Group files lawsuit against HISA in Arkansas court
A fifth lawsuit has been filed by horsemen seeking the nullification of the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority on constitutional grounds, this time in a U.S. district court in Arkansas.
The suit was nominally filed by Bill Walmsley, Jon Moss, and the Iowa Horsemen’s Benevolent and Protective Association against the Federal Trade Commission, which was given oversight of HISA in the authority’s enabling legislation. The plaintiffs in the case are being represented by the Pacific Legal Foundation, which describes itself as a “legal organization that defends Americans threatened by government overreach and abuse,” according to its website.
Walmsley is a longtime horsemen’s representative from Arkansas, and Moss is the executive director of the Iowa Horsemen’s Benevolent and Protective Association.
The lawsuit argues many of the same points that have been alleged in lawsuits filed on behalf of horsemen’s organizations, racing commissions, and racetracks over the past two years, namely that HISA’s enabling legislation violated several provisions of the Constitution. Those suits have a mixed record of success.
Most crucially, the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals sided with horsemen in ruling late last year that HISA was “facially unconstitutional.” However, the U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled earlier this year that the enabling legislation did not violate Constitutional provisions, citing an amendment passed by congress late last year that was designed to address the Fifth Circuit concerns.
On Thursday, a judge in a U.S. District Court in Amarillo, Texas, ordered a similar lawsuit to be transferred to a separate district court in Lubbock that has already issued several decisions, including a ruling last week that required HISA to wait until May 1 to begin enforcing rules that had been approved by the FTC late in March. That suit had been filed with the court in the summer of 2022.
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