Not all court decisions are about the case at hand. Sometimes, judges rule on technical matters of law that don’t have any bearing on the merits of the main issue.
This was the case on April 9, when the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit upheld the District Court of Montana’s decision to grant a preliminary injunction requested by the Ranchers-Cattlemen Action Legal Fund (R-CALF) in its case against the Montana Beef Council.
In the case proper, dating back to December 2016, R-CALF argued that federal Beef Checkoff Program in Montana—administered by the Montana Beef Council—violates the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. The District Court of Montana granted the preliminary injunction June 2017. In practice, the injunction means that all checkoff money collected in the state goes to the Cattlemen’s Beef Board while it is in place and the case is ongoing. Normally, half of every $1 collected in Montana would go to the Montana Beef Council for in-state beef promotion.
Secretary of Agriculture, Sonny Purdue, appealed the district court decision to grant the preliminary injunction. This most recent decision was in reaction to that appeal.
Despite R-CALF’s characterization of the recent decision as the court “ruling that the USDA’s Beef Checkoff program is being administered in a way that interferes with ranchers’ First Amendment rights,” the decision was a technical matter related to how and when preliminary injunctions can be granted or reversed.
The court’s opinion specifically noted that its review did not “extend to the underlying merits of the case,” but in judging if the district court “abused its discretion” in granting the preliminary injunctions.
“The district court did not abuse its discretion,” the court opinion read. “The Secretary does not denote where the district court applied an ‘erroneous legal standard.’ Rather, the Secretary takes issue with the district court’s conclusion. This is insufficient to support a reversal of a preliminary injunction.” — WLJ
