Missouri resists SNAP reforms at Eighth Circuit
An appeals panel will decide whether a federal judge overreached by imposing an injunction seeking to streamline Missouri’s SNAP interview process and cut down on call wait times.
This article was originally published in Courthouse News Service. Read it here.
ST. LOUIS (CN) — Missouri pushed back in the Eighth Circuit on Wednesday against court-ordered changes to the state’s Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program.
SNAP is a federally funded program overseen by the U.S. Department of Agriculture that provides low-income households with a monthly benefit for the purchase of food.
Three individual plaintiffs and an advocacy group named Empower Missouri filed a lawsuit in 2022 claiming Missouri’s method of vetting families into the program violates federal law and deprives them of SNAP benefits, including denials based solely on missed interviews and issues getting through to the state’s resource center.
In May 2025, Senior U.S. District Judge Douglas Harpool imposed an injunction aiming to remedy the state’s systemic SNAP failures by cutting down on call wait times and streamlining the interview process.
Caroline M. Brown, of the D.C.-based Brown & Peisch, represented Jessica Bax, the director of the Missouri Department of Social Services. Brown spent the majority of her time arguing the plaintiffs lack standing.
“No plaintiff had standing in the district court and no plaintiff had standing in this court, both because there is no actual concrete injury,” Brown told the three-judge panel. “In fact, and even if there was an injury, the relief that plaintiffs seek is not to address their own injuries, but those of third parties.”
Brown noted all three individual plaintiffs received benefits so there is no harm.
Since all SNAP recipients have to recertify over a period of time, U.S. Circuit Judge David R. Stras questioned Brown if systemic problems could still burden them even if they currently receive benefits.
“This was a very fluid, dynamic situation,” Brown said. “The case arose right after the resource centers reopened after Covid, and a lot of workers did not want to return to the office. So, there was a lot of moving pieces at the time in that context. Where it’s a dynamic situation, where the state is making a lot of changes and is telling the court that it is making a lot of changes. I don’t think it’s really accurate that the standard voluntary cessation metrics would apply.”
Katharine Deabler-Meadows, representing the plaintiffs from the New York City-baed National Center for Law and Economic Justice, argued that Missouri’s arguments fell flat. She argued there is no structure within the current system to address unique individual needs, but Stras didn’t seem swayed about the need for an injunction to remedy that situation.
“That’s what contempt is for, right?” asked Stras, a Donald Trump appointee. “I mean, I know you want a broad injunction, but contempt is exactly for that purpose. You issue a narrow injunction. If Missouri doesn’t follow it, you hold them in contempt, and there’s penalties that come along with that if they don’t comply.”
Brown attacked Empower Missouri’s standing, arguing that simply deciding to divert resources to an issue doesn’t make it a harm.
Deabler-Meadows said Empower Missouri was harmed both financially and with staff time by having to divert resources to address the state’s actions.
“It is something that in serving their core constituency that they have to do because they’re an anti-hunger organization, and SNAP is the biggest anti-hunger program in the country,” Deabler-Meadows said. “An organization like Empower Missouri can’t sit by and ignore this level of dysfunction in a program that its functioning is central to their mission.”
Missouri, in its brief, argues the injunction was ordered without considering whether there was an adequate remedy at law.
“The court ordered relief far beyond that required for complete relief to the plaintiffs and treated this case as a class action without following any of the rules associated with class actions,” the state said.
The plaintiffs counter in their brief that the injunction is justified because they would be irreparably harmed by the status quo.
“According to the district court, ‘[e]very day plaintiffs go without SNAP there is a deprivation of nutrition, and along with that comes psychological and physical distress,’” the brief states. “This is the correct analysis.”
U.S. Circuit Judges James B. Loken, a George H.W. Bush appointee, and Bobby E. Shepherd, a George W. Bush appointee, joined Stras on the panel, which took the case under advisement. There is no timetable for a decision.
