If a Federal Program Could Endanger Your Ranch, You Need to Know What Comes Next
The U.S. Department of Agriculture is operating a $105 million program in the Rio Grande Valley right now. Forty separate projects. AI-controlled drones flying over your property. Sterile flies being released by the millions. Experimental fungi designed to kill insects. Insecticides being applied across the landscape. And a new partnership between USDA and the Department of Homeland Security that the federal government has barely explained to the people whose land sits underneath it.
If you ranch cattle in Hidalgo County. If you breed exotic game worth a small fortune per head. If you hold an organic certification you spent years building. If you own a piece of the Valley that has been in your family for generations. This program touches you, whether you signed anything or not.
We are Attorney911 — The Manginello Law Firm, PLLC. We are Texas trial lawyers. Ralph Manginello has spent more than 27 years fighting well-funded adversaries in federal and state courtrooms, including the BP Texas City refinery explosion litigation. Lupe Peña spent years inside a national insurance defense firm, in the rooms where corporations decided how to deny, delay, and devalue people like you — and now he fights for the people in those rooms instead of against them. This page is the legal information you need about a program the government is not volunteering to explain to you. And it is free. The consultation costs nothing. There is no fee unless we win. Hablamos Español.
The USDA Grand Challenge: What Is Actually Happening in the Rio Grande Valley
On Tuesday, U.S. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins announced that the USDA is “doubling down” on its fight against the New World Screwworm — a parasitic blowfly whose larvae feed on the living flesh of mammals. The threat is real. Screwworms can devastate a cattle operation. The last U.S. infestation in the 1950s and 1960s required decades of sterile fly release programs to eradicate. And a current outbreak is moving north from Mexico, putting South Texas ranchers on the front line.
But the program the USDA has chosen to fight it with is not the same program that worked in the 1950s. It is an experimental, multi-pronged, $105 million research initiative. Here is what is actually being deployed in the McAllen region:
- AI-controlled drones. Flying autonomous surveillance aircraft that monitor wildlife, identify wound sites on animals, and likely guide the dispersal of biological agents. The USDA is in talks with the Department of Homeland Security to formalize the partnership. The drones are governed by FAA Part 107 (small unmanned aircraft systems) and, where they apply agricultural materials, Part 137 (agricultural aircraft operations).
- Hyper-active sterile male flies. Genetically modified or selectively bred male screwworm flies engineered to have increased mating drive, released to overwhelm wild females. The females mate, lay unviable eggs, and the local population collapses. The science has worked for decades. The new wrinkle is what else these enhanced males might do when they encounter non-target species — including native blowflies, beneficial insects, and the food chain that depends on them.
- Insect-killing fungi. Living biological agents sprayed into the environment to kill screwworm larvae. The fungi are designed to be “minimum-risk” under FIFRA, the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act, but minimum-risk status does not mean zero-risk. In the Rio Grande Valley’s humidity and heat, fungi behave differently than they do in a lab.
- Minimum-risk insecticides. Applied to livestock and wildlife. The application rates, drift potential, and effects on non-target animals are research variables, not settled science.
- Detection dogs. Trained to find screwworm infestations in wildlife.
Five Texas universities are receiving grant funding: Texas Tech, Texas A&M, UT-Arlington, UTMB-Galveston, and UT-Rio Grande Valley. The other recipients include biotech companies, the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, USDA’s own Agricultural Research Service, and the Minnesota Board of Animal Health.
None of this is illegal. None of it is hidden. It is, however, experimental, federally funded, and being run across the same landscape where your cattle graze, your exotic game breeds, and your family lives. When something goes wrong — and with forty separate projects running simultaneously, something will — the legal pathway to recovery runs through specific federal and Texas statutes that almost nobody outside our firm can walk you through.
The Risks Are Already Real — And They Are Specific
You are not being paranoid. The risks that come with a $105 million experimental program deployed across a populated, ecologically sensitive, agriculturally valuable region are not theoretical. They are the predictable consequences of doing research at scale. Here is what we are watching for:
Drone crashes and unauthorized flights
AI-controlled aircraft do not have a perfect safety record. The Rio Grande Valley’s high-velocity Gulf winds create a stability problem the federal researchers cannot fully control. A drone that loses GPS lock, that misidentifies an animal, that veers into restricted airspace over a feedlot or an exotic game pen — that is a physical object falling from the sky onto your property. It is also evidence. The flight logs and telemetry that would prove what happened are typically retained for 30 days. After that, they are routinely overwritten. If a drone falls on your land and you wait six weeks to call a lawyer, the data that would prove the cause may be gone.
