury alleged in Animal Welfare

Institute or this court's holding in that case. In articulating the

nature of their aesthetic injury, the Animal Welfare Institute

plaintiffs alleged an interest in observing Cape fur seals who lived

under "not ... inhumane" conditions, 561 F.2d at 1007--in other

words, an interest in the quality of animal life, rather than the

quantity of animals alive. To be sure, the "inhumane treatment"

that concerned these particular plaintiffs revolved, as the dissent

notes, around the manner in which the seals were being killed. See

id. at 1012-13. But this fact does not reduce the plaintiffs' claim to

one challenging the government only for causing the diminishment

of an animal population. To the contrary, the plaintiffs in Animal

Welfare Institute were alleging aesthetic injury based on how the

Cape fur seals were living and how they were dying; the plaintiffs

did not simply focus on the fact that the seals were, in fact, dying.

Moreover, in holding that the plaintiffs' aesthetic interests would

satisfy the requirements of standing if the plaintiffs could establish

that they were among the injured, this court never distinguished

between the plaintiffs' claims based on the quality of animal life and

those based on the number of animals in existence.

6 Not surprisingly, the dissent also reads Humane Society v.

Hodel to support standing only where the challenged governmental

action has or will deplete the supply of an animal population. See

Dissent at 6. In fact, the case explicitly rejects that reading. The

complaint in Humane Society v. Hodel stated both "that the exisThe Ninth Circuit has similarly recognized an aesthetic

interest in observing animals living under humane conditions.

In Fund for Animals, Inc. v. Lujan, 962 F.2d 1391 (9th Cir.

1992), the plaintiffs alleged aesthetic injuries stemming from

the mistreatment of bison, who were subject to a population

management plan that operated by shooting animals who

strayed outside the boundaries of Yellowstone. In finding

standing, the court observed "that the Fund's members had

standing to sue because of the psychological injury they

suffered from viewing the killing of the bison in Montana.

Mr. Pacelle testified that several Fund members had been

emotionally harmed when they saw bison 'who were just

standing outside the boundary of the park shot and crumbled

[sic] to their feet.' " Id. at 1396 (quoting testimony and citing

Humane Society v. Hodel, 840 F.2d 45 (D.C. Cir. 1988)).7

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__________

tence of hunting on wildlife refuges forces Society members to

witness animal corpses and environmental degradation" (a claim

based on the quality of the aesthetic experience of observing

animals) and that the challenged hunting regulations also "deplet[ed] the supply of animals and birds that refuge visitors seek to

view" (a claim based on the number of animals in existence). 840

F.2d at 42. This court, moreover, clearly recognized both of these

claims, stating: "These are classic aesthetic interests, which have

always enjoyed protection under standing analysis." Id. (emphasis

added).

7 It was suggested, not altogether facetiously, at oral argument

that recognition of an aesthetic interest in observing animals might

be problematic because it could encapsulate the aesthetic interest of

a sadist in seeing animals living under inhumane conditions and the

injury he suffered upon seeing particular animals living in a humane

environment. There is a major difficulty with this argument. The

meaning of "injury in fact" under our constitutional standing test

does not incorporate every conceivable aesthetic interest. To the

contrary, our standing jurisprudence defines injury in fact as "an

invasion of a legally protected interest." Defenders of Wildlife, 504

U.S. at 560 (emphasis added). Thus, if the hypothetical sadist

challenged the regulations at issue here (presumably, for being too

protective of animal welfare), he would not be able to establish

injury in fact because the AWA, the relevant statute, recognizes no

interest in sadism. To the contrary, it requires dealers, exhibitors,

Analogously, the Supreme Court and this circuit have

frequently recognized the injury in fact of plaintiffs who

suffered aesthetic injury stemming from the condition and

quality, or despoliation, of an environmental area that they

used. In Mountain States Legal Foundation, for instance,

the plaintiffs asserted injury flowing from government action

that would allegedly make the Kootenai National Forest more

vulnerable to forest fire. This court found an "aesthetic and

environmental interest[ ] in having such areas free of devastating forest fire ... clearly sufficient for Article III standing." 92 F.3d at 1234. Similarly, in Montgomery Environmental Coalition v. Costle, 646 F.2d 568 (D.C. Cir. 1980), the

plaintiffs challenged the Environmental Protection Agency's

__________

and research facilities to treat animals humanely. See 7 U.S.C.

s 2143. This sadist would also find his claim immediately excluded

under the APA, which only grants standing to people "adversely

affected or aggrieved by agency action within the meaning of a

relevant statute." 5 U.S.C. s 702 (1994) (emphasis added); see also

Clarke v. Securities Indus. Ass'n, 479 U.S. 388, 394 (1987); Association of Data Processing Serv. Orgs., Inc. v. Camp, 397 U.S. 150,

153-54 (1970); ALDF II, 29 F.3d at 723; ALDF I, 23 F.3d at 499.

The dissent attempts further to build on the suggestion put forth

at oral argument that no one should be able to establish constitutional standing based on an aesthetic interest in observing animals

living under humane conditions because definitions of what is

"humane" may differ so widely. See Dissent at 6-7. But the

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dissent, again, forgets that not every aesthetic interest can form the

basis for a lawsuit; our injury-in-fact test protects only those

aesthetic interests that have been "legally protected." 504 U.S. at

560. At its heart, the dissent's complaint may reflect a fear that the

AWA does not do enough to define what it means by "humane,"

although the statute does indicate, in its sections focusing on animal

research, a particular concern with minimizing "animal pain and

distress." See, e.g., 7 U.S.C. s 2143(a)(3)(A). Yet "humane" does

convey a basic meaning of compassion, sympathy, and consideration

for animals' health, safety, and well-being, and it is not that unusual

for this court to apply relatively broad statutory language to

particular claims by looking to the normal usage of words, even

when different people may disagree as to their application to a

variety of factual situations.

("EPA's") regulation of "two sewage treatment plants that

discharge pollutants into the Potomac River and its tributaries," id. at 573. They "profess[ed] an interest in the preservation and enhancement of the natural environment situated

along the Potomac estuary," id. at 576, and alleged that the

EPA had issued "permits too lax to protect the water quality

of the Potomac," id. at 573. This court found standing. See

id. at 578. Committee for Auto Responsibility v. Solomon,

603 F.2d 992 (D.C. Cir. 1979) (per curiam), involved "a

challenge to the leasing by the General Services Administration (GSA) of the Great Plaza area of the Federal Triangle in

Washington, D.C., for use as a parking facility for employees

of federal agencies," id. at 996. Plaintiffs, "two organizations

whose purposes include improvement of the quality of the

environment, together with three individuals who live and

attend school in the District of Columbia," id. at 997, successfully established injury in fact based on allegations that they

were "affected by noise, air pollution and congestion from

vehicles utilizing the Great Plaza parking lot," id. at 998. In

Lujan v. National Wildlife Federation, 497 U.S. 871 (1990),

the plaintiffs challenged federal action that allegedly "threaten[ed] the aesthetic beauty and wildlife habitat potential" of

the South Pass-Green Mountain area of Wyoming, id. at 886

(citation and quotation marks omitted). The Supreme Court

stated that it had "no doubt" that this threat could constitute

aesthetic injury under Article III, noting that "[t]he only

issue" was whether the individual plaintiffs in the case had

established that their interests "were actually affected." Id.;

see also id. at 901 n.2 (Blackmun, J., dissenting) (arguing that

plaintiffs had established their standing and observing that

"[a Bureau of Land Management] Mineral Report issued

June 17, 1982, concluded that mining and associated activities

'could have an adverse impact on crucial moose habitat, deer

habitat, some elk habitat, and a variety of small game and

bird species. Improvements at campgrounds, as well as land

in the immediate vicinity, could either be damaged or destroyed.' ") (citation omitted).

Indeed, Humane Society v. Hodel, which recognized an

aesthetic interest in seeing animals living under humane

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conditions, explicitly acknowledged the usefulness of analogizing such an aesthetic interest to a plaintiff's interest in the

condition of an environmental area that he uses. That case

drew on our opinion in National Wildlife Federation v.

Hodel, 839 F.2d 694 (D.C. Cir. 1988), which held that a

wildlife organization had standing to challenge regulations

that allegedly threatened to degrade the environment, see id.

at 703-16. The Humane Society court noted that the two

cases involved "strikingly analogous" injuries, explaining:

"There the National Wildlife Federation's standing rested in

part on the aesthetic injuries to those members who complained of viewing degraded landscapes, and here the Humane Society's standing similarly rests on the aesthetic injuries to members who complain of viewing the despoliation of

animals." 840 F.2d at 52 (citations omitted).

In the environmental context, too, however, plaintiffs must

establish that they have actually used or plan to use the

allegedly degraded environmental area in question. It is this

failure to show such direct use that has resulted in the denial

of standing in several high-profile environmental cases. For

instance, the injury alleged in Sierra Club v. Morton would

have been "incurred entirely by reason of the change in the

uses to which Mineral King [Valley] will be put, and the

attendant change in the aesthetics and ecology of the area."

405 U.S. at 734. Specifically, the Sierra Club alleged that the

challenged development of the Valley " 'would destroy or

otherwise adversely affect the scenery, natural and historic

objects and wildlife of the park and would impair the enjoyment of the park for future generations.' " Id. (emphasis

added).8 The Supreme Court "[did] not question that this

type of harm may amount to an 'injury in fact' sufficient to

lay the basis for standing under s 10 of the APA." Id.

However, having found "a cognizable interest," the Court held

that the Sierra Club had not established that its members

__________

8 The Mineral King Valley "is designated as a national game

refuge by special Act of Congress." 405 U.S. at 728. The Sierra

Club alleged, inter alia, "that various aspects of the proposed

development contravene federal laws and regulations governing the

preservation of ... game refuges." Id. at 730.

were "among the injured." Id. at 734-35. As the Court

explained, "[t]he impact of the proposed changes in the

environment of Mineral King will not fall indiscriminately

upon every citizen. The alleged injury will be felt directly

only by those who use Mineral King and Sequoia National

Park, and for whom the aesthetic and recreational values of

the area will be lessened by the highway and ski resort." Id.

at 735 (emphasis added). "The Sierra Club failed to allege

that it or its members would be affected in any of their

activities or pastimes by the Disney development. Nowhere

in the pleadings or affidavits did the Club state that its

members use Mineral King for any purpose, much less that

they use it in any way that would be significantly affected by

the proposed actions of the respondents." Id.

