High Court Upholds Foie Gras Ban In California

LOS ANGELES , CA — It's the end of the line for foie gras in California thanks to a decision by the U.S. Supreme Court Monday that effectively upholds the state's ban on the fraught French delicacy.

The highest court in the land rejected the foie gras industry's latest challenge to California's ban on the delicacy made from the fattened livers of force-fed ducks and geese. The decision leaves intact the ruling issued by a Pasadena-based appeals panel in 2017. The industry had fought hard against a 2012 law banning restaurants from serving the appetizer. With the Supreme Court's decision, the California ban can no go into effect.

Foie gras fans in California have been able to order the controversial menu items since a lower court struck down the ban in 2015.

Animal rights advocates hailed the decision Monday.

"The food industry has failed to end the ban on the sale of foie gras, which is made from tormented birds' diseased livers and the production of which late 9th Circuit Judge Harry Pregerson -- one of the members of the three- judge panel who had heard the case in 2017 -- explicitly stated is `absolutely cruel,"' People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals President Ingrid Newkirk said in a statement. "Now that California can enforce this ban, PETA urges diners to blow the whistle on any restaurant that's caught serving this illegal and hideously produced substance."

The state law went into effect in 2012 banning the sale of foie gras, but it was challenged in Los Angeles federal court by an association of foie gras producers in New York and Canada, along with a Hermosa Beach restaurant operator, who argued that the measure was vaguely written and interfered with state commerce.

A 2017 ruling by the Pasadena-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the statute.

According to the law, a restaurant caught serving the gourmet item in California could be fined up to $1,000.

City News Service and Patch Staffer Paige Austin contributed to this report. Photo: A worker uses the force feeding machine to feed ducks at Hudson Valley Foie Gras August 17, 2006 (Photo by Stephen Chernin/Getty Images)