Biological and chemical drift
The Valley’s prevailing winds and humidity create the perfect conditions for experimental biological agents to drift where they were not intended. Insect-killing fungi, once released, do not respect property boundaries. Insecticides applied from the air or distributed through attractant stations do not stop at the fence line. If your ranch is downwind of a release site and your organic certification is on the line, you have a problem that does not wait for the research to finish.
Non-target species effects
The hyper-active sterile flies are designed to mate with screwworm females. What about native blowflies? Pollinators? The insects that the rest of the food chain depends on? The research is ongoing because the answers are not in. The Valley hosts endangered species, migratory bird corridors, and one of the densest wild pig populations in the country — roughly 2.6 million wild pigs in Texas, with the Valley’s share growing because they have no natural predator. The screwworm program will interact with that ecology in ways the grant applications may not have fully predicted.
Wildlife hosts the program may miss
During the 1950s and 1960s infestation, white-tailed deer and rabbits were the most common wildlife hosts for screwworm. Texas’s wildlife landscape has changed dramatically since then. The captive wildlife industry — exotic game ranches, captive deer breeding operations — is a multi-billion dollar sector. An exotic game herd with a single screwworm case can lose six figures per animal in a matter of weeks. The program is designed to prevent that. If the program causes it instead, the loss is on the federal government and its contractors.
Airspace trespass and surveillance
An AI drone over your property, recording video, capturing data, possibly even mapping your herd or your land, is a presence on your property. Texas recognizes private rights in the airspace above the land. The fact that the drone is operated by a federal contractor does not erase those rights — it changes the pathway for enforcing them.
Worker and resident exposure
Your ranch hands work outdoors. Your family lives on the property. Experimental fungi and minimum-risk insecticides are being released into the same air they breathe. If a worker develops respiratory symptoms, skin reactions, or long-term illness, the question of causation is something we can investigate — and the federal government has the deeper pockets to be held accountable.
Your Federal Pathway: The Federal Tort Claims Act
When the United States government, through one of its agencies or through a contractor acting on its behalf, causes you harm, the lawsuit does not begin the way a normal case does. You cannot simply file suit. You have to start in administrative channels, and you have a hard deadline. The Federal Tort Claims Act — 28 U.S.C. § 2671 et seq. — is the only doorway to recovery against the United States for the negligence of its employees and, in many cases, its contractors. Miss the steps and you lose your rights forever.
Here is the path, as we walk it.
Step 1: The SF-95 administrative claim
You file a Standard Form 95 — the federal government’s claim form — with the appropriate federal agency. For a USDA program, that is the USDA. For a DHS partnership, that may be DHS or CBP or both. The SF-95 must describe the facts of your loss, the dollar amount of your damages, and the legal basis for liability. You must file it within two years of the date the claim accrues, under 28 U.S.C. § 2401(b). Two years. Not three. Not five. Two. And the clock does not start when the harm is discovered — it starts when the claim accrues, which is typically when the harm occurs.
Step 2: The agency’s six-month response window
Once your SF-95 is filed, the agency has six months to respond. It can approve your claim, deny it, or simply let the six months run out. If the agency denies your claim — or if it lets six months pass without a final decision — you have the right to file suit in federal district court. The suit must be filed within six months of the agency’s final denial, under 28 U.S.C. § 2401(b).
Step 3: The discretionary function defense
The federal government’s primary defense in these cases is the “discretionary function exception” — 28 U.S.C. § 2680(a). The government will argue that the choice to fund, design, and deploy the screwworm program is a policy-level decision immune from suit. The exception is real, but it is not a wall. Courts have repeatedly held that the exception protects decisions about whether to act, not how to act. When a federal contractor flies a drone outside its approved flight path, or applies an insecticide in violation of FIFRA labeling requirements, or releases fungi in wind conditions that violate the grant’s own safety protocol, that is not policy — that is operational negligence, and the exception does not shield it.
That distinction is the heart of every FTCA case. We make it our work to draw the line between the protected decision to run a screwworm program and the unprotected decision to run it negligently. The line is where your case lives.
Step 4: Federal court, Texas law
When you sue under the FTCA, the federal court applies the law of the state where the negligent act or omission occurred. If the drone crashed in Hidalgo County, Texas law applies. That means the federal court will be deciding your case under Texas common law and statutes — including the trespass doctrine, the ultrahazardous activity doctrine, products liability, and the Texas modified comparative negligence rule. We practice in that federal court. Ralph Manginello is admitted to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas. That admission is the legal permission slip to stand in front of a federal judge and argue your case.
