A NAIS update from
Mary-Louise Zanoni
Canton, New York
315-386-3199
Thursday, June 21, 2007
First Lawsuit Challenging NAIS Premises Registration Filed in Pennsylvania
Today an action was filed in state court in Pennsylvania on behalf of Mennonite farmer James Landis. Landis raises Muscovy ducks at his family farm in Lebanon County, PA and has long participated in the Avian Influenza Monitoring Program of the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture (PDA). Participation in the monitoring program is necessary for Landis because he sells his ducks to live bird markets in New York City. In April 2007 the PDA notified Landis that he must accept a federal NAIS Premises ID number for his farm, or the PDA would no longer approve his birds for shipment to New York as of June 30, 2007. Mr. Landis has a religious objection which prevents him from accepting the federal premises ID number and he faced the loss of his family’s livelihood because of the PDA’s insistence on compelling him to accept the number.
The PDA has been trying to compel farmers to accept federal premises ID numbers despite the fact that a bill to require premises registration failed to become law during the 2005 session of the Pennsylvania General Assembly. At the federal level, the USDA maintains that its premises ID program is “voluntary.”
I had met Mr. Landis last fall at a farmers’ meeting in Lancaster County where I spoke about the potential problems of NAIS. After the PDA demanded in April that Mr. Landis either accept the federal premises ID or face the loss of his livelihood, he contacted me, seeking legal help. Fortunately we were able to secure assistance from the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) of Scottsdale, Arizona and ADF-allied lawyer Leonard G. Brown, III of the firm of Clymer & Musser, Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
Since 1994, ADF has been one of the nation’s leading public-interest legal organizations, supporting and pursuing litigation on religious-freedom issues at the trial and appellate levels, including the United States Supreme Court. Leonard Brown and Clymer & Musser have extensive experience in litigating constitutional and civil rights issues at the trial and appellate levels in both state and federal courts. Leonard Brown can be reached at 717-299-7101.
The ADF press release is below and a copy of the complaint is attached.
ALLIANCE DEFENSE FUND NEWS RELEASE
June 21, 2007 – FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT ADF MEDIA RELATIONS: (480) 444-0020
ADF attorneys file lawsuit to defend Mennonite against government bureaucracy
Dept. of Agriculture tries to force Mennonite farmer to submit to having a federal identification number
HARRISBURG, Pa. — An Alliance Defense Fund allied attorney filed a lawsuit Thursday against the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture for its attempts to force a local farmer, James Landis, to submit to having a federal identification number in order to continue to do business, in violation of Landis’ religious beliefs.
“Mr. Landis has complied with all of the necessary governmental requirements. The government should not threaten to take his 20-year business from him simply because submitting to this one new unnecessary requirement would cause him violate his religious beliefs,” said ADF-allied attorney Leonard Brown of the law firm Clymer & Musser. “This is a reasonable accommodation for the government to make.”
Landis, a Mennonite, has raised ducks on his Lebanon County farm for export in live bird markets in New York for the past 20 years. He voluntarily participated in the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture’s avian influenza monitoring program as a requirement for selling flocks into the live bird market system. But this year, the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture added a new requirement, mandating that each person register for a federal identification number for enrollment in the monitoring plan. This federal number, or “premises identification number,” is the first step in a program called the National Animal Identification System, or NAIS.
In April Landis received a letter from the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture regarding the new requirement, ordering him to register for the federal premises identification number, in violation of Landis’ religious beliefs, or face exclusion from the New York live bird market. Landis contacted New York lawyer Mary-Louise Zanoni, a well-known critic of the constitutional problems of the federal identification program, and Zanoni referred Landis to ADF and ADF-allied attorney Brown.
ADF sent a letter to the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture informing them of Landis’ constitutional rights, but received no response.
“The Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture’s new identification number requirement is simply another layer of bureaucracy and it is unnecessary for them to force a citizen to violate his sincerely held religious beliefs,” said Brown. “It would be easy for the Department of Agriculture to accommodate Mr. Landis with regard to this additional requirement–and it should, in order not to violate his civil rights under the Constitution.”
A copy of the complaint filed with the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania in the case Landis v. Wolff can be read at link.
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Update: 2007-06-22
IN THE COMMONWEALTH COURT OF PENNSYLVANIA
James Landis,
Petitioner
V.
Dennis Wolff, Secretary,
Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture,
Respondent
No. 307 M.D. 2007
O R D E R
NOW, June 22, 2007, the above complaint shall be regarded and acted upon as a petition for review addressed to our original jurisdiction. See 42 Pa. C.S. §761.
Hearing on petitioner’s motion for a preliminary injunction is scheduled for June 28, 2007, at 9:30 a.m., in courtroom Number One, Fith Floor, Irvis Office Building, Harrisburg.
[signed]
Kieth B. Quigley, Senior Judge
