Hoctor v. United States Department of Agriculture case brief

Hoctor v. United States Department of Agriculture case brief summary
82 F.3d 165 (7th Cir. 1996)

CASE SYNOPSIS

Respondent United States Department of Agriculture sanctioned petitioner animal dealer for violating 9 C.F.R. § 3.125(a), the animal housing standard, by failing to have an eight-foot perimeter fence. The animal dealer sought judicial review of the order.

CASE FACTS
An animal dealer raised a variety of exotic animals. The department issued a memorandum stating that dangerous animals had to be inside a perimeter fence at least eight feet high.

DISCUSSION

• The court held that if the eight-foot rule were deemed one of those minimum standards that the department was required by statute to create, it was not an interpretive rule. 
• Section 3.125(a) appeared only to require that animal housing be sturdy enough to prevent animals from breaking through the enclosure, not that any enclosure be high enough to prevent the animals from escaping by jumping over the enclosure. 
• There was no appellate-court type reasoning by which the department could have derived the eight-foot rule from the structural-strength regulation, § 3.125(a). 
• The rule was arbitrary in that it was different without significant impairment of any regulatory purpose.

OUTCOME
The eight-foot perimeter fence rule was invalid because it was not promulgated in accordance with the required procedure, therefore, the department's order was vacated.



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