Texas Law Protects You Too — and You Need to Understand Both
The FTCA is not your only remedy. Texas state law provides additional claims, particularly against the private contractors, universities, and biotech companies that are actually doing the work. Federal law requires you to exhaust the administrative claim first for the United States. It does not require you to wait on the private actors. We can pursue them in Texas state court in parallel, and we usually do.
Texas modified comparative negligence
Texas is a modified comparative negligence state. Under Section 33.001 of the Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code, you can recover as long as you are not more than 50 percent at fault for your own damages. If you are 51 percent or more at fault, you recover nothing. The federal government will try to pin fault on you — that you should have known, that you should have refused, that you failed to mitigate. Every percentage point they pin on you is money out of your pocket. We fight every percentage point. This is the inverse of New Mexico’s pure comparative rule, and it is one of the reasons Texas ranching claims demand a particular kind of preparation — the federal government will work harder to blame you here than they would in many other states.
The Texas Tort Claims Act — for state actors, not federal
If a state agency or a Texas state university is involved — and several Texas universities are receiving Grand Challenge funding — the Texas Tort Claims Act (Chapter 101 of the Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code) may apply. The TTCA has its own notice requirements (six months) and its own damages caps, including a $250,000 cap on bodily injury damages against a state agency and a $100,000 cap on property damage. Those caps are real, and they are a reason we pursue federal contractors and private companies first wherever the facts allow.
Trespass to land and chattels
Texas recognizes a private property owner’s right to exclusive possession of the land and the airspace immediately above it. A drone that crosses your property line without permission commits a trespass, even if it never touches the ground. Biological agents or chemicals that drift onto your property from a neighboring release site may also constitute a trespass. The traditional Texas rule, inherited from English common law, is that ownership extends upward to a reasonable height — and the federal cases interpreting the Federal Aviation Act have repeatedly held that this private right is not preempted by federal aviation regulation when the drone is not operating in a federally approved navigable airspace manner.
Strict liability for ultrahazardous activities
Texas adopted the Rylands v. Fletcher rule. Certain activities are so inherently dangerous that the person conducting them is strictly liable for any resulting harm, regardless of how careful they were. Releasing experimental biological agents into the open environment is a textbook candidate for ultrahazardous activity liability, particularly when the release is into a populated agricultural region with prevailing winds. We make this argument in Texas courts and in federal FTCA cases where Texas law applies.
Products liability
Texas recognizes strict products liability. If a “minimum-risk” insecticide or a fungal strain produced by a biotech company causes unforeseen harm to your livestock, your organic certification, or your workers, the manufacturer is strictly liable for the defective product. The fact that the federal government funded the research and the EPA registered the product under FIFRA does not insulate the manufacturer from state-law products liability. We pursue these claims against the manufacturers directly.
Negligent entrustment
When the USDA awards $105 million to 40 different entities to operate AI drones, experimental biological agents, and minimum-risk insecticides across South Texas, it is entrusting them with the tools to cause serious harm. If the vetting process was inadequate — if the recipients lacked the safety protocols, the training, the equipment, the experience — that is negligent entrustment. We pursue the contractors. We also pursue the federal government for the choice of recipients, to the extent the discretionary function exception allows.
The Texas Right to Farm Act Does Not Shield Anyone From Doing This to You
The federal government and its contractors will point to the Texas Right to Farm Act — Texas Agriculture Code Chapter 251 — and argue that their agricultural operations cannot be sued. That is a misreading of the statute.
“An agricultural operation that has been in operation for one year or more and that is not a nuisance at the time the agricultural operation began is not subject to a claim of nuisance.” — Texas Agriculture Code § 251.004(a), as enacted
The Right to Farm Act protects agricultural operations from being declared a nuisance by neighboring property owners. It does not protect anyone from committing a trespass. It does not protect anyone from releasing biological agents that contaminate a neighbor’s organic certification. It does not protect anyone from crashing a drone onto a feedlot. It does not protect anyone from causing economic harm through negligence. The Act is a one-way shield that protects farmers from being driven off their land by suburban sprawl — not a license to use federal research dollars to cause harm to other agricultural operations.
If the government tries to raise the Right to Farm Act as a defense to your claim, we have the response ready. It is a defense to a nuisance suit. It is not a defense to trespass, negligence, products liability, ultrahazardous activity, or wrongful death. Texas courts have consistently drawn that line.
