A lawsuit launched by the Maine lobster industry against the Monterey Bay Aquarium Foundation appeared before the U.S. First Circuit Court of Appeals on 27 July, and judges were reportedly concerned about its impact to First Amendment protections.
A coalition of Maine lobstermen including Bean Maine Lobster Inc., the Maine Coast Fishermen’s Association, Atwood Lobster LLC, and Bug Catcher Inc. sued the Monterey Bay Aquarium Foundation (MBAF) over its red listing of Maine-caught lobster. The listing was part of a complicated back-and-forth over the Maine lobster industry’s alleged impact on the North Atlantic right whale, a critically endangered species.
In 2020, a judge found the U.S. lobster industry violated the Endangered Species Act, which forced NOAA Fisheries to rewrite rules governing the lobster industry. NOAA unveiled the new regulations in 2021, but soon after, the same judge found that they again did not go far enough.
As the industry faced a regulatory crisis, it was saved by a last-minute rider on a federal omnibus budget funding bill in 2022, granting the industry a six-year reprieve from economically restrictive rules related to the industry.
At the same time as the rider, the MBAF released its new red list rating of Maine lobster, claiming the scientific evidence of harm against North Atlantic right whales was robust enough to warn against purchasing any lobster caught in Maine.
That listing change resulted in businesses dropping the product entirely, and the industry sued over the loss in business and claimed it caused “substantial economic harm to plaintiffs, as well as to the Maine lobster brand.”
In February 2025, the lobster industry scored a win as U.S. District Court Judge John Woodcock denied an effort by the foundation to dismiss the lawsuit, and soon after, the MBAF appealed the lawsuit, which was picked up by the U.S. Court of Appeals.
Throughout the lawsuit, the foundation has maintained its rating was based on science and continues to stand behind the decision. It has since submitted more data that it said further backs up its original red listing of Maine lobster.
The lobster industry, meanwhile, has long maintained there was no evidence that Maine lobster gear had ever been involved in any entangling of North Atlantic right whales.
“Instead, the ‘scientific data’ upon which the aquarium purportedly relies show that right whales have been found entangled in gear that is not linked to the Maine lobster fishery, much of which has been directly linked to gear used in Canadian waters to harvest snow crab,” the lobstermen’s initial complaint stated.
That argument suffered a blow in 2024, when NOAA investigators confirmed a link between the death of a North Atlantic right whale and Maine lobster gear for the first time. The whale, right whale #5120, was found dead off the coast of Massachusetts in January 2024, and a necropsy in February of that same year found it was entangled in gear with markings that NOAA said were consistent with rope used in Maine.
The case has rapidly gained attention for reasons outside of its impact on the lobster industry.
The New York Times, ProPublica, USA Today, and the Atlantic have all entered the case to back the MBAF, on grounds the lawsuit could have wider implications for press freedom and result in weakening First Amendment protections for the press.
“This libel suit raises serious concerns about the press’s ability to report news and analysis, including on complex policy topics, without the threat of crippling libel suits,” the publications wrote in a brief submitted to the court. “The undersigned newsrooms and media organizations submit this brief … because the district court’s analysis on two foundational issues of defamation law threatens to weaken key protections for journalists to do their jobs.”
Courthouse News Service reported some judges hearing the appeal were skeptical of the lobster industry’s case, claiming it could present First Amendment issues, and one judge said it “doesn’t feel like a defamation claim.”
The MBAF has maintained that the First Amendment protects the publication of scientific opinions and that its evidence is enough to justify the red listing. It also argued defamation cannot be performed against an entire industry of over 5,000 people, an argument backed up by the media organizations that submitted their own brief to the case.
“In writing on this matter of public concern, MBAF did not single out Plaintiffs-Appellees – three commercial seafood companies and two trade associations – for criticism, but rather discussed and opined on data and the industry practices of the over 5,600 lobster fishermen who work in those waters,” the media organizations’ brief states.
The media companies argued journalism relies heavily on raising questions and criticizing companies and other large groups, similar to the criticism of the MBAF against the lobster industry.
“The law of defamation protects such speech,” the brief states.
They claimed any move against the MBAF in its red listing would, in turn, have a chilling effect against all media.
“There is a wealth of journalism that exposes public ills or challenges prevailing practices, which might not have been possible were unnamed persons or companies able to maintain a libel suit due to mere association with the subject matter of a story and alleged downstream harms from public scrutiny,” the media brief states.
