
A federal judge has rejected Perdue Farms’ request for an injunction blocking federal labor officials from hearing a whistleblower complaint from Robeson County originally filed 10 years ago.
US District Judge Terrence Boyle issued an order Tuesday denying Perdue’s motion for an injunction against the US Department of Labor and poultry farmer Craig Watts. Boyle’s order also applies to a similar case involving Rudy Howell, a second Robeson County poultry farmer.
In a 2015 whistleblower complaint based on the federal Food Safety Modernization Act, Watts “claimed that Perdue retaliated against him after he publicly alleged that Perdue had provided him with sick and dying birds,” Boyle wrote.
“Watts invited a film crew to his farm to film the conditions of chickens in his chicken houses, which Watts contends were housed pursuant to Perdue’ s rules and restrictions,” Boyle wrote.
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration rejected Watts’ complaint in 2016, determining that Watts was not a Perdue employee covered by the laws that would give OSHA jurisdiction over his complaint. After “years of administrative litigation,” Watts secured a hearing before a Labor Department administrative law judge in June 2025, Boyle wrote.
Howell filed a similar complaint in 2021, later dismissed by OSHA. Howell also faces a June hearing before a Labor Department administrative law judge.
Perdue filed suit in the Watts case in August 2024 and the Howell case in October 2024. “In both cases, Perdue seeks a preliminary injunction to stop the DOJ ALJ proceedings pending the constitutional challenges raised by Perdue in its complaints,” Boyle explained. “In its complaints, Perdue seeks declaratory and injunctive relief and alleges that the DOL administrative proceedings are unconstitutional on several grounds.”
The suits argue that Labor Department proceedings “violate Article III; that they violate Perdue’ s right to a jury trial under the Seventh Amendment; … that they violate the President’s removal authority under Article II ; that they violate the nondelegation doctrine and separation of powers under Article I; and that they violate the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment,” Boyle added.
Boyle wrote that his jurisdiction over the cases “is in doubt” because the FSMA whistleblower law appears to confine complaints about the Labor Department’s actions to federal appellate courts.
“However, because the Court also concludes that the preliminary injunction motion may easily be denied, it will reserve a final decision on jurisdiction and assume it has jurisdiction for the purposes of resolving the instant motion,” the judge added.
Boyle questioned Perdue’s need for an injunction.
“Perdue’ s inaction in pursuing its claims undercuts its contention that it will suffer irreparable harm in the absence of an injunction,” the judge wrote. “Perdue has been litigating the Watts case since 2015 and the Howell case since 2021. Delay in seeking preliminary injunctive relief, which is designed to address a party’s ‘urgent need for the protection of [its] rights,’ demonstrates an ‘absence of the kind of irreparable harm required to support a preliminary injunction.’”
“Perdue raises core constitutional issues in its complaint, but simply raising a constitutional claim does not entitle a party to the ‘extraordinary and drastic remedy’ of a preliminary injunction,” Boyle added.
“In addition to a lack of urgency, Perdue has failed to persuasively argue that any harm that it suffers through the administrative proceedings would be irreparable,” according to Boyle’s order.
“First, the ALJ may decide fully in Perdue’ s favor,” he explained. “Should the ALJ decide against Perdue, Perdue may seek review in the court of appeals, which is plainly positioned to remedy any alleged error. Having to defend itself in within an administrative proceeding does not necessarily rise to the level of irreparable harm, even where the litigation is protracted and expensive.”
Both the balance of equities and the public interest “lie with permitting the underlying DOL actions to proceed while Perdue prosecutes its claims in this Court,” Boyle concluded.
“Congress enacted whistle blower protections in the FSMA as part of a comprehensive scheme aimed at protecting the public from unsafe food,” the judge wrote. “The equities do not weigh in favor of disrupting the administrative whistleblower procedures which have been in place since 2011 in order to further Congress’s objectives.”
“While, as Perdue contends, the public interest certainly aligns with vindicating constitutional rights, in this context, where Perdue has an avenue of review of its constitutional claims, the final factor cuts in favor of the defendants,” the order continued.
The post Judge rejects Perdue Farms’ request to block NC whistleblower complaints first appeared on Carolina Journal.
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