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Similarly, the plaintiffs in Lujan v. National Wildlife Federation lacked standing because their affidavits "state[d] only

that one of [the Federation's] members use[d] unspecified

portions of an immense tract of territory, on some portions of

which mining activity has occurred or probably will occur by

virtue of the governmental action," rather than making clear

that a plaintiff used the smaller area of land that was

allegedly threatened. 497 U.S. at 889. In contrast, a plaintiff

in Mountain States Legal Foundation, who established injury in fact based on aesthetic injury, stated "that he use[d] the

forest [in question] for, inter alia, hiking, hunting, camping,

fishing, observing wildlife, finding solitude, and picking berries." 92 F.3d at 1234 (citations omitted). The plaintiffs in

Committee for Auto Responsibility, who also successfully

established their injury in fact, "claim[ed] that they or their

members live in or near the District of Columbia and regularly travel to educational, cultural and recreational facilities

within the immediate vicinity of the Great Plaza [parking

lot]." 603 F.2d at 998; see also Montgomery Environmental

Coalition, 646 F.2d at 578 ("[The Coalition's] members include residents of Maryland, Virginia, and the District of

Columbia, by whose shores the Potomac River flows. We

may take judicial notice of the fact that that river can be seen

and smelt from those shores, and even that, as an important

source of drinking water, it can be tasted.... Petitioners'

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members are users of the Potomac River, and their standing

to challenge the Blue Plains and Seneca permits is clear.").

Other circuits have also recognized injury in fact based on

injury to a plaintiff's interest in the quality and condition of

an environmental area that he used. In Public Interest

Research Group v. Powell Duffryn Terminals, Inc., 913 F.2d

64 (3d Cir. 1990), the Research Group's members "resided in

the vicinity of or owned property on or near the Kill Van Kull,

or recreated on or near the Kill Van Kull," id. at 71. They

successfully "claimed injury to their aesthetic and recreational interests because the Kill Van Kull [was] polluted." Id.

One member alleged that he "was particularly offended by

the brown color and bad odor of the water. He stated that he

would birdwatch more frequently and enjoy his recreation on

the Kill Van Kull more if the water were cleaner." Id. In

Sierra Club v. Simkins Industries, Inc., 847 F.2d 1109 (4th

Cir. 1988), the "Sierra Club submitted the affidavit of member John Railey attesting to his interest, as one regularly

using and enjoying the Patapsco River and surrounding land,

in preserving the environmental integrity of the river," id. at

1112. Mr. Railey established Article III injury based on an

affidavit alleging that:

" 'My interest, use or enjoyment of the Patapsco River

and surrounding area includes preserving the health,

safety and welfare of the river basin, preserving marine

life and water integrity within the river, and eliminating

odorous and unsightly illegal pollution. I regularly hike

along the river. My activities and interests with respect

to the Patapsco River have been adversely affected physically, aesthetically and emotionally by Simkin's [sic]

Industries' failure to comply with its NPDES permit and

resulting illegal pollution.' "

Id. at 1112 n.3 & 1113 (citation omitted). Friends of the

Earth v. Consolidated Rail Corp., 768 F.2d 57 (2d Cir. 1985),

recognized injury in fact based on the pollution of "Conrail's

A.E. Perlman Yard in Selkirk, New York (Selkirk Yard), a

diesel locomotive repair and refueling facility, which discharges treated wastes from its operations through point sources

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into the Hudson River and South Albany Creek," id. at 59,

where the individual plaintiffs used the Hudson River and

lived near its shores, see id. at 61; see also Save Our

Community v. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, 971

F.2d 1155, 1157, 1161 (5th Cir. 1992) (per curiam) (finding

injury in fact where plaintiff alleged aesthetic injury stemming from "the draining of several ponds on the site of a

proposed expansion of a 73-acre landfill"); United States v.

Metropolitan St. Louis Sewer District, 883 F.2d 54, 56 (8th

Cir. 1989) ("Missouri Coalition and two of its named members

allege that many of the 25,000 members visit, cross, and

frequently observe the bodies of water identified in the

United States' complaint and that from time to time these

members use these waters for recreational purposes. They

also allege that these interests are adversely affected by the

pollution of these waters. These allegations are sufficient to

give the Coalition and its members constitutional standing...."); Chesapeake Bay Found. v. American Recovery

Co., 769 F.2d 207, 209 (4th Cir. 1985) (per curiam) ("[P]laintiffs here ... allege that their members resided in the vicinity

of the affected waters and that those members 'recreate in,

on or near, or otherwise use and enjoy' those waters.").

These myriad cases recognizing individual plaintiffs' injury

in fact based on affronts to their aesthetic interests in observing animals living in humane habitats, or in using pristine

environmental areas that have not been despoiled, articulate a

second principle of standing. It has never been the law, and

is not so today, that injury in fact requires the elimination (or

threatened elimination) of either the animal species or environmental feature in question. In Sierra Club v. Morton, the

Sierra Club did not allege that the Mineral King Valley would

disappear in the wake of the challenged development, or that

the desecration of the Valley would leave the Club's members

with no other, pristine parks that they could conveniently use.

See 405 U.S. at 734. Yet the Supreme Court held that

plaintiffs could establish injury in fact based on a decline in

the quality and condition of one environmental area that they

did use. See id.

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To be sure, a number of cases that have recognized standing based on an aesthetic interest in the observation of

animals have involved government action that allegedly

threatened to diminish the overall supply of an animal species. See Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U.S. at 562; Japan

Whaling Ass'n, 478 U.S. at 231 n.4. But there is no case that

we know of establishing that the elimination of a species or

even the deaths of particular animals is an indispensable

element of the plaintiffs' aesthetic injury, and we see no

reason to import such a requirement into our standing doctrine so late in the day. Indeed, the standing cases that do

stress the threat of diminished animal populations were those

brought under conservation statutes whose mission is to

preserve the number of animals in existence. See Defenders

of Wildlife, 504 U.S. at 558 ("[The Endangered Species Act]

seeks to protect species of animals against threats to their

continuing existence caused by man."); Japan Whaling

Ass'n, 478 U.S. at 225 ("Because of the [International Whaling Commission's] inability to enforce its own quota and in an

effort to promote enforcement of quotas set by other international fishery conservation programs, Congress passed the

Pelly Amendment to the Fisherman's Protective Act of 1967.

Principally intended to preserve and protect North American

Atlantic salmon from depletion by Danish fisherman in violation of the ban imposed by the International Convention for

the Northwest Atlantic Fisheries, the Amendment protected

whales as well."). It is not surprising, then, that the plaintiffs

who brought suit to allege violations of these statutes would

emphasize that the challenged agency action threatened to

diminish the supply of an animal species, in contravention of

the express purpose of those conservation statutes. In contrast, the Animal Welfare Act, with which we deal here, is

explicitly concerned with the quality of animal life, rather

than the number of animals in existence. It seeks "to promote the psychological well-being of primates." Pub. L. No.

99-198, s 1752, 99 Stat. 1354, 1645 (1985) (codified at 7 U.S.C.

s 2143(a) (1994)) (emphasis added). Quite naturally, suits

alleging violations of this statute will focus on the conditions

under which animals live. Cf. ALDF II, 29 F.3d at 722 ("The

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primary purpose of the [Federal Laboratory Animal Welfare]

Act is to ensure the humane care and treatment of various

animals used in research or for exhibition or kept as pets. 7

U.S.C. s 2131. To this end, the Act requires, inter alia, that

the Secretary of Agriculture 'promulgate standards to govern

the humane handling, care, treatment, and transportation of

animals by dealers, research facilities, and exhibitors.' Id.

s 2143(a)(1)."). Along these lines, this court has already

noted in Animal Welfare Institute, which recognized injury in

fact based on an aesthetic interest in seeing animals living

under humane conditions, that "[w]here an act is expressly

motivated by considerations of humaneness toward animals,

who are uniquely incapable of defending their own interests

in court, it strikes us as eminently logical to allow groups

specifically concerned with animal welfare to invoke the aid of

the courts in enforcing the statute." 561 F.2d at 1007.

Moreover, and perhaps more importantly, it does not make

sense, as a matter of logic, to suppose that people suffer

aesthetic injury from government action that threatens to

wipe out an animal species altogether, and not from government action that leaves some animals in a persistent state of

suffering. To the contrary, the latter seems capable of

causing more serious aesthetic injury than the former.

Mr. Jurnove has adequately alleged injury to an aesthetic

interest in observing animals living under humane conditions.

His affidavit describes both the animal exhibition that he

regularly visits, and the specific animals there whose condition caused Mr. Jurnove injury. It requires no expansion of

existing standing doctrine to find that he has established a

cognizable injury in fact.

B. Causation

Plaintiffs allege that the AWA, 7 U.S.C. s 2143, requires

the USDA to adopt explicit minimum standards to govern the

humane treatment of primates, and that the agency did not

do so. See First Amended Complaint WW 97, 106, 107. They

further contend that the conditions that caused Mr. Jurnove

injury complied with current USDA regulations, but that

lawful regulations would have prohibited those conditions and

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protected Mr. Jurnove from the injuries that his affidavit

describes. See id. pp 53, 58. We find that these allegations

satisfy the causation prong of Article III standing.

As Mr. Jurnove's affidavit elaborates, he allegedly suffered

aesthetic injury upon observing conditions that the present

USDA regulations permit. Mr. Jurnove, for instance, "saw a

large male chimpanzee named Barney in a holding area by

himself. He could not see or hear any other primate."

Jurnove Affidavit p 8. Mr. Jurnove also "viewed a monkey

cage [containing one Japanese Snow Macaque] that was a

distance from and not in view of the other primate cages."

