The Am. Soc'y for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals v. Animal & Plant Health Inspection Serv.

• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Columbia
• Writing for the Court: CHRISTOPHER R. COOPER UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE
• Docket Number: 21-cv-1600 (CRC)
• Decision Date: 29 October 2025
• Parties: THE AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR THE PREVENTION OF CRUELTY TO ANIMALS, Plaintiff, v. ANIMAL AND PLANT HEALTH INSPECTION SERVICE, et al., Defendants.
• topic: Administrative Law,Civil Procedure

1

THE AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR THE PREVENTION OF CRUELTY TO ANIMALS, Plaintiff, v. ANIMAL AND PLANT HEALTH INSPECTION SERVICE, et al., Defendants.

No. 21-cv-1600 (CRC)

United States District Court, District of Columbia

October 29, 2025

MEMORANDUM OPINION

CHRISTOPHER R. COOPER UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE

The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (“ASPCA”) has long hounded the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (“APHIS”) over what it views as the agency's lax enforcement of animal welfare laws against unscrupulous dog dealers. In this latest tussle ASPCA challenges two of APHIS's rules. The first is the Courtesy Visits Rule, which permits APHIS inspectors to visit animal dealers and advise them on how to comply with welfare standards without writing up certain violations they observe during the visit. The second is the Veterinary Care Rule under which APHIS inspectors may find dealers to be compliant with veterinary care standards even if they observe certain animal health issues during their inspections. ASPCA contends that both rules violate the Administrative Procedure Act (“APA”) because they are contrary to law and arbitrary and capricious.

The parties have filed cross-motions for summary judgment. After careful consideration of the governing regulatory framework and administrative record, the Court will grant and deny each side's motion in part. In its current form, the Courtesy Visits Rule must be set aside as inconsistent with a recently-enacted appropriations statute, whereas the Veterinary Care Rule may stand, as it is neither contrary to law nor arbitrary and capricious.

I. Background

APHIS is the federal agency responsible for regulating commercial animal dealers. Among its many activities, the agency runs an inspection program to ensure that dealers are complying with their regulatory obligations. This case concerns two rules that APHIS has instituted to guide agency inspectors' interactions with regulated dealers. Before turning to the analytical heart of the matter, the Court reviews the governing statutory framework and then traces the history of this long-running dispute between APHIS and ASPCA.

A. Regulatory Background

1. The Animal Welfare Act & APHIS Regulations

The Animal Welfare Act (“AWA” or “the Act”) “seeks to [e]nsure the humane treatment of dogs (and other animals) raised and sold” for various purposes, including as pets. Doris Day Animal League v. Veneman, 315 F.3d 297, 298 (D.C. Cir. 2003). To this end, the Act authorizes the Department of Agriculture (“USDA”) to regulate animal dealers in the United States. See 7 U.S.C. § 2131 et seq. USDA has delegated its regulatory authority to one of its subdivisions, APHIS. See 7 C.F.R. § 2.80(a)(6).

In order to breed, broker, or sell animals, dealers must be licensed by APHIS and submit to routine inspections. 7 U.S.C. §§ 2133, 2134, 2146(a). No license may issue unless the dealer demonstrates that its facilities comply with relevant animal welfare standards. Id. § 2133. By statute, those standards must “include minimum requirements” for “handling, housing, feeding, watering, sanitation, ventilation, shelter from extremes of weather and temperatures, adequate veterinary care, and separation by species [where necessary],” as well as for the “exercise of dogs[.]” Id. § 2143(a)(2). APHIS has promulgated regulations that set these and other minimum standards of animal care and handling. See generally 9 C.F.R. Subch. A, Part 3.

As for enforcement, the AWA provides that the agency “shall make such investigations or inspections” as is “necessary to determine whether any dealer . . . has violated or is violating” a statutory or regulatory provision. 7 U.S.C. § 2146(a). The agency also “shall, at all reasonable times, have access to [regulated parties'] places of business and the facilities, animals, and those records required to be kept” under the Act. Id. APHIS regulations establish an inspection regime under which dealers are periodically visited by inspectors who assess compliance and prepare reports with their findings. See generally 9 C.F.R. Subch. A, Part 2. Licensees may appeal inspection findings, see 9 C.F.R. § 2.13, but the AWA requires APHIS to make all final inspection reports publicly available online, see 7 U.S.C. § 2146a(b)(1).

