Association des Éleveurs de Cananards et D'oies du Quebéc, et al. v. Rob Bonta, Attorney General of California

All poultry products — from chicken tenders to foie gras — must pass federal inspection for sale in commerce under the Poultry Products Inspection Act, which expressly preempts any additional or different “ingredient requirements.” 21 U.S.C. § 467e. In Nat’l Meat Ass’n v. Harris, 565 U.S. 452 (2012), this Court unanimously held that a State may not avoid preemption of a state regulation “just by framing it as a ban on the sale of meat produced in whatever way the State disapproved” since “[t]hat would make a mockery of the FMIA’s preemption provision.” In the split opinion below, the Ninth Circuit upheld California’s ban on wholesome poultry products based on the way the primary ingredient is produced, creating a “head-on collision” with this Court’s precedents and deviating from other circuits. The questions presented are:

1. Whether a State may avoid express ingredient preemption under the Poultry Products Inspection Act by banning the sale of poultry products based on the only way their primary ingredient can be produced.

2. Whether a state law that makes it physically impossible to produce and sell a poultry product in compliance with both state and federal law is preempted under the doctrine of impossibility preemption or whether a State may avoid preemption under the “stop-selling” rationale this Court rejected in Mutual Pharm. Co. v. Bartlett, 570 U.S. 472 (2013).

3. Whether a State’s sales ban of wholesome poultry products based exclusively on the farming practice by which the animals were raised in other States and countries violates this Court’s dormant Commerce Clause doctrines.