Id. p 14. As the plaintiffs observe, see First Amended Complaint pp 84, 95, 114-17, the housing of these two primates

appears to be compatible with current regulations, which

state only that "[t]he environment enhancement plan must

include specific provisions to address the social needs of

nonhuman primates of species known to exist in social groups

in nature. Such specific provisions must be in accordance

with currently accepted professional standards, as cited in

appropriate professional journals or reference guides, and as

directed by the attending veterinarian." 9 C.F.R. s 3.81(a)

(emphasis added). Thus, an exhibition may apparently comply with the procedural requirement that this standard creates--by establishing a plan that "address[es]" the social

needs of primates--and still leave a primate caged singly.

Similarly, 9 C.F.R. s 3.81(a)(3) provides that "[i]ndividually

housed nonhuman primates must be able to see and hear

nonhuman primates of their own or compatible species unless

the attending veterinarian determines that it would endanger

their health, safety, or well-being." Here again, the regulation is structured so that an exhibitor that secured the

approval of the veterinarian in its employ could comply with

the regulation without actually housing nonhuman primates

within the sight or sound of other primates. Contrary to the

dissent, see Dissent at 13-14, plaintiffs do not suggest that

the regulation is flawed simply because it leaves room for

bribery in securing a veterinarian's consent to an exception;

rather, they contend that the regulation gives exhibitors too

much leeway to shop around for a compliant veterinarian and

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that placing such broad and unguarded discretion in the

hands of the veterinarian in an exhibitor's own employ is an

insufficient safeguard to protect primate well-being. Whatever the ultimate merits of the plaintiffs' case, they most

definitely assert that the AWA requires minimum standards

to prohibit or more rigidly restrict the occasions on which

such allegedly inhumane treatment can occur.

Mr. Jurnove's affidavit also states that "[t]he pen next to

the adult bears housed the squirrel monkeys.... I observed

the monkeys repeatedly walking over to the door and sniffing

and acting very upset when the bears came near." Jurnove

Affidavit p 11. Plaintiffs allege that the current regulations

permit the housing of incompatible species next to each other.

See First Amended Complaint pp 46-47. Specifically, these

regulations state that "[n]onhuman primates may not be

housed with other species of primates or animals unless they

are compatible." 9 C.F.R. s 3.81(a)(3) (emphasis added).

This provision does not expressly regulate animals housed

next to each other, but in separate cages. But even if section

3.81(a)(3) does apply to the situation that Mr. Jurnove observed, it includes the caveat that "[c]ompatibility of nonhuman primates must be determined in accordance with generally accepted professional practices and actual observations,

as directed by the attending veterinarian," thus again permitting wide discretion on the part of the local veterinarian.

Similarly, Mr. Jurnove's affidavit observes that "[t]he only

cage enrichment device [a Japanese Snow Macaque] had was

an unused swing." Jurnove Affidavit p 14. The plaintiffs

allege that such a situation is perfectly legal under the

present regulations, see First Amended Complaint p 84, which

provide only that "[t]he physical environment in the primary

enclosures must be enriched by providing means of expressing noninjurious species-typical activities." 9 C.F.R.

s 3.81(b). The regulations do not include any specific requirements governing the particular kind or number of enrichment devices. According to the plaintiffs, providing only

a single swing, and one that the primate appears to shun,

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offends the AWA's mandate for minimum standards, although

it is perfectly compatible with 9 C.F.R. s 3.81(b).9

The USDA's own actions in this case further support the

plaintiffs' allegation that the agency's current regulations

allow the conditions that allegedly caused Mr. Jurnove injury.

As Mr. Jurnove's affidavit makes clear, the Game Farm has

repeatedly submitted to inspection by the USDA. The allegedly inhumane conditions at the Game Farm have persisted

precisely because the USDA inspectors have concluded on the

basis of these visits that in every important aspect the

conditions at the Game Farm comply with the USDA regulations. If the USDA had found the Game Farm out of

compliance with current regulations, or if the governing regulations had themselves been more stringent, the Game Farm's

owners would have been forced (in order to remain in accord

with the law) to either alter their practices or go out of

business and transfer their animals to exhibitors willing to

operate legally; either scenario would protect Mr. Jurnove's

aesthetic interest in observing animals living under humane

conditions. Instead, however, the USDA has not questioned

the legality of the Game Farm's plan since 1992. Since May

1995, when Mr. Jurnove began visiting the Game Farm and

__________

9 The United States argues that Mr. Jurnove has not demonstrated causation, on the ground that the above-described injuries

are self-inflicted. The assertion appears to turn on the fact that

Mr. Jurnove first traveled to the Game Farm "in [his] capacity as

an equine investigator, [after being] apprised that several ponies

needed to be checked on at that location." Jurnove Affidavit p 7.

This argument may--or may not--have merit with regard to equine

mistreatment at the Game Farm. However, there is no need in this

case to offer any opinion about whether so-called "self-inflicted"

wounds can give rise to standing. According to Mr. Jurnove's

uncontested affidavit, he visited the primates at the Game Farm,

the subject of the present suit, out of an aesthetic interest in

observing animals living under humane conditions. See id. ("Once

[Mr. Jurnove] was there [at the Game Farm]," he decided "to look

around at the other animals housed there" "in furtherance of [his]

appreciation for exotic animals and [his] desire to observe and enjoy

them.").

complaining to the agency, the USDA inspectors have examined, and largely approved, the actual conditions at the facility at least four times. The USDA's first inspection report

"states that [the USDA inspectors] found the facility in

compliance with all the standards." Jurnove Affidavit p 18.

Although subsequent inspection reports identify a few conditions that Mr. Jurnove agrees violate the USDA regulations,

the USDA continued--in at least three more inspection reports--to conclude that the Game Farm was in compliance

with existing USDA regulations in all other respects, including presumably the existence of a plan that met the regulations' standards.10

Supreme Court precedent establishes that the causation

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tiff demonstrates that the challenged agency action authorizes

the conduct that allegedly caused the plaintiff's injuries, if

__________

10 The dissent makes much of the fact that Mr. Jurnove occasionally expresses doubt in his affidavit about the soundness of the

USDA's multiple determinations that the Game Farm was in compliance with essentially all of the relevant regulations, contending

that "the thrust of the affidavit" is that "the USDA went through

the motions and wrote up incorrect reports." Dissent at 12. This

argument is flawed on two counts. First, Mr. Jurnove's affidavit is

the wrong place to look for a statement of the plaintiffs' legal theory

of this case. Mr. Jurnove is not a lawyer and his affidavit purports

to articulate only his alleged injuries. The plaintiffs' legal arguments are put forth in their complaint, where they explicitly allege

that the conditions at the Game Farm that caused Mr. Jurnove

injury complied with the present USDA regulations. See First

Amended Complaint pp 53, 58. Second, even if we were to look to

Mr. Jurnove's affidavit to determine the plaintiffs' legal theory, the

"thrust of the affidavit" is certainly not that the conditions at the

Game Farm violated the USDA's regulations. Indeed, so far as the

record before us reflects, no decisionmaking authority has ever

made the determination that there are widespread regulatory violations at the Game Farm. And the USDA, the agency with regulatory control over the Game Farm, repeatedly came to the opposite

conclusion, finding that the Game Farm was in legal compliance

with the USDA regulations that the plaintiffs challenge here.

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that conduct would allegedly be illegal otherwise. For instance, Simon v. Eastern Kentucky Welfare Rights Organization, 426 U.S. 26 (1976), stated in describing earlier cases

that:

The complaint in [Association of ] Data Processing [Service Organizations, Inc. v. Camp, 397 U.S. 150 (1970),]

alleged injury that was directly traceable to the action of

the defendant federal official, for it complained of injurious competition that would have been illegal without that

action. Accord, Arnold Tours, Inc. v. Camp, 400 U.S. 45

(1970); Investment Co. Institute v. Camp, 401 U.S. 617,

620-621 (1971). Similarly, the complaint in Data Processing's companion case of Barlow v. Collins, 397 U.S.

159 (1970), was sufficient because it alleged extortionate

demands by plaintiffs' landlord made possible only by the

challenged action of the defendant federal official. See

id., at 162-163.

Id. at 45 n.25. Japan Whaling Association, in turn, recognized the standing of plaintiffs who claimed aesthetic injury

(there, injury to their interest in whale watching) based on

the government's failure to adequately regulate a third party

(there, the United States's failure to certify that the Japanese

whaling industry was exceeding its quota under international

law). See 478 U.S. at 231 n.4.

This circuit's case law confirms the proposition that a

plaintiff satisfies the causation prong of constitutional standing by establishing that the challenged agency rule permitted

the activity that allegedly injured her, when that activity

would allegedly have been illegal otherwise. Louisiana Energy and Power Authority ("LEPA") v. FERC, 141 F.3d 364

(D.C. Cir. 1998), for instance, involved LEPA's challenge to a

FERC decision that allowed one of LEPA's competitors to

sell electric energy at unregulated rates, thus allegedly freeing this competitor "to use predatory pricing to lure away

LEPA's customers," id. at 366. In holding that LEPA had

standing to sue, this court first noted that " 'petitioners

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tions.' " Id. at 367 (quoting Associated Gas Distributors v.

FERC, 899 F.2d 1250, 1259 (D.C. Cir. 1990)). It went on to

elaborate that "[a] party need not prove that the agency

action it attacks is unlawful ... in order to have standing to

level that attack. As we said in Claybrook v. Slater, 111 F.3d

904, 907 (D.C. Cir. 1997), '[w]hether a plaintiff has a legally

protected interest (and thus standing) does not depend on

whether he can demonstrate that he will succeed on the

merits.' " Id. at 368. Similarly, Telephone and Data Systems, Inc. v. FCC, 19 F.3d 42 (D.C. Cir. 1994), recently

explained that "one narrow proposition at least is clear:

injurious private conduct is fairly traceable to the administrative action contested in the suit if that action authorized the

conduct or established its legality," id. at 47. International

Ladies' Garment Workers' Union v. Donovan, 722 F.2d 795

(D.C. Cir. 1983), also held that the appellants had established

their standing to sue because "the relief sought by appellants

would make the injurious conduct of third parties complained

of in this case illegal; only by taking extraordinary measures--i.e., violating the law or starting new businesses overseas--could third parties prevent redress of the appellants'

injuries," id. at 811; see also National Wildlife Federation v.

