Eggs Lawsuit By Iowa, Other States Is Rejected

SAN FRANCISCO – Six states, including Iowa, lacked the legal right to challenge a California law that prohibits the sale off eggs from chickens that are not raised in accordance with strict space requirements, a federal appeals court said Thursday.

The states — Iowa, Alabama, Kentucky, Missouri, Nebraska, Oklahoma — failed to show how the law would affect them and not just individual egg farmers, a unanimous three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled. The court upheld a lower court decision that dismissed the lawsuit.

California voters approved a ballot initiative in 2008 that set the space requirements for egg-laying hens in the state. The standards say chickens must spend most of their day with enough space to lie down, stand up, turn around and fully extend their limbs.

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