A.S.P.C.A. v. Ringling Bros. & Bailey

Decision Date04 February 2003
Docket NumberNo. 01-7166.,01-7166.
Citation317 F.3d 334
PartiesAMERICAN SOCIETY FOR THE PREVENTION OF CRUELTY TO ANIMALS, et al., Appellants, v. RINGLING BROS. AND BARNUM & BAILEY CIRCUS and Feld Entertainment, Inc., Appellees.
CourtU.S. Court of Appeals — District of Columbia Circuit
317 F.3d 334
AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR THE PREVENTION OF CRUELTY TO ANIMALS, et al., Appellants,
v.
RINGLING BROS. AND BARNUM & BAILEY CIRCUS and Feld Entertainment, Inc., Appellees.
No. 01-7166.
United States Court of Appeals, District of Columbia Circuit.
Argued November 5, 2002.
Decided February 4, 2003.

Page 335

Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Columbia (00cv01641).

Katherine Anne Meyer argued the cause for appellants. With her on the briefs were Eric R. Glitzenstein and Jonathan R. Lovvorn.

Harris Weinstein argued the cause for appellees. With him on the brief were Eugene D. Gulland, Elliott Schulder, and Kevin C. Newsom.

Before: RANDOLPH and ROGERS, Circuit Judges, and WILLIAMS, Senior Circuit Judge.

Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge RANDOLPH.

RANDOLPH, Circuit Judge:


Asian elephants perform at the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus. The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, the Animal Welfare Institute, the Fund for Animals, and Thomas Rider sued Ringling Bros. and its owner, Feld Entertainment, Inc., claiming that Asian elephants are an endangered species and that the circus mistreated its elephants in violation of the Endangered Species Act, 16 U.S.C. § 1531 et seq. The only question is whether, as the district court ruled in dismissing their complaint, plaintiffs lack standing under Article III of the Constitution.

The strongest case for standing is presented by Thomas Rider. The relevant allegations in the complaint relating to him are as follows. Ringling Bros. holds circus performances in the United States and other countries. It sometimes stages events in which its Asian elephants parade along public streets. Rider worked for Ringling Bros. from June 1997 to November 1999, tending the elephant barns and working as a "handler." As a result of his work with the elephants he formed a "strong, personal attachment to these animals." Employees of Ringling Bros. beat the elephants with sharp bull hooks, kept the elephants in chains for long periods of time, and forcibly removed baby elephants from their mothers at an earlier age than they could normally be weaned in the wild. These actions have negative impacts on the elephants' behavior "wherever they perform or are exhibited." Rider has seen the elephants show stressful "stereotypic" behavior as a result. Department of Agriculture inspectors saw lesions and rope burns on the elephants. Rider left his job at Ringling Bros. because of the mistreatment of the elephants. He would like to work with the elephants again and would attempt to do so if the elephants were relocated. Rider would also like to visit the elephants, but is unwilling to do so because he would suffer "aesthetic and emotional injury" from seeing the animals unless they are placed in a different setting or are no longer mistreated.

The complaint was brought under the citizen-suit provision of the Endangered Species Act, 16 U.S.C. § 1540(g), which allows any person to commence a civil suit to enjoin violations of the Act or its regulations. Id. § 1540(g)(1)(A). Plaintiffs provided written notice to the Secretary of the Interior and to Ringling Bros. sixty days before filing suit. Id. § 1540(g)(2)(A). They sought a declaratory judgment that Ringling Bros. violated the Act and the

Page 336

regulations thereunder, an injunction against future violations, forfeiture of the elephants, and other relief.

The citizen-suit provision in the Endangered Species Act, by specifying that "any person" may be a plaintiff, eliminates any prudential standing requirement. See Bennett v. Spear, 520 U.S. 154, 163-65, 117 S.Ct. 1154, 1161-63, 137 L.Ed.2d 281 (1997). Rider still must satisfy Article III by showing that he has suffered an injury in fact, fairly traceable to the defendant's action, and capable of judicial redress. See id. at 167, 117 S.Ct. at 1163.

Rider failed to make such a showing, the district court ruled, because his exposure to the mistreatment of the elephants in the past did not cause him any present injury or threaten to cause any injury in the near future. Rider claimed that he wanted to work with the elephants again. But whether he could find such employment if Ringling Bros. were ordered to forfeit the elephants was, in the court's view, speculative. Rider's remaining arguments for standing — his general emotional upset, and his "continuing injury" from having quit his job — were insufficient for reasons unnecessary to recount. (The district court also held that the remaining individual and organizational plaintiffs lacked standing.)

We believe Rider has alleged enough to show injury in fact — that is, "an invasion of a judicially cognizable interest which is (a) concrete and particularized and (b) actual or imminent, not conjectural or hypothetical." Bennett, 520 U.S. at 167, 117 S.Ct. at 1163; Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555, 560, 112 S.Ct. 2130, 2136, 119 L.Ed.2d 351 (1992). "At the pleading stage, general factual allegations of injury resulting from the defendant's conduct may suffice" because courts assume plaintiffs can back up their general claims with specifics at trial. Lujan, 504 U.S. at 561, 112 S.Ct. at 2137. Rider's allegations of injury fit within decisions of this court and the Supreme Court recognizing that harm to one's aesthetic interests in viewing animals may be a sufficient injury in fact. See id. at 562-63, 112 S.Ct. at 2137-38; Japan Whaling Ass'n v. American Cetacean Soc'y, 478 U.S. 221, 230, 106 S.Ct. 2860, 2865-66, 92 L.Ed.2d 166 (1986); Sierra Club v. Morton, 405 U.S. 727, 734-35, 92 S.Ct. 1361, 1365-66, 31 L.Ed.2d 636 (1972); Animal Legal Def. Fund v. Glickman, 154 F.3d 426, 432...

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