Hodel, 839 F.2d at 705 ("[M]ere indirectness of causation is

no barrier to standing, and thus, an injury worked on one

party by another through a third party intermediary may

suffice.... It is well settled that a plaintiff has standing to

challenge conduct that indirectly results in injury.... We

are concerned here not with the length of the chain of

causation, but on [sic] the plausibility of each of the links that

comprise the chain.") (citations and quotation marks omitted).

A question was raised at oral argument about whether Mr.

Jurnove has nonetheless failed to satisfy the causation prong

of constitutional standing, on the ground that the governing

law simply permits the conditions that allegedly injured him,

rather than requiring animal exhibitors to follow the allegedly

inhumane practices. The background condition governing

animal exhibitors, this argument proceeds, is that anything

the exhibitors do is legal unless statutes and regulations make

specific conduct illegal. Because neither the AWA nor the

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USDA's implementing regulations have changed this status

quo--i.e., in no way have they affected the conditions that

allegedly injured Mr. Jurnove--there is no causal link between any government action and Mr. Jurnove's injury.

This argument, however, is founded on a false premise.

The proper comparison for determining causation is not between what the agency did and the status quo before the

agency acted. Rather, the proper comparison is between

what the agency did and what the plaintiffs allege the agency

should have done under the statute. The plaintiffs' legal

theory of this case, which we accept for purposes of determining Mr. Jurnove's standing, is grounded on their view that

animal exhibitors are in fact governed by a mandatory legal

regime. Specifically, the plaintiffs allege that the AWA requires the USDA to establish specific, mandatory requirements that establish humane living conditions for animals.

See 7 U.S.C. s 2143(a) (1994) (directing the Secretary of

Agriculture to "promulgate standards to govern the humane

handling, care, treatment, and transportation of animals by

dealers, research facilities, and exhibitors" and providing that

these standards "shall include minimum requirements" for

"a physical environment adequate to promote the psychological well-being of primates") (emphasis added). According to

this view, the AWA itself prohibits the conditions that allegedly injured Mr. Jurnove, and the USDA regulations misinterpret the statute by permitting these conditions. See First

Amended Complaint pp 53, 57, 97, 106, 107. Both the Supreme Court and this circuit have repeatedly found causation

where a challenged government action permitted the third

party conduct that allegedly caused a plaintiff injury, when

that conduct would have otherwise been illegal. Neither

court has ever stated that the challenged law must compel the

third party to act in the allegedly injurious way. In Investment Co. Institute v. Camp, 401 U.S. 617 (1971), for instance,

investment companies had standing to challenge a regulation

from the Comptroller of the Currency that "authorize[d],"

but did not require, "banks to establish and operate collective

investment funds," id. at 618-19 (emphasis added). In Arnold Tours, Inc. v. Camp, 400 U.S. 45 (1970) (per curiam),

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independent travel agents had standing to contest "a ruling

by the Comptroller that, incidental to their banking services,

national banks may provide travel services for their customers," id. at 45 (emphasis added). Barlow v. Collins, 397 U.S.

159 (1970), involved plaintiffs who were allegedly "suffering

irreparable injury under the [challenged] regulation because

it provide[d] their landlord 'with the opportunity to demand

that [they] and all those similarly situated assign the [upland

cotton program] benefits in advance as a condition to obtaining a lease to work the land,' " id. at 163 (emphasis added).

In Association of Data Processing Service Organizations,

Inc. v. Camp, 397 U.S. 150 (1970), data processing service

organizations had standing to challenge a regulation providing that "national banks ... may make data processing

services available to other banks and to bank customers," id.

at 151 (emphasis added).

In this circuit, Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. v. Shalala, 91

F.3d 1493 (D.C. Cir. 1996), explicitly rejected the distinction

between permissive and mandatory government regulation.

There, the plaintiff challenged the legality of Food and Drug

Administration ("FDA") regulations governing the approval

of new generic drugs. This court found that Bristol-Myers

Squibb ("BMS") had standing to sue, on the ground that "[i]f

BMS is correct [about its claim that the FDA's regulations

violate the governing statute], then it is no answer to say that

the FDA is merely permitting a competitive product to enter

the market and leaving the purchasing decision to the consumer. See Telephone and Data Systems, Inc. v. FCC, 19

F.3d 42, 47 (D.C. Cir. 1994) ('injurious private conduct is

fairly traceable to the administrative action contested in the

suit if that action authorized the conduct or established its

legality')." Id. at 1499 (emphasis added). The dissent seeks

to distinguish Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. from the present

case on the ground that, in the earlier case, the FDA had

authorized the distribution of a drug under a legal regime in

which no new drug could be marketed without such government approval. See Dissent at 15. In other words, BristolMyers Squibb Co. involved a situation in which private action

that was once regulated loosely, or not at all, by the federal

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government, was now prohibited unless specifically permitted.

The plaintiff in Bristol-Meyers Squibb Co. claimed that the

FDA's exercise of its authorization authority in that instance

violated its statutory mandate. See 91 F.3d at 1494-95. The

dissent has provided no sound grounds for distinguishing the

present case. Under the plaintiffs' legal theory in this case,

which we accept for purposes of determining their standing to

sue, the AWA itself prohibits the allegedly inhumane conditions that injured Mr. Jurnove; the regulatory backdrop for

the plaintiffs' claim is that all private exhibitions that involve

inhumane treatment of animals are already illegal by statute.

Thus here, the plaintiffs are also contending that the USDA's

decision to permit the conditions that allegedly injured Mr.

Jurnove violated the agency's statutory mandate.

Motor & Equipment Manufacturers Association

("MEMA") v. Nichols, 142 F.3d 449 (D.C. Cir. 1998), involved

a challenge to EPA regulations governing on-board emissions

diagnostic devices ("OBDs"). These regulations provided

that any car manufacturer who complied with California's

stricter OBD requirements would be " 'deemed-to-comply' "

with the federal government's OBD requirements. Id. at 452.

The manufacture of cars meeting California's OBD standards

was likely to injure the petitioners (who manufacture, rebuild,

and sell spare parts) financially, but the EPA argued that its

regulation had not caused this injury because the "deemed-tocomply" policy did not compel auto manufacturers to comply

with California's OBD regulations, but simply permitted them

to do so. See id. at 457. This court rejected that argument,

pointing out the incentives that car manufacturers have to

take the "deemed-to-comply" route, which allows them to

"make one kind of each car they sell instead of two kinds, one

of which would be for sale in states that follow California's

OBD regulations, and the other for sale in states that follow

federal OBD regulations." Id. We found causation, in other

words, although the government regulation allowed, rather

than required, the allegedly injurious third-party conduct, and

we also recognized the incentives that third parties often have

to minimize their expenditure of money and effort. Some

animal exhibitors have similar incentives, of course, to comply

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with the bare requirements of the governing USDA regulations without exceeding them in any potentially expensive or

time-consuming way.

Along the same lines, the plaintiffs in Telephone and Data

Systems, Inc. had standing to challenge the FCC's grant of "a

conditional permit" that allowed a competitor "to construct

and operate cellular communications services in the Atlantic

City market," but did not require him to do so. 19 F.3d at

44. Similarly, the plaintiffs in International Ladies' Garment

Workers' Union had standing to challenge a Labor Department regulation that permitted the employment of people

working in their homes in the knitted outerwear industry, but

did not require manufacturers to employ these workers. See

722 F.2d at 799.

Mr. Jurnove's affidavit accordingly falls well within our

established causation requirement for constitutional standing.

He alleges that the USDA failed to adopt the specific, minimum standards that the AWA requires. He further describes how the conditions that caused him injury complied

with current USDA regulations, and alleges that regulations

complying with the AWA would have prohibited those conditions and protected him from the injuries that his affidavit

recounts.

C. Redressibility

We also find that Mr. Jurnove has satisfied the redressibility element of constitutional standing. Mr. Jurnove's affidavit

alleges that he has a current routine of regularly visiting the

Game Farm and provides a finite time period within which he

will make his next visit, stating that he plans to "return to the

Farm in the next several weeks" and to "continue visiting the

Farm to see the animals there." Jurnove Affidavit p 43. As

the plaintiffs' complaint argues, more stringent regulations,

which prohibit the inhumane conditions that have consistently

caused Mr. Jurnove aesthetic injury in the past, would necessarily alleviate Mr. Jurnove's aesthetic injury during his

planned, future trips to the Game Farm. See First Amended

Complaint WW 53, 58. Tougher regulations would either allow

Mr. Jurnove to visit a more humane Game Farm or, if the

Game Farm's owners decide to close rather than comply with

higher legal standards, to possibly visit the animals he has

come to know in their new homes within exhibitions that

comply with the more exacting regulations.

The Supreme Court's recent decision in FEC v. Akins,

moreover, rejects the possible counterargument that the redressibility element of constitutional standing requires a

plaintiff to establish that the defendant agency will actually

enforce any new binding regulations against the regulated

third party. There, the plaintiffs, "a group of voters with

views often opposed to those of AIPAC [the American Israel

Public Affairs Committee]," sought to have AIPAC classified

as a "political committee" within the meaning of the Federal

Election Campaign Act ("FECA"), which "imposes extensive

recordkeeping and disclosure requirements upon groups that

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fall within the Act's definition of a 'political committee.' " 118

S. Ct. at 1781-82. The FEC argued that these plaintiffs had

not established either causation or redressibility, on the

ground that, even if the Commission had accepted the plaintiffs' interpretation of FECA, "it is possible that ... [the

FEC] would still have decided in the exercise of its discretion

not to require AIPAC to produce the information." Id. at

1786. The Supreme Court soundly rejected this argument,

noting:

that fact does not destroy Article III 'causation' [or

redressibility,] for we cannot know that the FEC would

have exercised its prosecutorial discretion in this way.

Agencies often have discretion about whether or not to

take a particular action. Yet those adversely affected by

a discretionary agency decision generally have standing

to complain that the agency based its decision upon an

improper legal ground. If a reviewing court agrees that

the agency misinterpreted the law, it will set aside the

agency's action and remand the case--even though the

agency (like a new jury after a mistrial) might later, in

the exercise of its lawful discretion, reach the same result

for a different reason.

Id. (citations omitted).

Mr. Jurnove, accordingly, has met all three of the constitutional requirements for standing.

