Justia Federal District Court Opinions

Several Pennsylvania dairy farmers and a dairy cooperative¹ challenge the validity of the Secretary of Agriculture's regulations governing the marketing of fluid milk in the New York-New Jersey milk marketing area.² Plaintiffs allege that the Secretary's regulations, promulgated under the Agricultural Marketing Agreement Act of 1937, 7 U.S.C. § 601 et seq., violate 7 U.S.C. § 608c(5)(G), which states:

No marketing agreement or order applicable to milk and its products in any marketing area shall prohibit or in any manner limit, in the case of the products of milk, the marketing in that area of any milk or product thereof produced in any production area in the United States.

The district court found that the Secretary's regulations governing the marketing of fluid milk in the New York-New Jersey milk marketing area, as applied to plaintiffs, constituted a prohibited economic trade barrier to milk producers and sellers outside the New York-New Jersey milk marketing area. See Lehigh Valley Cooperative Farmers, Inc. v. United States, 370 U.S. 76, 91-98, 82 S.Ct. 1168, 1175-1180, 8 L.Ed.2d 345 (1962). The district court awarded plaintiffs restitution and interest. We will now affirm, and in so doing adopt the reasoning of the district court expressed in Sani-Dairy v. Yeutter, 935 F.Supp. 608 (W.D.Pa.1995) and Sani-Dairy v. Espy, --- F.Supp. ----, NO. CIV.A. 90-222J, CIV.A. 90-236J, (W.D.Pa. Dec.30, 1993).