Evidence Preservation: The 30-Day Clock That Will Cost You the Case If You Miss It
If a drone falls on your land, if your cattle die after a release, if your organic certification is at risk, if your workers get sick, the evidence that proves what happened is disappearing right now. Federal and commercial drone operators typically retain flight logs and telemetry for roughly 30 days. After that, the data is routinely overwritten as part of normal system operation. Some commercial drone platforms — the same brands the grant recipients are using — retain data for even less time. If you call us a month after the incident, the data that would prove the flight path, the altitude, the wind conditions, the application rate, may already be gone.
Here is what we send the day you call, and the day we send it, is the day the evidence clock stops being the federal government’s friend.
Drone flight logs and telemetry preservation demand
We send a spoliation letter to the USDA, to DHS, to the specific grant recipient, and to the drone operator. The letter identifies the incident, identifies the data that exists, and demands preservation. The letter cites the federal regulatory framework that makes drone flight data discoverable. The letter puts every recipient on written notice that the evidence must be preserved from this moment forward. A federal agency that destroys records after receiving a spoliation letter faces sanctions — and a contractor that destroys records faces both contract termination and personal liability for spoilation.
Biological and chemical samples
If you suspect that an experimental fungus or a minimum-risk insecticide has drifted onto your property, we get an independent, certified laboratory to your ranch quickly. The Valley’s heat and humidity degrade biological samples in days. We preserve what is there, with chain of custody, before the environment destroys it. We also pull weather data from the National Weather Service for the date and time of the suspected release, because wind speed and direction at the moment of release is the difference between proving your case and losing it.
Livestock necropsy
If a cow, an axis deer, a nilgai, or any other animal on your ranch dies within a window that suggests a connection to the program, a necropsy must be performed immediately. Tissue samples, organ analysis, blood work — every one of these is time-sensitive. The necropsy report is the document that establishes causation. We coordinate with veterinary pathologists who can do the work properly and who can testify later. The Texas Veterinary Medical Diagnostic Laboratory, with facilities in College Station and Amarillo, is a starting point. The independent expert we retain is the witness who can link the death to the federal program.
USDA grant contracts and communications
Every one of the 40 Grand Challenge projects is governed by a grant contract. Those contracts contain safety protocols, indemnification clauses, reporting requirements, and the specific scope of work the recipient is authorized to perform. We obtain those contracts — by request when cooperation is available, by Freedom of Information Act request when it is not. The contracts often contain the smoking gun: a safety protocol the contractor violated, a reporting requirement the contractor failed to meet, an indemnification clause the federal government is trying to hide behind.
Your own documentation
Whatever you do, keep your own records. Photographs of the drone. Video of the release. Dates and times of unusual animal behavior. Names of USDA or contractor personnel you dealt with. Copies of any waivers, access agreements, or hold-harmless documents you were asked to sign. The federal government is documenting everything. So should you.
The Federal Defense Playbook: What They Will Do, and How We Counter It
When the United States becomes your adversary, it brings a particular set of weapons. Knowing the playbook is half the fight. The other half is having the counter to each move ready before the move is made.
Play 1: The access agreement trap
A USDA contractor may show up at your ranch and ask you to sign an access agreement, a right-of-entry form, or a hold-harmless clause. The agreement will be framed as a routine administrative step. It is not. It is a release — a document that strips you of future claims in exchange for letting them onto your land today. Do not sign it. Have us review it. A federal agency cannot make signing a release a condition of regulatory compliance, and a private contractor has no authority to demand one. If they persist, that persistence is its own evidence.
Play 2: The discretionary function defense
As detailed above, the federal government will argue that its decisions about how to design and deploy the screwworm program are policy-level decisions immune from suit. The argument has a name and a statute behind it. It also has limits. When the choice is operational — when a drone flies where it should not, when an insecticide is applied in conditions that violate the label, when a contractor fails to follow its own safety protocol — the discretionary function exception does not apply. The counter is in the details. The counter is in the grant contract. The counter is in the federal regulations the contractor was required to follow.
Play 3: The “no evidence of harm” defense
Expect the federal government to challenge causation. They will say that your cattle died from something else. They will say that your organic certification was at risk for reasons unrelated to the program. They will say that your workers’ respiratory symptoms have no documented link to the fungi released a mile up the road. The counter is independent testing, expert witnesses, and a documented chain of causation built before the government’s lawyers get involved. The reason we move in week one is the reason the no-evidence defense fails when we are running the case.
