LANCASTER COUNTY, Pa. — Note: The video is from February 29.
In the latest salvo in a battle between state officials and a Lancaster County farmer seeking to continue selling raw milk in violation of state and federal food safety rules, the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture this week sought to have a Lancaster County judge dismiss Amos Miller's attempt to throw out a lawsuit against him, claiming the "indecipherable" objections noted by his attorneys are not related to the charges against him.
In January, the Office of the Pennsylvania Attorney General filed another lawsuit against Miller following a raid of his farm by state agriculture inspectors after two people -- one in New York, and another in Michigan -- became ill, and the source was determined to be raw milk products sold by Miller, who has been the subject of numerous efforts at the state and federal level to get him to comply with food safety rules regarding the sale of raw milk products at his Upper Leacock Township farm.
The Food and Drug Administration found listeria in the farm’s raw milk in 2015 after raw milk sickened two people, killing one. Through genetic testing, the FDA identified the strain of listeria as genetically similar to the strain that sickened the people, leading the FDA to conclude that Miller’s milk was the “likely source” of the bacteria.
At the time, Miller told FOX43 his milk was not proven to have caused the illnesses, and that the person who died had pre-existing conditions.
“Her family is very upset that FDA and USDA is using her case to make us look bad,” Miller said.
Prosecutors have accused Miller of showing a “singular, historic willingness to flout democratically enacted federal food safety laws of general applicability.”
Miller was fined $250,000 by a U.S. District Court judge in 2021 for violating a consent decree he signed acknowledging he violated a 2019 injunction ordering him to stop violating food safety laws..
Earlier this month, the Lancaster County Court of Common Pleas ordered Miller to stop selling or marketing raw milk or products made with raw milk at Miller's Organic Farm, ordering that if Miller was to distribute raw milk products, they must be given to immediate family members on a noncommercial basis.
Miller's attorneys countered last week with a request for the court to allow out-of-state sales of the dairy items, arguing that the current ban on all sales may stretch the Commonwealth's authority too far as it tries to govern commerce in other states.
In a filing on Monday, the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture and the Office of the Attorney General wrote that Miller’s latest effort to have the case dismissed are based on “a barrage of facts that are not alleged in the (lawsuit) and a litany of conclusory statements of law that fail to provide any cogent argument.”
In one of many examples to support its argument listed in the filing, the Agriculture Department noted that its suit says nothing about Miller being Amish or the consumer demand for his products. But Miller’s attorneys focus their pleading on those aspects of his operation, the Department said.
Miller's attorneys claim, for example, that stopping Miller from selling raw milk would "severely change the local Amish farming economy, and prevent thousands of Americans from obtaining food they need for medical, religious, politically associational and express, and deeply personal purpose," the Department wrote.
Such objections "have nothing to do with the factual allegations" in the lawsuit regarding Miller's failure to have a permit and to register his business, the Department's attorney's argued.
Miller's attorneys also claim in the filing that his customers "know what they are getting into" when purchasing raw milk products, the Department said in its filing.
That's immaterial, the attorneys argue.
“Of course there is consumer demand for (Miller’s) products, just as there is a market for unapproved medications, uninspected vehicles, and other consumer products that fail to meet regulatory safety standards,” the filing said. “The existence of a market for illegal products — whether because of a belief in the quality of those products or simply because of cost savings — is immaterial to whether regulations can be enforced against a seller.”
Finally, the Department argued, Miller's filing does not comply with state rules of civil law that require all filings to be clear enough to garner a response.
The fillings submitted by Miller, the Department claims, are “replete with lengthy and indecipherable statements like ‘infringing on the religiously expressive rights of the Amish community and the religiously motivated decisions of the food from (Miller’s) family farm, the politically expressive decisions to procure the food from the defendants’ family farm, and the right to anonymity, privacy and bodily autonomy.’”
Lancaster County Judge Thomas Sponaugle has still not ruled on Miller's request to allow him to sell raw milk products to out-of-state customers.