D. Prudential Standing/Zone of Interests

Mr. Jurnove also falls within the zone of interests protected

under the AWA's provisions on animal exhibitions. As the

Supreme Court has recently reaffirmed, the zone of interests

test is generous and relatively undemanding. "[T]here need

be no indication of congressional purpose to benefit the

would-be plaintiff." National Credit Union Admin. v. First

National Bank & Trust Co., 118 S. Ct. 927, 934 (1998)

(citation and quotation marks omitted). Instead, the test, a

gloss on APA s 10(a), 5 U.S.C. s 702 (1994), asks only

"whether the interest sought to be protected by the complainant is arguably within the zone of interests to be protected by

the statute," National Credit Union Admin., 118 S. Ct. at 935

(citation, internal quotation marks, and alteration omitted);

see also Akins, 118 S. Ct. at 1783 ("[P]rudential standing is

satisfied when the injury asserted by a plaintiff arguably falls

within the zone of interests to be protected or regulated by

the statute in question.") (citation, internal quotation marks,

and alterations omitted). Our circuit has further explained

that "[t]his analysis focuses, not on those who Congress

intended to benefit, but on those who in practice can be

expected to police the interests that the statute protects."

Mova Pharmaceutical Corp. v. Shalala, 140 F.3d 1060, 1075

(D.C. Cir. 1998); see also ALDF I, 23 F.3d at 502 ("The [zone

of interests] test precludes review of administrative action if

the particular interest asserted is 'so marginally related to or

inconsistent with the purposes implicit in the statute that it

cannot reasonably be assumed that Congress intended to

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permit the suit.' ") (quoting Clarke v. Securities Indus. Ass'n,

479 U.S. 388, 399 (1987)); Autolog Corp. v. Regan, 731 F.2d

25, 29-30 (D.C. Cir. 1984) ("[T]he zone of interests test

requires some indicia--however slight--that the litigant before the court was intended to be protected, benefitted or

regulated by the statute under which suit is brought. Courts

should give broad compass to a statute's zone of interests in

recognition that this test was originally intended to expand

the number of litigants able to assert their rights in court.")

(citations and internal quotation marks omitted).

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In this case, logic, legislative history, and the structure of

the AWA, all indicate that Mr. Jurnove's injury satisfies the

zone of interests test. The very purpose of animal exhibitions

is, necessarily, to entertain and educate people; exhibitions

make no sense unless one takes the interests of their human

visitors into account. The legislative history of both the 1985

amendments to the Animal Welfare Act and the 1970 act that

first included animal exhibitions within the AWA confirms

that Congress acted with the public's interests in mind.

In introducing the 1985 amendments, Senator Robert Dole

explained "that we need to ensure the public that adequate

safeguards are in place to prevent unnecessary abuses to

animals, and that everything possible is being done to decrease the pain of animals during experimentation and testing." 131 Cong. Rec. 29,155 (1985) (statement of Sen. Dole)

(emphasis added). The Congressmen who went on the House

floor to introduce the act that first extended the AWA to

cover animal exhibitions recognized that their bill "ha[d] been

a focal point of concern among animal lovers throughout the

Nation for some time" and spoke of the "great pleasure" that

animals bring to the people who see them. 116 Cong. Rec.

40,159 (1970) (statement of Rep. Mizell); see also H.R. Rep.

No. 91-1651, at 1 (1970) ("Beginning with the legislation

passed in 1966 (Public Law 89-544), the United States Government has implemented a statutory mandate that small

helpless creatures deserve the care and protection of a strong

and enlightened public.") (emphasis added). Indeed, Congress had placed animal exhibitions within the scope of the

AWA after hearings documenting how inhumane conditions at

these exhibitions affected the people who came and watched

the animals there. See Care of Animals Used for Research,

Experimentation, Exhibition, or Held for Sale as Pets:

Hearings on H.R. 13957 Before the Subcomm. on Livestock

and Grains of the House Comm. on Agriculture, 91st Cong.

38 (1970) (letter from John M. Mehrtens) [hereinafter Hearings]; id. at 39 (letter from Chris Sullivan); id. at 67 (statement of Pearl Twyne); id. at 79 (statement of Mary Frances

Morrisette).

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Throughout, the Congressmen responsible for including

animal exhibitions within the AWA encouraged the continued

monitoring of humane societies and their members. They

spoke, for instance, of how America had long depended on

humane societies to bring the mistreatment of animals to

light. See, e.g., 116 Cong. Rec. 40,305 (1970) (statement of

Rep. Whitehurst). The Congressmen further acknowledged

that humane societies were the moving force behind the

legislation to include animal exhibitions within the AWA.

See, e.g., 116 Cong. Rec. 40,156 (1970) (statement of Rep.

Foley).

The structure of the AWA also makes clear that Mr.

Jurnove falls within the statute's zone of interests. While the

AWA establishes oversight committees with private citizen

members for research facilities, see 7 U.S.C. s 2143(b)(1)

(1994), it created no counterpart for animal exhibitions. But,

as the legislative history shows, the AWA anticipated the

continued monitoring of concerned animal lovers to ensure

that the purposes of the Act were honored. Mr. Jurnove, a

regular viewer of animal exhibitions regulated under the

AWA, clearly falls within the zone of interests the statute

protects. His interests are among those that Congress

sought to benefit through the AWA, and he certainly is one of

the individuals "who in practice can be expected to police the

interests that the statute protects." Mova Pharmaceutical

Corp., 140 F.3d at 1075.

III. Conclusion

Mr. Jurnove has standing to sue. He satisfies the injury,

causation, and redressibility elements of constitutional standing, and also falls within the zone of interests for the Animal

Welfare Act. We accordingly have no need to consider the

standing of the other individual plaintiffs. We leave a determination of the merits of the plaintiffs' claim to a future panel

of this court.

So ordered.

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Circuit Judge Sentelle, with whom Judge Silberman,

Judge Ginsburg, and Judge Henderson join, dissenting: Marc

Jurnove visited the Long Island Game Farm about a dozen

times over the course of a year and was upset by the

conditions of the primates he saw there. Some primates

were kept in isolation; others were kept in cages without

sufficient "cage enrichment devices"; and still others were

kept in cages that were not properly maintained. At Jurnove's urging, the United States Department of Agriculture

inspected the Game Farm several times, but failed to take

steps to improve these conditions. Frustrated by USDA's

ineffectiveness, Jurnove filed a lawsuit seeking the invalidation of federal regulations concerning the treatment of primates on the grounds that those regulations failed to live up

to the mandate of the Animal Welfare Act. At issue is

whether Jurnove had standing to bring this suit.

The majority concludes that Jurnove has a cognizable

constitutional interest in viewing particular primates kept

under humane conditions, and finds Jurnove's claimed injuries fairly traceable to USDA's failure to promulgate tougher

regulations and redressable by a judicial order forcing USDA

to promulgate such regulations. Because I believe the majority significantly weakens existing requirements of constitutional standing, I dissent.

I.

Under Article III of the Constitution, the "judicial power"

of the United States is limited to the resolution of "Cases" or

"Controversies." U.S. Const. art. III, s 2. Like the other

doctrines of justiciability associated with Article III (for

example, mootness, ripeness and political question), the doctrine of standing "state[s] fundamental limits on federal judicial power in our system of government." Allen v. Wright,

468 U.S. 737, 750 (1984). Standing--"perhaps the most important of these doctrines," id.--involves the question of

"whether the litigant is entitled to have the court decide the

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merits of the dispute or of particular issues." Id. at 750-51

(quoting Warth v. Seldin, 422 U.S. 490, 498 (1975)).

At an "irreducible minimum," Article III standing requires

those invoking the jurisdiction of a federal court to demonstrate an (1) injury-in-fact; (2) which is caused by, or is fairly

traceable to the defendant's alleged unlawful conduct; and (3)

which is likely to be redressed by a favorable decision of the

court. Valley Forge Christian College v. Americans United

for Separation of Church and State, Inc., 454 U.S. 464, 472

(1982); see also Bennett v. Spear, 117 S. Ct. 1154, 1161 (1997);

Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555, 560-61 (1992).

A would-be federal litigant must "clearly and specifically set

forth facts sufficient to satisfy these Art. III standing requirements." Whitmore v. Arkansas, 495 U.S. 149, 155

(1990).

By imposing these requirements, Article III limits the

power of the federal judiciary to "those disputes which confine federal courts to a role consistent with a system of

separated powers and which are traditionally thought to be

capable of resolution through the judicial process." Valley

Forge, 454 U.S. at 472 (quoting Flast v. Cohen, 392 U.S. 83,

97 (1968)); see also Allen, 468 U.S. at 750 (case-orcontroversy doctrines are "founded in concern about the

proper--and properly limited--role of the courts in a democratic society") (quoting Warth, 422 U.S. at 498). Article III

standing is "not merely a troublesome hurdle to be overcome

if possible so as to reach the 'merits' of a lawsuit which a

party desires to have adjudicated." Valley Forge, 454 U.S. at

476. To the contrary, it is an "essential and unchanging part

of the case-or-controversy requirement of Article III." Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U.S. at 560.

A federal court deciding matters outside the scope of

Article III, then, exercises power that is "not judicial ... in

the sense in which judicial power is granted by the Constitution to the courts of the United States." Valley Forge, 454

U.S. at 471 (quoting United States v. Ferreira, 13 How. 40, 48

(1852)). To permit a federal court to rule on the claims of a

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tial for abuse of the judicial process, distort the role of the

Judiciary in its relationship to the Executive and the Legislature and open the Judiciary to an arguable charge of providing 'government by injunction.' " Schlesinger v. Reservists

Comm. to Stop the War, 418 U.S. 208, 222 (1974). Thus,

"[t]he powers of the federal judiciary will be adequate for the

great burdens placed upon them only if they are employed

prudently, with recognition of the strengths as well as the

hazards that go with our kind of representative government."

Id. (emphasis added) (quoting Flast, 392 U.S. at 131 (Harlan,

J., dissenting)).

It is therefore imperative to exercise prudence when deciding a case--like the case before us today--that would lower

existing Article III barriers to standing. We should not

lightly tinker with the constitutional source of federal judicial

power, see Whitmore, 495 U.S. at 161, even when we may

sympathize with the ideological goals of plaintiffs in a particular case. Id. (rejecting a "relaxed application of standing

principles"; concluding that "[i]t is not for this Court to

employ untethered notions of what might be good public

policy to expand our jurisdiction in an appealing case").

