{"id":546,"date":"2023-06-15T12:02:03","date_gmt":"2023-06-15T16:02:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/animallawdevelopments\/?p=546"},"modified":"2023-06-15T12:02:03","modified_gmt":"2023-06-15T16:02:03","slug":"ninth-circuit-tosses-grey-wolf-case-on-standing-grounds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/animallawdevelopments\/2023\/06\/15\/ninth-circuit-tosses-grey-wolf-case-on-standing-grounds\/","title":{"rendered":"Ninth Circuit Tosses Grey Wolf Case on Standing Grounds"},"content":{"rendered":"

On June 14, 2023, a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed the dismissal of a lawsuit brought by Wildearth Guardians and other environment activist groups challenging the grazing permit decisions of the U.S. Forest Service in the Colville National Forest in Eastern Washington.\u00a0 The district court found that plaintiffs had no standing and the appellate court agreed.\u00a0 Wildearth Guardians v. U.S. Forest Service<\/em>, No. 21-35936 (9th Cir. June 14, 2023).<\/a><\/p>\n

The case arose out of decisions by the Forest Service to permit livestock grazing on national forest land.\u00a0 Plaintiffs opposed this action on the ground that the grazing permits would lead to increased conflict between grey wolves and livestock which would in turn cause the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife to kill more wolves.\u00a0 The gray wolf is no longer listed as endangered under federal law but is listed as endangered under Washington state law.\u00a0 Plaintiffs claimed that the Forest Service actions violated the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 (NEPA) and the National Forest Management Act of 1976.<\/p>\n

A plaintiff suing in federal court must prove standing to sue under Article III of the Constitution, which requires satisfaction of the familiar three-part test in Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife<\/em>, 504 U.S. 555, 561 (1992):\u00a0 (1) an injury in fact (2) that is fairly traceable to the defendant\u2019s challenged actions (3) that will likely be redressed by a favorable judicial decision.\u00a0 Here, it was\u00a0 uncontested that plaintiffs had alleged a cognizable injury in fact:\u00a0 plaintiffs\u2019 members\u2019 aesthetic enjoyment from observing and studying wild wolves would be injured by killing the wolves.\u00a0 However, the case for standing failed because the claimed injury \u2013 inability to enjoy the wolves that have been killed \u2013 could not be fairly traced to the Forest Service\u2019s grazing decisions.\u00a0 This was because the Forest Service had no involvement in the killing of the wolves, and the state agency that carried out the killing did so for reasons unrelated to grazing.\u00a0 As the court explained:<\/p>\n

Here, the claimed injury arises from the actions of a third party that is two steps removed from the Service. \u00a0The Service does not kill wolves, nor does it regulate those who do. \u00a0It regulates livestock grazing, but WildEarth does not object to grazing in itself. \u00a0Rather, WildEarth objects to grazing because it may lead to depredations, which may in turn lead the Department of Fish and Wildlife to consider and in some cases exercise its discretion to lethally remove wolves. \u00a0Lethal removal, the direct cause of WildEarth\u2019s injury, is not regulated by the Service.\u00a0 [Slip op. at 10.]<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Nor was the appellate court persuaded by the argument that, because plaintiffs asserted a procedural injury under NEPA, the standing requirements should be \u201crelaxed:\u201d<\/p>\n

[T]he causation and redressability requirements are \u201crelaxed\u201d for procedural claims only in the sense that a plaintiff \u201cneed not establish the likelihood that the agency would render a different decision after going through the proper procedural steps.\u201d\u00a0 \u2026\u00a0 A plaintiff still must show \u201ca likelihood that the challenged action, if ultimately taken, would threaten a plaintiff\u2019s interests.\u201d \u2026 \u00a0And even for procedural claims, when \u201can \u2018asserted injury arises from the government\u2019s allegedly unlawful regulation (or lack of regulation) of someone else, much more is needed\u2019 to demonstrate causation and redressability.\u201d\u00a0 [Slip op. at 11 (citations omitted)].<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Standing to sue is not a subject that is likely to stimulate a lively discussion at a cocktail party.\u00a0 But more often than not, lack of standing is what ends environmental and other activist litigation in federal court.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On June 14, 2023, a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed the dismissal of a lawsuit brought by Wildearth Guardians and other environment activist groups challenging the grazing permit decisions of the U.S. Forest Service in the Colville National Forest in Eastern Washington.\u00a0 The district court found that plaintiffs … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Ninth Circuit Tosses Grey Wolf Case on Standing Grounds”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":317,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[174,49,540,961,960,5,959,266,267,452,346],"ppma_author":[697],"class_list":["post-546","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","tag-aesthetic-injury","tag-animal-law","tag-article-iii-standing","tag-grazing-permits","tag-grey-wolf","tag-john-simpson","tag-lujan-three-part-standing-test","tag-national-environmental-policy-act","tag-nepa","tag-traceability","tag-u-s-forest-service"],"authors":[{"term_id":697,"user_id":317,"is_guest":0,"slug":"jmsimpson","display_name":"John M. Simpson","avatar_url":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/animallawdevelopments\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/38\/2018\/06\/simpsonjohn-125x150.jpg","0":null,"1":"","2":"","3":"","4":"","5":"","6":"","7":"","8":""}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/animallawdevelopments\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/546","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/animallawdevelopments\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/animallawdevelopments\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/animallawdevelopments\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/317"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/animallawdevelopments\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=546"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/animallawdevelopments\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/546\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/animallawdevelopments\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=546"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/animallawdevelopments\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=546"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/animallawdevelopments\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=546"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/animallawdevelopments\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=546"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}