The Tennessee Walking Horse National Celebration, Kim Lewis and Tom Gould filed a motion for summary judgment in the USDA’s rulemaking case in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas’ Amarillo Division. The motion was filed on Friday October 18, 2024.

The plaintiffs are challenging several parts of the USDA’s rulemaking which was finalized in May 2024 and it set to become effective on February 1, 2025, if the plaintiffs challenge is unsuccessful.  The plaintiffs’ case centers on the administrative overreach of USDA in implementing rules on the industry that would devastate the show horse element of the breed. The motion begins by challenging the data that the USDA relied upon to create the need for the rule and classifies the data as “patently unreliable.”

The motion also challenges the USDA statutory authority to ban action devices and pads due to the fact the HPA only allows the USDA to ban practices that cause soring. The USDA admitted in the rulemaking that pads and action devices do not cause soring. Similarly, the motion challenges the USDA’s authority to ban any substance on the legs of a Tennessee Walking Horse, including those that don’t cause soring.

The motion also challenges the new “scar rule” which is now termed the “Dermatologic Conditions Indicative of Soring” or “DCIS. The previous scar rule has been attacked by multiple authorities as being too arbitrary, including in the study done by the National Academies of Science (NAS). The new DCIS is even more arbitrary than the current “scar rule.”

Another major challenge is the lack of due process the new rule provides owners, trainers and exhibitors.  The new rule proposed a 21-day timeline that parties can challenge the findings in inspection but it does nothing to provide any due process prior to the disqualification of the horse. The plaintiffs also challenge USDA’s decision to eliminate the Horse Industry Organizations (HIO), which is contrary to Congress’ vision of the industry taking a role in policing itself. The motion also points out that the rule is further arbitrary and capricious because the USDA failed to consider the devastating economic effects the rule would have on the industry.

The plaintiffs’ lawyers also raise the issue that the 2024 rule fails to comply with the Regulatory Flexibility Act. The USDA concedes the rule affects small entities but insists it won’t have significant adverse effects on them.

The USDA now has 30 days to file an answer to the plaintiff’s motion for summary judgment. Click here to read the full motion for summary judgment.