A federal judge dismissed a lawsuit Thursday by six states challenging California’s ban on sales of eggs laid by hens that are kept in cages smaller than those California’s voters mandated for in-state poultry farms in 2008.
Missouri, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Alabama, Kentucky and Iowa said their egg farmers would lose hundreds of millions of dollars if they had to comply with the California law, which was passed by the Legislature in 2010 and is scheduled to take effect in January. Their lawsuit argued that the law is a protectionist measure that interferes with interstate commerce.
U.S. District Judge Kimberly Mueller of Sacramento did not address those arguments Thursday. Instead, she said the states lacked legal standing — the right to sue on behalf of their residents — because they were representing only the economic interests of egg farmers rather than “a substantial segment of their populations.”
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