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Minerva Dairy, Inc., et al. v. Brad Pfaff, in His Official Capacity as Secretary-designee of the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, et al.

Paid petition · United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, No. 18-1520 · judgment October 3, 2018


Certiorari denied · June 24, 2019
Pre-decision estimate: 7% cert probability (95% interval 4%–12%)

Before the decision, about 1.6× the 4.1% base rate. The model weighted this up for a circuit split argued in the petition, a dissent in the court below (flagged in the petition), and a business petitioner.

Questions presented

  1. Under Pike v. Bruce Church, Inc., 397 U.S. 137 (1970), the Dormant Commerce Clause is violated whenever the burden imposed on interstate commerce “is clearly excessive in relation to the putative local benefits.” Id. at 142. To state a claim under Pike, must a plaintiff allege that the challenged law discriminates (or has a disparate impact on) out-ofstate commerce, as the Second, Third, Fifth, and Seventh Circuits have held, or instead is it sufficient for a plaintiff to allege that the law’s burdens on interstate commerce plainly outweigh the putative local benefits, as the Fourth, Sixth, Eighth, Tenth, and Eleventh Circuits have held?

  2. Under the rational basis test, may the state impose “quality” standards on a commodity when the only measure of quality is the extent to which government inspectors consider particular examples of the commodity to be subjectively pleasing?

Counsel of record

For petitioner
Joshua Paul Thompson
Pacific Legal Foundation

For respondent
Gabe Johnson-Karp
Wisconsin Department of Justice

Case

Conference history
Distributed for 1 conference

Amicus briefs
3 cert-stage

Linked docket
18A665

Proceedings

  1. Jun 24 2019
    Petition DENIED.
  2. Jun 04 2019
    DISTRIBUTED for Conference of 6/20/2019.
  3. May 30 2019
    Reply of petitioners Minerva Dairy, Inc., et al. filed.
  4. May 20 2019
    Brief of respondents Brad Pfaff, et al. in opposition filed.
  5. Apr 04 2019
    Brief amicus curiae of Competitive Enterprise Institute filed.
  6. Apr 04 2019
    Brief amicus curiae of Cato Institute filed.
  7. Apr 02 2019
    Brief amici curiae of Southeastern Legal Foundation, et al. filed.
  8. Mar 21 2019
    Motion to extend the time to file a response is granted and the time is extended to and including May 20, 2019.
  9. Mar 19 2019
    Motion to extend the time to file a response from April 4, 2019 to May 20, 2019, submitted to The Clerk.
  10. Mar 01 2019
    Petition for a writ of certiorari filed. (Response due April 4, 2019)
  11. Dec 21 2018
    Application (18A665) granted by Justice Kavanaugh extending the time to file until March 2, 2019.
  12. Dec 19 2018
    Application (18A665) to extend the time to file a petition for a writ of certiorari from January 1, 2019 to March 2, 2019, submitted to Justice Kavanaugh.