University of Buffalo

Last week, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit issued an opinion that reiterated a conclusion they had reached two years prior--that even though the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Act (HISA)'s rulemaking structure is constitutional, its enforcement provisions are not. It was nearly this time last year the United States Supreme Court punted the question of HISA's constitutionality back down the legal ladder, telling the Fifth, Sixth and Eighth Circuits of the U.S. Courts of Appeal to consider in their various HISA decisions a then-recent Supreme Court ruling...

The United States Supreme Court punted on Monday the constitutionality of the Horseracing and Safety Integrity Act (HISA) back down the legal ladder, requiring three different federal appeals courts to reconsider their earlier decisions on the matter in light of a fresh ruling by the highest court in the land. The Supreme Court's Friday decision in Federal Communications Commission (FCC) vs. Consumers' Research saw a 6-3 majority of justices essentially dismiss an argument that the agency delegated too much authority to a private company to administer the program. With this...

The conservative bent of two of the three judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit scheduled to hear another case about the constitutionality of the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Act (HISA) "does not bode well" for the near-term future of the act, said appellate law expert Lucinda Finley. Oral arguments are set for Dec. 7 in the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals for an appeal of an earlier ruling in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky. That district court found that HISA was indeed constitutional,...