A federal appeals court upheld the constitutionality of a Maryland law banning the sale of dogs and cats through retail pet shops, rejecting a challenge by Missouri dog breeders and Maryland pet stores.
The ruling by a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals marked the second time the law has been upheld. A federal district court dismissed the breeders’ case in September 2021, a ruling that was upheld by the circuit court’s decision Wednesday.
Requests for comment on the ruling from the attorney representing the breeders and pet stores was not returned. But state officials and animals rights advocates welcomed the court’s finding that the law is “absolutely constitutional,” calling it a “big win for puppies.”
“This is fantastic news,” said Sen. Ben Kramer (D-Montgomery), the lead sponsor of the law. “The court absolutely got it right.”
Kelsey Hartman, a spokesperson for the Maryland Attorney General’s Office, which defended the law, said the office was “pleased with the Fourth Circuit’s decision upholding Maryland’s 2021 Pet Store Statute, the purpose of which is to ensure that puppies and kittens are treated humanely and are healthy when sold to Marylanders.”
The suit challenged a 2021 law, which was an update of a similar law from 2018, that says retail pet stores “may not sell or otherwise transfer or dispose of cats or dogs.” The court said the 2021 law was the most recent in a series of Maryland laws that restricted sales of dogs and cats in an effort to block “puppy mills” — facilities that breed large numbers of pets, but often in what Kramer called barbaric conditions.
While the law prohibited the sale of dogs and cats in retail pet shops, it does not prohibit people from buying a pet from a breeder. People are allowed to buy pets from a store or a breeder, as long as the animal was born at the business or farm where it’s sold.
“Practically speaking, the Pet Store Statute allows breeders to sell dogs in Maryland, both in person and over the internet, but prohibits retail pet stores and brokers from selling dogs,” said Circuit Judge Allison Jones Rushing, who wrote the opinion for the court.
Kramer agreed that the “whole point of the bill is to cut out the brokers that buy from the breeders and sell to the retailers.”
The law was challenged by Just Puppies and Charm City Puppies, and two Missouri-based breeders who sold to the Maryland businesses. Rushing said in her ruling that the stores “historically derived more than ninety percent of … gross revenue from dog sales and the remainder from selling pet accessories. These businesses generated millions of dollars annually by buying high-end, pure-bred puppies, primarily from out of state, and reselling them to Maryland consumers.”
The plaintiffs argued that the Maryland law was preempted by the federal Animal Welfare Act and that it violated the Constitution’s Commerce Clause by interfering with interstate commerce.
Rushing said the Animal Welfare Act argument “faces an uphill climb.” Animal regulation is considered a state function, she wrote, and the federal “regulations are a floor: the AWA does not prohibit state and local governments from adopting additional standards,” such as the Maryland law.
She also rejected the Commerce Clause arguments.
The breeders said that even though the Maryland law does not name them, it makes it harder for out-of-state breeders to do business in Maryland in practice, by adding costs and travel for anyone in the state wanting to buy out of state. They quote Kramer during debate on the bill, when he said it would benefit Maryland businesses, as evidence that it was meant to hurt out-of-state breeders.
But the court said those comments were taken out of context. It noted that Kramer also said that there is nothing to keep a Maryland resident who “found a responsible breeder in Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, or California from selling you a … puppy and you’ll still be able to do that.” Buyers here could have pets shipped to them, they would not have to travel to far-away states to buy their pet, he said.
The court’s ruling was welcomed by the Humane Society of the United States, which filed a friend of the court brief in defense of the law, which is said targets retail sales that “often obfuscate the source of animals they sell and are conduits for puppy mills to take advantage of unsuspecting consumers.”
“This decision is a major blow to the puppy mill industry and its pet store sales outlets and builds on the already strong precedent in federal courts,” said a statement from Ralph Henry, the Humane Society’s senior director of litigation and animal protection law.
Kramer said he has heard from animal welfare groups across the country about the ruling, which he said “opens the door in a huge way for other states to take action.”
Given that this is the second win for the law, he said he is not concerned about the potential of an appeal. But “if the industry wants to keep throwing good money after bad, they’re welcome to keep doing that.”
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