Claims filed in Texas federal court to block the Equestrian Integrity and Safety Act were dismissed on March 31 by U.S. District Judge James Wesley Hendrix.
The lawsuit, filed by the National Horsemen’s Protection and Mercy Association and participating HBPAs, seeks to ask a court to order enforcement of the Act as unconstitutional. HBPA argued that HISA had unlawfully given regulatory authority to a private organization it created, the Horseracing Safety and Integrity Authority.
After noticing that HBPA had filed a lawsuit and that a real controversy existed, Hendrix also found that there was no disagreement on key facts, resulting in a decision based on the application of the law.
Hendrix has ruled that HISA meets what he describes as the current low threshold in private authorization cases generated by the US Supreme Court and the US Fifth Circuit, of which Texas is the a part. When all is said and done, he writes the HISA is not an unconstitutional private authorization that violates Article I of the Constitution or the Due Process Clause.
A complaint filed at the 11th hour in Texas’ Hendrix court that HISA violates the 10th Amendment of the United States Constitution, which reserves powers to the states not granted to the federal government, has yet to be filed. be decided. The same issue is being sued in federal court in the Eastern District of Kentucky.
