The Easter Bunny does not have to be afraid anymore!
Family Facing $4 Million in Fines for Selling Bunnies
By Bob McCarty
About six years ago, the Dollarhites wanted to teach their teenage son responsibility and the value of the dollar. So they rescued a pair of rabbits and, before long, things were literally hopping on the three-acre homestead 30 miles south of Springfield, MO, and Dollarvalue Rabbitry was launched as more of a hobby than a business.
At first, some of the bunnies were raised and sold for their meat. Later, they determined it was more profitable to sell live bunnies at four weeks old than to feed bunnies for 12 weeks and then sell them as meat.
During the summer of 2009, the Dollarhites bought the rabbitry from their son who had grown tired of managing it. Things kept growing, however, and the Dollarhite’s landed a pair of big accounts in 2009.
A well-known Branson theme park, Silver Dollar City, asked the Dollarhites to provide four-week-old bunnies each week to their petting zoo May through September. When the bunnies turned six weeks old, they were sold to park visitors. The local branch of a national pet store chain, Petland, purchased rabbits from the Dollarhites as well.
By the year’s end, the Dollarhites had moved approximately 440 rabbits and grossed about $4,600.
Then some unexpected matters began demanding their attention.
In the fall of 2009, a female inspector from the U.S. Department of Agriculture showed up at the front door of the family home, wanting to do a “spot inspection” of their rabbitry. She said she had come across Dollarhite Rabbitry invoices while inspecting the petting zoo at Silver Dollar City.
“She did not tell us that we were in violation of any laws, rules, anything whatsoever,” John said, explaining that the inspector said she just wanted to see what type of operation they had. Having nothing to hide or any reason to fear they were doing anything wrong, the Dollarhites allowed the inspection to proceed.
John’s wife Judy took the inspector to the back of their property where the rabbits were raised. There, the inspector began running the width of her finger across the cage and told the Dollarhites they would need to replace the cage, because it was a quarter-inch too small and did not meet federal regulations.
Such a requirement came as a shock to the Dollarhites, because they had just invested in new cages to ensure the bunnies had a healthy amount of space to develop, John explained.
Not only was the cage too small, according to the inspector, but she noted a small rust spot on a feeder and cited it as being out of compliance. When the Dollarhites told the inspector that rabbit urine causes the cages to rust and that they worked hard to keep the rabbits cages in top shape, she told them it didn’t matter. The rust spot would count as an infraction.
The inspection ended with the inspector telling Judy that the rabbits looked healthy and well cared for.
After the inspection, the Dollarhites didn’t hear from the USDA again until January 2010 when they received a phone call from a Kansas City-based investigator from the USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service.
“He called us and said, ‘I need to have a meeting with you and your wife,’” John recalled. He asked the investigator about the purpose of the meeting.
“Well, it’s because you’re selling rabbits and you’ve exceeded more than $500 dollars in a year,” John said, “and I went, ‘Okay, what does that have to do with anything?’”
John said the investigator refused to discuss details over the phone and made it clear that rejecting his request for a meeting would be a costly error in judgment.
When Judy asked if they should have an attorney present, the investigator responded, saying, “Well, that might be a good thing.”
John found an attorney who is also a farmer. They met for the first time a couple of days later – at the same time both met the APHIS investigator at John’s home.
“The first thing (the investigator) said was ‘My name is so and so, I’ve been in the USDA for 30-plus years, and I’ve never lost a case,’” John recalled, continuing. “He said, ‘I’m not here to debate the law, interpret the law, or discuss the law, I’m here just to do an investigation.’”
John said the investigator went on to explain that he would ask questions, write a report based on the answers, and send that report to his superiors at the USDA regional office in Colorado Springs, Colo. John was told to contact the regional office if he had not heard anything in six weeks.
Eight weeks passed, and John decided to call Colorado Springs. He was given the number to a USDA office in the nation’s capitol. He called the new number, and the lady he reached there was blunt, John said.
“She said, ‘Well, Mr. Dollarhite, I’ve got the report on my desk, and I’m just gonna tell you that, once I review it, it’s our intent to prosecute you to the maximum that we can’ and that ‘we will make an example out of you.’”
When John once again tried to determine which law he and his wife had violated, he said the USDA lady replied, “We’ll forward you everything.”
“Ma’am, what law have we broken,” [sic] John said.
The lady replied that there is a guideline that prohibits anyone from selling more than $500 worth of rabbits per year, John recalled, but she refused to cite any specific law and, instead, promised to send him the report containing details.
At that point, John said he called his attorney and was told not to worry about it, because he couldn’t find evidence of any law or regulation the Dollarhites had violated.
Soon after the meeting with the APHIS investigator, and with the stress of the investigation hanging over their heads, John said he and his wife traded everything associated with the rabbit operation for other agricultural equipment.
At this point, consider the manner in which the Dollarhites conducted their operation:
- The business was carefully conducted on the property of their Missouri home;
- The business complied with all applicable state laws;
- The bunnies were kept in large, clean, well-maintained cages; and
- Not a single bunny was sold across state lines.
Recently, the Dollarhites received a “Certified Mail Return Receipt” letter from the USDA informing them that they had broken the law and must pay USDA a fine of $90,643. The fine equals more than $206 per rabbit.
Their crime? Violating 9 C.F.R. § 2.1 (a) (1): Selling more than $500 worth of rabbits in a calendar year.
In addition, the letter contains the following statement:
APHIS laws and regulations provide for administrative and criminal penalties to enforce these regulatory requirements, including civil penalties of up to $10,000 for each of the violations documented in our investigation.
If the threat contained in the letter is to be believed, the family could be fined as much as $10,000 per rabbit beyond the first 50 bunnies that netted the family its first $500. Do the math (390 rabbits x $10,000 each) and, if they don’t pay the initial fine, they could face additional fines totaling $3.9 million.
Needless to say, the Dollarhites stopped selling rabbits in January 2010 and are considering setting up a legal defense fund.
A variation on this theme of government friction comes from Casey Research Washington correspondent Donald Grove, who brought the following article to our attention. One of our recurring narratives in this space is that the primary mission of every government appendage seems to be nothing other than the expansion of its size and the stretch of its meddling. The following hare-raising tale is Exhibit A. |
