Fourth Circuit dodges horse owner’s challenge to USDA adjudication process

RICHMOND, Va. (CN) — A horse owner investigated by the U.S. Department of Agriculture for bringing a sored horse to a show failed to secure success before the Fourth Circuit on Monday.

The USDA attempted to fine Joe Manis more than $20 for violations of the Horse Protection Act, raising claims against the horse owner and beginning an internal adjudication process against him in 2023. He entered a “sore” horse — or a horse that has been burned or injured to cause an exaggerated gait coveted in trained Tennessee Walking Horses — into a Virginia horse show in 2022, according to the USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service.

Manis asked that the USDA, which has its own internal administrative process, adjudicate his case with a full hearing, then filed a lawsuit in North Carolina claiming he was deprived of his Seventh Amendment right to a trial.

Manis had asked the lower court to prevent the USDA from enforcing the Horse Protection Act against him and halt the administrative process, saying that it imposes a “here-and-now constitutional injury” on him. The court denied Manis’ request for a preliminary injunction, finding that his arguments were not indicative of success in his case.

But Manis failed to prove that he is facing “irreparable harm” if the appellate court doesn’t intervene prior to his case being resolved in the lower court, the Fourth Circuit panel said.

“Appellant (Manis) claims that because an unconstitutionally structured proceeding constitutes an injury sufficient to confer collateral district court jurisdiction it must also suffice to establish the showing of irreparable harm required for injunctive relief,” the panel said in the 12-page opinion. “Appellant is incorrect.”

The Fourth Circuit panel declined to address Manis’ likelihood of success on the merits of his argument, which is required to be eligible for preliminary relief. Instead, the panel found that Manis did not prove he is facing irreversible harm, and affirmed the lower court’s decision on that basis.

The panel did not weigh the merits of Manis’ arguments challenging the constitutionality of the USDA’s administrative process.

The judges also declined to extend the application of Axon v. Federal Trade Commission et al. , which found that an aggrieved party must be able to file a challenge through the courts while an administrative proceeding is ongoing, and that they don’t first have to file a complaint through the agency’s administrative process before suing in federal court.

Extending the interpretation of Axon “would require a per se finding of irreparable harm whenever a plaintiff alleges constitutional deficiency in a collateral proceeding challenging their subjection to an agency proceeding,” the panel said. “We will not make that leap.”

“While we’re disappointed with the Fourth Circuit’s decision, it left Mr. Manis’ constitutional claims undecided,” said Joshua Robbins, a Pacific Legal Foundation attorney representing Manis, in a statement Monday. “We look forward to the opportunity to address these claims further in the District Court, where they remain pending, with the benefit of additional Supreme Court precedent.”

Robbins told the panel in December that his client suffers daily from being subjected to an unconstitutional process: having to challenge his case through the USDA’s administrative process rather than in court.

“Mr. Manis is suffering?” challenged U.S. Circuit Judge Robert Bruce King, a Bill Clinton appointee. “I thought you were worried about the horse.”

U.S. Circuit Judges James Wynn Jr. and Stephanie Thacker, both appointed by Barack Obama, also served on the panel, which issued an unattributed, per curiam opinion Monday. The opinion is unpublished, and therefore does not establish binding Fourth Circuit precedent.

Manis, a retired businessman who has been involved with Tennessee Walking Horses for at least 50 years, contested the constitutionality of the USDA’s administrative adjudication process, claiming that the USDA’s judicial officer “exercises principal officer power” without being appointed by the president or confirmed by the U.S. Senate. The USDA’s administrative law judges are also unconstitutionally protected from being removed by layers of tenure protection, he said.

Violations of the Horse Protection Act require a jury trial, he says, because the Seventh Amendment preserves the right to a jury trial for disputes that involve more than $20. The USDA’s adjudication process also violates the Constitution because it weighs issues involving private rights before an agency, and not a court, he said.

The USDA countered this, saying that its judicial officer is properly appointed, and that the removal protections for the administrative law judges are constitutional. The adjudication process also does not violate the Seventh Amendment, it said.

The agency is no longer seeking a penalty above $20, counsel told the panel during oral argument in December, so Manis doesn’t reach his Seventh Amendment claim.

In February, USDA’s Administrative Law Judge Jill Clifton found that Manis violated the Horse Protection Act, imposing a $10 penalty and a one-year disqualification from showing or exhibiting any horse in any horse show, exhibition, sale or auction. Manis’ horse, a stallion named My Chance of Cash, was deemed sore when he was inspected by a USDA vet for the Virginia Walking Racking Horse Owners Association show in May 2022, and he was correctly prevented from competing, the judge said.

Manis appealed, and the USDA’s Judicial Officer John Walk stayed his case — and his disqualification —  until Manis’ constitutional challenges are resolved, citing the need for the agency to be certain that it has jurisdiction.

Manis’ case is continuing in the Middle District of North Carolina. Representatives for the defendants did not reply to a request for comment.

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