7 U.S.C. § 191
Section 191 · Packer defined
Amended 2 times on record
Applied in 23 court decisions — leading case Mahon v. Stowers (1974)
Most recently applied in Clasing v. Hormel Corp. (January 2014)
How often courts cite this section
Court decisions citing this, by year.Markers show enactment, consequential amendments, and circuit splits over this section — watch for a citation surge after a change or a disagreement. The dip in the last several years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so recent citations are undercounted.
When used in this chapter the term “packer” means any person engaged in the business (a) of buying livestock in commerce for purposes of slaughter, or (b) of manufacturing or preparing meats or meat food products for sale or shipment in commerce, or (c) of marketing meats, meat food products, or livestock products in an unmanufactured form acting as a wholesale broker, dealer, or distributor in commerce.
Editorial notes U.S. Code · Office of the Law Revision Counsel
Amendments
1976—Pub. L. 94–410 substituted definition of “packer” for former definition which included provisions dealing with direct or indirect control of specified businesses through stock ownership or otherwise.