With these principles in mind, I turn now to Marc Jurnove's claims of Article III standing.

II.

A. Injury-in-Fact

The first of the familiar triad of requirements for constitutional standing is "injury in fact," which is an "invasion of a

legally protected interest which is (a) concrete and particularized and (b) actual or imminent, not conjectural or hypothetical." Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U.S. at 560 (citations and

internal quotation marks omitted). The majority concludes

that Jurnove has articulated a "concrete and particularized"

injury to his "legally protected interest" in "observing animals living under humane conditions." Majority at 22; see

also First Amended Complaint p 43 (alleging that Jurnove

has an "aesthetic, recreational, personal and educational interest in observing, photographing, writing about, learning

about and interacting with wild and exotic animals kept in

humane environments").

Despite the majority's assertion to the contrary, see Majority at 21-22, today's ruling is indeed a departure from existing

aesthetic injury jurisprudence. Granted, "the desire to use or

observe an animal species, even for purely esthetic purposes,

is undeniably a cognizable interest for purpose of standing."

Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U.S. at 562-63. However, as we

have observed before, the Supreme Court cases addressing

aesthetic injury resulting from the observation of animals are

limited to cases in which governmental action threatened to

reduce the number of animals available for observation and

study. See Humane Society v. Babbitt, 46 F.3d 93, 97 (D.C.

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Cir. 1995) (citing Sierra Club v. Morton, 405 U.S. 727, 734

(1972); Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U.S. at 563; Japan Whaling Ass'n v. American Cetacean Soc'y, 478 U.S. 221, 231 n.4

(1986)).

Nor has this circuit previously crossed this diminution-ofthe-species line and found the existence of a constitutional

interest in the conditions under which one views animals.

The majority misleadingly suggests that we did so in Animal

Welfare Institute v. Kreps, 561 F.2d 1002, 1007 (D.C. Cir.

1977). In fact, that decision does not make it at all clear what

the nature of the injury is which the court found sufficient.

On this cited page, under the heading "Traditional Analysis

... Injury in Fact," the court quoted more than a full column

of the plaintiffs' complaint cataloging various allegations of

injury. Without specifying what part of the plaintiffs' allegations of injury made out standing, the opinion goes on to note

that "[t]he District Court agreed that appellants' interests

were cognizable," but had held that appellants lacked standing because the injury was not personal to them, as opposed

to being shared with "any other concerned citizen." Id. at

1008. Our opinion then goes on to discuss the sufficiency of

the allegations that specific members of the plaintiff group

intended to conduct the observations underlying their factual

allegations. Insofar as the majority claims that our decision

adopted the view that the conditions of observation constitute

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tutes injury-in-fact for Article III standing purposes, the

opinion simply will not bear that weight.

In that case, environmental groups had filed a lawsuit that

challenged a decision by the Secretary of Commerce to waive

a statutory moratorium on the taking or importation of

marine mammals or marine mammal products. The result of

the government's decision was to permit baby fur sealskins to

be imported into the United States from South Africa. Id. at

1004. The plaintiffs alleged in their lawsuit that the government's action would "contribute to the death and injury of

marine mammals and injury to the ecosystem of the South

Atlantic Ocean." Id. at 1007. The plaintiffs articulated their

aesthetic injury as follows:

Through sanctioning the seal harvesting method of the

South African Government, the [Secretary's] decision

impairs the ability of members of the Plaintiff organizations to see, photograph, and enjoy Cape fur seals alive

in their natural habitat under conditions in which the

animals are not subject to excessive harvesting, inhumane treatment and slaughter of pups that are very

young and still nursing.

Id. (emphasis added). Citing Sierra Club, the Animal Welfare Institute court determined that the plaintiffs had stated

a cognizable injury-in-fact. Id. at 1007-08.

The majority avers that the Animal Welfare Institute court

recognized a cognizable interest in viewing seals free from

inhumane treatment. Majority at 12-13. However, as the

opinion makes clear, "inhumane treatment," as it appears in

the above quotation and in the Marine Mammal Protection

Act, is a term of art referring to the manner in which seals

are killed: plaintiffs argued on the merits that "humane"

killing of seals, within the meaning of that statute, involved

killing with a single blow (and they argued, unsuccessfully,

that South African harvesting practices did not live up to this

degree of "humaneness"). See id. at 1012-13; 16 U.S.C.

s 1362(4) (1975). Animal Welfare Institute, then, involved

allegations that governmental action will "contribute to the

death" of seals. Id. at 1007. Accordingly, this case falls

squarely within the line of Supreme Court precedents recognizing claims of aesthetic injury to governmental action diminishing the opportunity to observe, not affecting the quality

of the observation.

The majority also cites Humane Society v. Hodel, 840 F.2d

45 (D.C. Cir. 1988), seemingly for the proposition that viewing

animals free from inhumane treatment is a constitutionally

cognizable injury. Majority at 13. But this case too comes

within the Supreme Court's diminution-of-the-species parameters, specifically recognizing as cognizable the "deplet[ion]

[of] the supply of animals and birds that refuge visitors seek

to view." 840 F.2d at 52.

Although the Supreme Court and this circuit have not

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recognized a cognizable injury-in-fact to an aesthetic interest

based on the circumstances of observation, that does not

mean that interference with such an interest could not

amount to a constitutional injury-in-fact. Rather, as I set

forth above, I believe it is necessary to proceed with caution

when venturing into constitutionally uncharted waters. See

Section I., supra.

Having removed the diminution-of-the-species touchstone

of existing case law, the majority opens an expanse of standing bounded only by what a given plaintiff finds to be

aesthetically pleasing. Aesthetic injury is, by its nature, a

matter of individual taste. For example, although Jurnove

might find it aesthetically pleasing to view primates kept in

groups, another person might prefer to watch them kept

alone. Still another person might prefer to see primates in

brightly colored cages, or in cages in which recordings of

Mozart piano concertos are played around the clock, or not in

cages at all. Under the majority's theory, it appears that

Article III encompasses the injury of a person who states

that he has an aesthetic interest in seeing primates kept

under such conditions, and that he believes primates that are

not kept under these conditions are treated inhumanely.

Jurnove's injury, recognized by the majority as constitutionally cognizable, is in seeing particular animals treated

humanely. "Humane" is defined as "marked by compassion,

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sympathy, or consideration for other human beings or animals." Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary 556 (1973).

Humaneness, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder: one's

individual judgment about what is or is not humane depends

entirely on one's personal notions of compassion and sympathy. I find it difficult to imagine a more subjective concept

than this.

Furthermore, as the majority acknowledges, the reasoning

of its opinion is not limited to humaneness. The majority

recognizes an aesthetic injury in viewing animals in any

manner that does not comport with a plaintiff's individual

taste. According to the majority's theory, a sadist with an

interest in seeing animals kept under inhumane conditions is

constitutionally injured when he views animals kept under

humane conditions. In so doing, the majority labors mightily,

but unpersuasively, to limit the reasoning of its holding to the

recognition of an aesthetic injury that results from the inhumane treatment of animals. For example, the majority disputes that the hypothetical sadist with an interest in seeing

animals kept under inhumane conditions would be constitutionally injured by viewing animals kept under humane conditions. The majority explains the constitutional infirmity of

the sadist's claims by stating that only "legally protected"

injuries fall within the Article III injury-in-fact test. See

Majority at 14 n.7 (citing Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U.S. at

560). According to the majority, the sadist's injuries are not

"legally protected" "because the [Animal Welfare Act] ...

recognizes no interest in sadism." Id. But by relying on the

nature of the injury recognized by a governing statute as

"legally protected," the majority improperly conflates the

prudential zone-of-interests analysis with the Article III

injury-in-fact analysis. The majority's attempt to blend these

conceptually distinct tests is logically incoherent, and in no

way cures the ill-defined and essentially subjective nature of

the asserted injury before us today.

In recognizing Jurnove's purely subjective injury, the majority radically departs from our precedent. For example, we

refused to recognize "purely subjective" claims of injury that

could not be measured by "readily discernible standards" in

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Metcalf v. National Petroleum Council, 553 F.2d 176, 187

(D.C. Cir. 1977) (citing Laird v. Tatum, 408 U.S. 1, 13-14

(1972)). One such "purely subjective" claim of injury in that

case was raised by United States Senator Lee Metcalf. Metcalf claimed that the National Petroleum Council was unlawfully operating as a federal advisory committee because its

membership was not "fairly balanced" as required by the

Federal Advisory Committee Act. Metcalf, at the time the

chairman of a Senate subcommittee on Minerals, Materials

and Fuels, alleged that the Council was providing him with

biased information, thus "imped[ing] [him] in his efforts to

develop the best possible legislative product." Id. at 185-86.

In rejecting Metcalf's proposed injury in fact, we specifically targeted the "purely subjective nature of his asserted

injury":

[Metcalf's] injury derives from his belief that he cannot

produce the "best possible legislative product" because of

the Council's allegedly tainted advice. There are no

objective standards to determine when a legislative product is the "best" that it can be; such a determination

necessarily rests on each legislator's individual view of

the countless variety of factors which go into the formulation of legislation. Were we to accept the pure subjectivity put forth by appellant Metcalf in his capacity as an

individual legislator, the federal courts would become a

forum for the vindication of value preferences with respect to the quality of legislation enacted by our national

legislature. Such a role for the courts is clearly inconsistent with the "cases or controversies" limitation of Article III.

Id. at 188.

