- The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in a March 23rd order (Law360 subscription required) that Florida law SB 1084, which bans the sale and manufacture of cultivated meat, was not preempted by the federal Poultry Products Inspection Act (PPIA). We have previously blogged about this lawsuit which was initiated by Upside Foods.
- The 11th Circuit’s opinion is largely devoted to several preliminary issues that the Court had to address before reaching the question of whether the PPIA preempts SB 1084. For example, Upside Foods’s appeal was from an order granting a preliminary injunction, but Upside Foods had since filed an amended complaint which was dismissed. The 11th Circuit held that neither the filing of the amended complaint nor the dismissal rendered the appeal moot. The Court also rejected the argument that Upside Foods could not bring the action because the PPIA has no private right of action. The Court held that the action did not seek to enforce the PPIA, but instead was a constitutional defense that sought to stop enforcement of a state law.
- With respect to the merits (beginning on p. 23/33), the Court held the following:
- SB 1084 was not preempted by the “facilities provision” in the PPIA which preempts state laws imposing different or additional requirements “with respect to premises, facilities and operations of any official establishment.” The Court read the language of the PPIA to only preempt laws “with a direct relationship to the onsite operations of a poultry processor,” and it found the relationship between an end-product ban and facilities operations to be incidental. The law did not “tell facilities how to handle or process” their product.
- SB 1084 was not preempted by the “ingredients provision” of the PPIA, which preempts state laws imposing different or additional “ingredient requirements…with respect to articles prepared at any official establishment.” The Court held that cultivated meat was an end-product and not an ingredient.