Jan. 23 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. Supreme Court overturned a California law requiring slaughterhouses to immediately euthanize animals that are too sick to stand up, saying the measure violated a federal meat-safety law.

The unanimous ruling today is a victory for the National Meat Association, an industry trade group that challenged the California law.

Because federal law similarly bans the slaughter of downed cattle for food, the California law would have had its greatest impact on the handling of pigs. Under federal law, downed hogs can be slaughtered after they undergo a veterinary check to ensure they aren't diseased. The hogs also must become ambulatory before they can be slaughtered.

The state law was enacted in 2008 after the Humane Society of the United States released a video of so-called downer cattle being kicked, electrocuted, dragged with chains and rammed with a forklift at a Westland/Hallmark Meat Co. slaughterhouse.

The California law banned slaughterhouses from buying or selling downer animals and from butchering them for human consumption. The measure also required humane handling of the animals.

The Obama administration argued alongside the meat-industry trade group in urging the court to declare the state law "pre- empted" by the federal statute.

Of the 100 million hogs trucked to slaughter annually in the U.S., 44,000 will be unable to walk, according to the Humane Society and 2008 data from the Des Moines, Iowa-based National Pork Board, which does research and promotion of pork.

The case is National Meat Association v. Harris, 10-224.

--With assistance from Stephanie Armour in Washington. Editors: Justin Blum, Laurie Asseo

To contact the reporter on this story: Greg Stohr in Washington at gstohr@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Steven Komarow at skomarow1@bloomberg.net

URL: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2012/01/23/bloomberg_ar...