Just as a legislator's view of what legislation is "best"

depends solely on the value preferences of the legislator, so

does Jurnove's notion of what is "humane" depend solely on

his own value preferences. And no objective standard could

possibly measure degrees of a concept--humaneness--that is

based entirely on one's subjective emotions. Under existing

law, a plaintiff may establish a "concrete and particularized"

injury when his interest in observing or studying animals is

directly affected by the reduction in the number of animals to

be viewed or studied. Today's decision goes much further,

recognizing an aesthetic injury based solely on a plaintiff's

subjective emotional response to something he sees. Under

today's decision, one's individual preference in viewing animals in a particular way is thought to be constitutionally

injured when government regulations do not require the

animals to be kept in a way that comports with one's taste. I

would follow Metcalf and hold that such a purely subjective

injury is outside the boundaries of Article III. The majority's contrary conclusion amounts to constitutional recognition

of the "psychological consequence presumably produced by

observation of conduct with which one disagrees." Valley

Forge, 454 U.S. at 485. Valley Forge, among many other

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cases, makes it plain that this is "not an injury sufficient to

confer standing under Art. III...." Id.; see also Humane

Society v. Babbitt, 46 F.3d 93, 98 (D.C. Cir. 1995) ("[G]eneral

emotional 'harm,' no matter how deeply felt, cannot suffice for

injury-in-fact for standing purposes.") (citing additional

cases).

The majority accuses the panel opinion of "import[ing] ...

a requirement into our standing doctrine so late in the day"

by requiring a diminution in the opportunity to observe in

order to establish cognizable injury to aesthetic interests.

Majority at 21. This statement fundamentally misunderstands not only our precedent but the nature of standing. No

one was "importing" a new requirement. We simply have not

been asked before to find standing where the sole alleged

injury is an interference with the aesthetic taste of the

plaintiff. To pass on that novel question at its first appearance is not "late in the day." It is simply the first time it has

been necessary to decide whether we will conclude that

constitutional standing extends to an area in which it has not

previously been asserted.

In short, Jurnove's asserted injuries are not "traditionally

thought to be capable of resolution through the judicial

process." See Valley Forge, 454 U.S. at 472 (quoting Flast,

392 U.S. at 97). Accordingly, I would find that he has not

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met his burden of demonstrating a cognizable injury-in-fact.

This conclusion alone would bar Jurnove from seeking relief

in federal court. Florida Audubon Soc'y v. Bentsen, 94 F.3d

658, 662 (D.C. Cir. 1996) (en banc).

B. Causation

Even if I shared my colleagues' belief that an interference

with a plaintiff's aesthetic sensibilities absent a diminution in

the opportunity to exercise those sensibilities is sufficient to

make out the injury-in-fact element of constitutional standing,

I still could not conclude that the plaintiffs had established

that Jurnove has constitutional standing on the present complaint. Even if such an injury were cognizable, and even if

the complaint has set forth that cognizable injury, their

attempt at standing stumbles at the second stile: they have

not established causation.

In analyzing the "causation" element of constitutional

standing, we ask whether it is "substantially probable" that

the challenged acts of the defendant--as opposed, for example, to the acts of an absent third party--caused a plaintiff's

particularized injury. Florida Audubon Soc'y, 94 F.3d at 663

(citations omitted). Causation, therefore, is related to but

distinct from "redressability," which requires that the relief

sought by the plaintiffs is likely to alleviate the plaintiff's

injury. Id. at 663-64.

When a plaintiff asserts injuries attributed to "the government's allegedly unlawful regulation (or lack of regulation) of

someone else," Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U.S. at 562 (emphasis in original), the causation and redressability elements of

standing analysis "require more exacting scrutiny." Freedom

Republicans, Inc. v. Federal Election Comm'n, 13 F.3d 412,

416 (D.C. Cir.) (Wald, J.), cert. denied, 513 U.S. 821 (1994).

Under these circumstances, standing is not necessarily precluded, but the "indirectness of injury 'may make it substantially more difficult to meet the minimum requirements of

Art. III: to establish that, in fact, the asserted injury was the

consequence of the defendants' actions, or that prospective

relief will remove the harm.' " Id. (quoting Simon v. Eastern

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Ky. Welfare Rights Org., 426 U.S. 26, 44-45 (1976)). A

plaintiff who claims to have been injured by the government's

regulation of a third party must "adduce facts showing that

the unfettered choices made by independent actors have been

or will be made in such manner as to produce causation and

permit redressability of injury." Id. at 417 (brackets omitted)

(quoting Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U.S. at 562).

The majority concludes that Jurnove has met his burden of

establishing that his claimed aesthetic injury is fairly traceable to government action. Jurnove's argument, accepted by

the majority, proceeds: (1) Jurnove was aesthetically injured

when he saw primates he believed to be mistreated at the

Game Farm; (2) the manner in which the Game Farm treated

the primates was permitted under existing regulations; (3)

existing regulations are not tough enough because they do not

include "minimum standards" as required by the Animal

Welfare Act; (4) by failing to promulgate tough regulations

that comply with the AWA, USDA is responsible for the

aesthetic injuries Jurnove suffered by viewing primates at the

Game Farm. Since Jurnove is asserting injuries attributed to

the government's regulation of a third party, his claims of

causation must be considered with "exacting scrutiny." Freedom Republicans, 13 F.3d at 416.

The cornerstone of Jurnove's claims of causation is that

existing regulations permit the conditions that troubled him.

Indeed, the majority stresses the fact that USDA's repeated

inspections of the Game Farm revealed no (or few) violations.1

__________

1 I note that we are reviewing the district court's entry of

summary judgment in favor of Jurnove and his co-plaintiffs. This

fact determines our standard of review: "while a motion to dismiss

may be decided on the pleadings alone, construed liberally in favor

of the plaintiff, a motion for summary judgment by definition entails

an opportunity for a supplementation of the record, and accordingly

a greater showing is demanded of the plaintiff." Wilderness Society v. Griles, 824 F.2d 4, 16 (D.C. Cir. 1987) (finding plaintiffs'

allegations in summary judgment context to be insufficiently specific to meet their burden of establishing constitutional standing); see

also Simon v. Eastern Ky. Welfare Rights Org., 426 U.S. 26, 45

n.25 (1976) (acknowledging that a complaint's standing allegations

See Majority at 25-26. However, the gravamen of the affidavit is not that the events Jurnove witnessed were legal, but

that USDA is shirking its obligation to enforce the law, and is

only halfheartedly inspecting the Game Farm in order to

mollify Jurnove. Jurnove explicitly states that he has "concluded that the USDA was just 'going through the motions' to

placate [him] because of [his] many calls and submissions

[complaining about the treatment of Game Farm primates]."

Jurnove Affidavit p 41. Furthermore, Jurnove states that he

"knew that the USDA inspection report [finding the Game

Farm in compliance with existing regulations] was incorrect."

Id. at p 19; see also id. at p 21 (alleging that the USDA

inspection report of July 21, 1995 included nothing about

conditions that Jurnove says were "required by USDA regulations"). In light of the thrust of the affidavit (that USDA

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went through the motions and wrote up incorrect reports),

Jurnove's legal claims of causation (that the regulations permitted the conditions he witnessed) seem disingenuous. See

10A Wright, Miller & Kane, Federal Practice and Procedure s 2721, at 365 (1998) ("The formal issues framed by the

pleadings are not controlling on a motion for summary judgment....").

__________

"withstood a motion to dismiss, although [they] might not have

survived challenge on a motion for summary judgment"). Jurnove's

affidavit was submitted in support of his motion for summary

judgment. Rule 56(e) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure

requires such affidavits to be "made on personal knowledge; [to]

set forth such facts as would be admissible in evidence, and [to]

show affirmatively that the affiant is competent to testify to the

matters stated therein." Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(e). Clearly, Jurnove

would not have been permitted to testify about the conclusions of

USDA examiners (that the Game Farm was in compliance with

regulations) because those conclusions are hearsay and not based on

Jurnove's personal knowledge. However, because the government

never filed a motion to strike the hearsay portions of Jurnove's

affidavit, it waived its objections to them, and we may appropriately

consider them now in the absence of a "gross miscarriage of

justice." See 10B Wright, Miller & Kane, Federal Practice and

Procedure s 2738, at 372-73 (1998).

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According to the majority, causation is established if a

plaintiff demonstrates that challenged governmental action

"authorizes" the plaintiff's injuries. But the majority uses

the term "authorize" in a very loose way. For example, 9

C.F.R. s 3.81(a)(3) provides that "[i]ndividually housed nonhuman primates must be able to see and hear nonhuman

primates of their own or compatible species unless the attending veterinarian determines that it would endanger their

health, safety, or well-being." According to the majority, this

regulation authorized the Game Farm to house nonhuman

primates out of the sight or hearing of other primates.

Majority at 23.

The majority's view of "authorization" here is beyond expansive. The regulation says that individually housed primates must be able to see and hear other primates unless the

attending veterinarian determines otherwise. Thus, one of

two things must be true under existing law if a primate were

housed out of the sight or hearing of other primates. Either

the attending veterinarian determined that housing such a

primate within the sight or hearing of another primate "would

endanger their health, safety, or well-being," or the veterinarian did not, in which case the housing of the primate would

violate the regulation. According to the majority, the regulation authorizes inhumane treatment of primates. How? An

exhibitor that "secured the approval of the veterinarian in its

employ could comply with the regulation without actually

housing nonhuman primates within the sight or sound of

other primates." Id. (emphasis added). The obvious innuendo of this sentence is that an exhibitor could bribe its staff

veterinarian to determine falsely that a given primate's

"health, safety, or well-being" would be endangered, thus

permitting the primate to be housed away from the sight or

sound of other primates.2 But if this were so, any inhumane

__________

2 The majority suggests, without record citation, that appellant's concern is not with bribery, but rather "that the regulation

gives exhibitors too much leeway to shop around for a compliant

veterinarian and that placing such broad and unguarded discretion

in the hands of the veterinarian in an exhibitor's own employ is an

insufficient safeguard to protect primate well being." Majority at

treatment would be the result of the exhibitor's failure to

follow existing regulations, and would not be traceable to the

regulations themselves.

The majority also addresses the causation of Jurnove's

alleged aesthetic injury in seeing squirrel monkeys housed

next to adult bears "repeatedly walking over to the door and

sniffing and acting very upset when the bears came near."

Jurnove Affidavit p 11. The majority acknowledges that under existing regulations, "[n]onhuman primates may not be

housed with other species of primates or animals unless they

are compatible." Majority at 24 (citing 9 C.F.R. s 3.81(a)(3)).

It emphasizes, however, that this provision is not applicable

here because it does not "expressly regulate" incompatible

animals housed next to each other, but in separate cages. Id.