As APHIS explains in its briefing, “inspection reports are only the first step” in the enforcement process; once inspectors log observed violations in the agency's online system, APHIS staff review those reports of non-compliance to determine whether further investigation or administrative enforcement is warranted. APHIS Motion for Summary Judgment (“MSJ”), ECF No. 54, at 4-5. If APHIS concludes that an animal dealer has violated animal welfare standards, the agency may (but is not strictly required to) suspend the dealer's license temporarily or permanently; impose civil penalties; and/or refer the matter to the Attorney General for criminal or civil enforcement in a United States district court. 7 U.S.C. §§ 2149, 2159.

2. The Animal Welfare Inspection Guide

APHIS regularly publishes the Animal Welfare Inspection Guide (“the Guide”), a manual that instructs agency personnel how to conduct inspections and document their findings. See generally Certified Administrative Record (“C.A.R.”) 9462-9824 (reproducing the version of the Guide last revised in June 2025).

According to the Guide, an inspector “must complete an official Inspection Report as soon as possible at the end of the inspection.” C.A.R. 9524 (emphasis removed). If the inspector observes any violations of APHIS regulations or standards, referred to as “noncompliant items” or “NCIs,” the Guide instructs the inspector to document them in the “narrative” section of the report. C.A.R. 9478. The Guide also requires inspectors to classify the type of NCI they observe. An NCI is a “Repeat” non-compliance when it has already been cited in the recent past. C.A.R. 9479. An NCI is “Recurring/Chronic” when “the same or a similar noncompliance” has previously occurred, but not in consecutive inspections; in other words, that label applies when the NCI is “cited on one inspection, corrected by the next inspection, then re-occurs on the third and/or a subsequent inspection.” Id. And an NCI is “Critical” when, among other things, it has had “a serious or severe adverse effect on the health and well-being of [an] animal.” C.A.R. 9480. The Guide lists several examples of Critical NCIs, including but not limited to: “[l]ack of an attending veterinarian with documented adverse effects on the health or well-being of an animal that require immediate veterinary care”; “[a]ctions or inactions of unqualified personnel resulting in documented, adverse effects on the health or well-being of an animal”; a “[h]andling violation that resulted in death or serious injury to an animal”; or “[e]scape of an animal resulting in adverse effects on the health or well-being of the animal.”^[1] Id.

The final type of NCI is a “Direct” non-compliance, which is a “Critical noncompliance that is currently (at the time of the inspection) having a serious or severe adverse effect on the health and well-being of the animal.” C.A.R. 9481 (emphasis removed). According to the Guide, timing is the only difference between a Critical and Direct NCI; an inspector is to ask “whether [the non-compliance] has a current serious or severe adverse impact at the time of the inspection,” and “[t]he severity of an NCI at the time of a prior adverse incident has no impact on whether an NCI should be marked as a Critical or a Direct.” Id. (emphasis in original).

B. Factual and Procedural Background

ASPCA is an animal rights advocacy organization whose mission is to “provide effective means for the prevention of cruelty to animals throughout the United States.” Hensley Decl. ¶ 5. ASPCA relies in part on APHIS's inspection reports to identify dealers who mistreat dogs and bring them to the public's attention. Id. ¶ 6. ASPCA also uses information in the reports to engage in “direct intervention” to rescue dogs. Id. ¶¶ 6, 12-14.

When ASPCA first filed this lawsuit in 2021, it took aim at what it coined APHIS's “Customer Service Policy,” which encompassed several distinct rules^[2] in the Guide that govern inspector conduct. See Amended Compl. ¶ 3. According to ASPCA, the Customer Service Policy unlawfully directed APHIS employees to treat animal dealers as “customers” they should support, rather than parties they must regulate. Id. ¶ 5. Since 2021, APHIS has amended or repealed several of the rules with which ASPCA originally took issue.^[3] See ASPCA MSJ, ECF No. 51, at 7 n.3, 18-19, 22 n.16. Those changes leave just two rules in dispute.

1. The Courtesy Visits Rule

The first rule at issue in this case is APHIS's Courtesy Visits Rule. The Court first describes the agency's courtesy visits program as a whole and then homes in on the particular aspect of the program that ASPCA challenges in this case.

Since at least 2015, APHIS has permitted its inspectors to engage in voluntary discussions and/or visits with animal dealers regarding their AWA compliance. C.A.R. 525254. APHIS views these interactions as “educational” in nature, C.A.R. 5254, intended both as a “learning opportunit[y]” for dealers seeking to understand how to comply with welfare standards and as a chance for inspectors to “build relationships with” the facilities they regulate, C.A.R. 8831. Courtesy visits also allow inspectors to “check on the welfare of the animals at facilities where access has been limited.” C.A.R. 5326.

APHIS formalized the courtesy visits program and incorporated it into the inspection Guide as early as 2019. See C.A.R. 5326-27. Today, the Guide outlines several different types of...