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The majority's causation analysis comes down to this: when a

provision does not "expressly regulate" certain treatment, the

regulations "authorize" such treatment. See also Majority at

24-25 (asserting that a regulation that included no "specific

requirements governing the particular kind or number of

enrichment devices" authorized the Game Farm's decision to

furnish a cage with only one swing). Surely this analysis

proves too much. There are an infinite variety of things not

"expressly regulated" by section 3.81, and according to the

majority's reasoning any injury caused by those things is

fairly traceable to the government's failure to "expressly

regulate" them. I cannot subscribe to such a wide-ranging

theory of causation.

I find frightening at a constitutional level the majority's

assumption that the government causes everything that it

does not prevent. The majority rejects as "a false premise"

the proposition that "[t]he proper comparison for determining

causation is ... between what the agency did and the status

quo before the agency acted." Majority at 29. I submit that

consistent with our constitutional tradition of limited govern-

__________

23-24. This does not change the applicable analysis. A claim of

authorization through wide discretion is effectively the same as (or

close enough to) authorization through failure to forbid as to fall far

outside of the kind of express authorization required for Article III

causation.

ment that is precisely the correct premise for causation. The

cases offered by the majority, Investment Co. Institute v.

Camp, 401 U.S. 617 (1971); Arnold Tours, Inc. v. Camp, 400

U.S. 45 (1970); and Barlow v. Collins, 397 U.S. 159 (1970),

are not to the contrary. In each of those decisions the

alleged injury arose from conduct on the part of a regulated

entity whose conduct was expressly authorized by some regulation enacted by the sued regulator. Thus, there was an

express authorization caused by the government defendants.

In the present case, Jurnove has pointed to no such express

authorization of any conduct that inflicts his alleged injuries.

Nor do decisions of our circuit sweep into causation the full

expanse of all conduct not forbidden by the alleged causer.

Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. v. Shalala, 91 F.3d 1493 (D.C. Cir.

1996), did not, as the majority claims, "explicitly reject[ ] the

distinction between permissive and mandatory government

regulation." Majority at 30. That case involved regulations

that governed the approval of new generic drugs which could

not be marketed under relevant conditions without the regulator's approval. Bristol-Myers, 91 F.3d at 1494-95. In light

of the fact that the regulator explicitly authorized the conduct

at issue, there was a neat causal fit between the authorization

and the act that allegedly caused the injury.

Telephone and Data Systems, Inc. v. FCC, 19 F.3d 42 (D.C.

Cir. 1994), upon which the Bristol-Myers court and derivatively the majority today rely, is also not to the contrary. It

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lar conduct and the failure to prevent it. In Telephone and

Data Systems, the FCC had entered an order which authorized the operation of a licensed entity under certain conditions, and another which would merely allow the transfer of a

particular license. In the portion cited by the majority, we

held that an appellant allegedly injured by the conduct expressly authorized by the FCC in the first order had made

out causation. Id. at 47. In a portion of the opinion not cited

by the majority, we held that the same appellant had not

made out causation in its allegation of potential anticompetitive collusion on the part of the potential transferee. Id. at

48. In no part of the opinion did we provide any precedent

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for the proposition that a bare failure to prevent conduct by

regulation is tantamount to causation.

The remainder of the cases cited by the majority are

simply a repetition of the same refrain. See Motor & Equipment Manufacturers Assoc. v. Nichols, 142 F.3d 449, 457

(D.C. Cir. 1998) (holding that a competitive injury was fairly

traceable to EPA's deemed-to-comply rule because the regulation "create[d] a tremendous incentive for manufacturers to

install [on-board emissions diagnostic devices] that comply

with California's regulations in all their cars"); Louisiana

Energy and Power Authority v. FERC, 141 F.3d 364, 367

(D.C. Cir. 1998) (holding that a competitive injury was fairly

traceable to FERC's decision to "lift regulatory restrictions

on their competitors"); International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union v. Donovan, 722 F.2d 795, 799 (D.C. Cir. 1983)

(holding that the petitioners had standing to challenge the

Secretary of Labor's decision to "rescind longstanding restrictions on the employment of workers in their homes (homeworkers) in the knitted outerwear industry"). In each of

these cases, we reasoned that the commercial conduct of third

parties was fairly traceable to the government, because the

conduct was expressly authorized by the government's economic regulation. In contrast, Jurnove can point to no such

authorization. It is no answer to say that USDA's regulations do not prohibit the allegedly inhumane conditions that

he observed at the Game Farm. What matters, under our

consistent case law, is whether the third party conduct follows

directly on the heels of a government decision that affirmatively approved that conduct. Jurnove has made no such

submission.

C. Redressability

I would further hold that Jurnove fails the test of redressability. To explain why I find his claims of redressability wanting, I offer this example. Jurnove claims that he

was aesthetically injured by viewing primates with inadequate cage enrichment devices. In particular, he states that

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he was disturbed by viewing a Japanese Snow Macaque

housed in a cage with only one such cage enrichment device:

an unused swing. Jurnove Affidavit p 14. He takes issue

with the existing regulation concerning such devices because

they violate the Animal Welfare Act's minimum standards

mandate. The regulation provides that "[t]he physical environment in the primary enclosures must be enriched by providing means of expressing noninjurious species-typical activities." 9 C.F.R. s 3.81(b). According to Jurnove (and

the majority), these regulations authorized the Game Farm

to keep primates in an offensive single-swing cage.

To find redressability on Jurnove's claims would require

that we ignore the well-established rule that Article III

standing requires it to "be likely, as opposed to merely

speculative, that the injury will be redressed by a favorable

decision." Bennett v. Spear, 117 S. Ct. 1154, 1163 (1997);

accord Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U.S. at 560-61.

How would a judicial order invalidating section 3.81(b) and

directing USDA to promulgate a new regulation redress

Jurnove's claims of aesthetic injury? Under Jurnove's theory, to comply with the "minimum standards" mandate of the

AWA, the new regulation would require certain specific cage

enrichment devices to be included. But due to the fuzzy

nature of Jurnove's asserted injury, it would require sheer

speculation to presume that any enrichment devices specified

in a future regulation would satisfy Jurnove's aesthetic tastes.

We only know that Jurnove does not like seeing primates

kept in cages with only one enrichment device. We do not

know what conditions would satisfy his individual taste. We

do not know, for example, how many enrichment devices

Jurnove would prefer to see, or of what type.

This problem--how could we possibly know whether a

future regulation comports with Jurnove's aesthetic interests--is directly related to the nature of Jurnove's claimed

injury itself. When an animal viewer asserts an aesthetic

interest in not seeing a species diminished, it is easy to tell

when that injury is redressed: a judicial order may prevent

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the government from diminishing the species. But when, as

here, a plaintiff asserts that a regulation has injured an

unquantifiable interest (the plaintiff's own taste), it seems to

me nearly impossible to redress such an injury by a general

court order directing the government to try again.

Furthermore, as the majority acknowledges, an order directing USDA to promulgate tougher standards might result

in the Game Farm's deciding to sell its primates to another

exhibitor who is willing to abide by the new regulation. The

majority views this scenario as "protect[ing] Mr. Jurnove's

aesthetic interest in observing animals living under humane

conditions." Majority at 25. It is difficult to fathom how this

is so. As the majority acknowledges, Jurnove's interest is in

seeing particular primates--that is, the Game Farm primates--kept under certain conditions. But if the Game Farm

primates are sold to another exhibitor, presumably Jurnove

(who "enjoy[s] seeing [animals] in various zoos and other

parks near [his] home," Jurnove Affidavit p 7 (emphasis

added)) would not be able to see the Game Farm primates at

all, much less under humane conditions. The relief he seeks

may well result in his not being able to view the Game Farm

primates at all. This too undercuts Jurnove's claims of

redressability.

III.

Marc Jurnove says that he objects to a federal regulation

because it permits results that offend his aesthetic interests.

Due to the majority's expansive reading of standing doctrine,3

Jurnove may ask a court to force USDA to promulgate a new

regulation that comports with his individual notion of aesthetics. Jurnove's complaints, formerly addressable only by the

political branches, may now be aired in federal court.

__________

3 The majority concludes that Jurnove has established prudential standing, as well as constitutional. Because I do not believe

Jurnove has established constitutional standing, I find it unnecessary to address prudential standing here.

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I am reminded of Justice Powell's remark that "[r]elaxation

of standing requirements is directly related to the expansion

of judicial power." United States v. Richardson, 418 U.S.

166, 188 (1974) (Powell, J., concurring). Indeed, I believe

Justice Powell's warnings concerning federal taxpayer or

citizen standing have particular resonance here, and are

worth quoting at length:

It seems to me inescapable that allowing unrestricted

taxpayer or citizen standing would significantly alter the

allocation of power at the national level, with a shift away

from a democratic form of government. I also believe

that repeated and essentially head-on confrontations between the life-tenured branch and the representative

branches of government will not, in the long run, be

beneficial to either. The public confidence essential to

the former and the vitality critical to the latter may well

erode if we do not exercise self-restraint in the utilization

of our power to negative the actions of the other branches. We should be ever mindful of the contradictions that

would arise if a democracy were to permit general oversight of the elected branches of government by a nonrepresentative, and in large measure insulated, judicial

branch. Moreover, the argument that the Court should

allow unrestricted taxpayer or citizen standing underestimates the ability of the representative branches of the

Federal Government to respond to the citizen pressure

that has been responsible in large measure for the

current drift toward expanded standing. Indeed, taxpayer or citizen advocacy, given its potentially broad base, is

precisely the type of leverage that in a democracy ought

to be employed against the branches that were intended

to be responsive to public attitudes about the appropriate

operation of government. "We must as judges recall

that, as Mr. Justice Holmes wisely observed, the other

branches of the Government 'are ultimate guardians of

the liberties and welfare of the people in quite as great a

degree as the courts.' Missouri, Kansas & Texas R. Co.

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v. May, 194 U.S. 267, 270 (1903)." Flast, 392 U.S. at 131

(Harlan, J., dissenting).

Id. at 188-89 (footnote omitted).

By expanding the definition of an Article III "Case" or

"Controversy," the majority increases federal judicial power

at the expense of that of the political branches. I dissent

from the majority's unwarranted erosion of the standards for

constitutional standing.

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