Play 4: The FOIA stonewall
Federal agencies are not eager to produce internal communications about the known risks of an experimental program. FOIA requests get delayed, narrowed, and sometimes flatly denied. We file appeals, and we file them on the timeline the law requires. The 20-day response window, the 20-day appeal window, the federal court enforcement action — the entire administrative process is a sequence of legal deadlines the agency must meet. We hold them to it.
Play 5: Administrative delay
The FTCA’s six-month response window can stretch longer if the agency simply does not respond. The government’s lawyers use the time. By the time the agency finally denies your claim, witnesses have moved, samples have degraded, and memories have faded. We press the timeline. We document the delay. And we use the delay as evidence of how seriously the government is taking the claim — or how much they are trying to avoid it.
Play 6: The “you should have known” defense
The government will try to pin comparative fault on you — that you should have known better than to allow a release near your herd, that you failed to take protective measures, that you assumed a risk by participating. Texas’s modified comparative negligence rule is the federal government’s weapon of choice here, because every percentage point they pin on you is money out of your recovery. We fight every percentage point. We build the record that establishes what was reasonable, what was documented, what was done to protect your operation, and what the government failed to tell you.
What Your Case Is Worth
Every case is different. The honest answer is that the value depends on the facts — the severity of the loss, the clarity of causation, the strength of the evidence, and the available insurance and assets behind the defendant. Past results depend on the facts of each case and do not guarantee future outcomes.
That said, the analysis is honest enough to share the framework we use when we evaluate a claim against a federal agricultural program in the Rio Grande Valley.
- Single livestock loss (cattle, exotic game): Individual animal losses in the cattle industry can run from several thousand dollars for a commercial cow to six figures for a registered exotic animal. A single axis deer buck, a top-end nilgai, a breeding-quality whitetail — these animals carry values that surprise people who do not work the industry. A necropsy-linked loss of even a small herd is a meaningful claim.
- Organic certification loss: If an experimental biological agent or minimum-risk insecticide contaminates a certified organic ranch, the loss is not just the cost of recertification. It is the loss of premium pricing for years, the loss of customer relationships built over years, and the loss of a brand identity that cannot be rebuilt overnight. These claims routinely run into seven figures for established operations.
- Worker illness: If a ranch hand develops respiratory illness, chemical sensitivity, or a long-term condition tied to exposure, the damages include medical bills (past and future), lost earning capacity, and pain and suffering. Texas does not cap economic damages in a tort case like this.
- Property value diminution: A ranch that has been the subject of a federal biological release may carry a stigma in the market for years. The diminution in property value is a recognized element of damages in Texas.
- Class action potential: If a single release event affects multiple ranchers across a region — and the geography of the Rio Grande Valley makes this very possible — the case may be appropriate for class treatment. Multiple plaintiffs, common questions of law and fact, a common defendant, and damages that are individually modest but collectively substantial — that is the class action profile.
- Exemplary damages: Texas allows exemplary damages (the functional equivalent of punitive damages) when the defendant’s conduct shows gross negligence, malice, or a conscious disregard for the safety of others. If a federal contractor released biological agents in conditions that violated its own safety protocols, exemplary damages may be available. Note that the FTCA does not permit recovery of exemplary damages against the United States itself — which is one more reason to pursue the private contractors and manufacturers in Texas state court where exemplary damages are on the table.
The case value range for a serious individual claim against the federal program runs from approximately $250,000 at the low end — a modest property loss, a single animal death, a small contamination event — to over $15 million at the high end for a catastrophic loss of a high-value exotic game herd, a multi-year organic certification loss, or a class action on behalf of a group of affected ranchers. The $15 million figure is not a ceiling. It is a framework.
How We Build the Case: The Proof Story
Cases like this are not won by filing a complaint. They are won by building a record that the federal government cannot dismiss, that the federal court cannot ignore, and that the federal jury cannot set aside. Here is how we do it, step by step, in the order we do it.
Week one: preservation and documentation
The spoliation letter goes out the day you call. The flight log, the telemetry, the maintenance records, the contractor’s communications, the USDA’s internal emails about the program — every piece of discoverable evidence gets a written preservation demand. The biological samples get pulled, with chain of custody, before the environment destroys them. The weather data gets pulled. The necropsy, if there has been a death, is arranged. The witnesses — ranch hands, neighbors, anyone who saw the drone or the release — are identified and interviewed before their memories fade.
Month one through month three: FOIA, SF-95, and the federal administrative record
FOIA requests go out for the grant contracts, the safety protocols, the inspection reports, the communications between the USDA and the grant recipient. The SF-95 administrative claim is filed and perfected. We identify the federal agencies involved, the specific employees whose decisions matter, and the private contractors whose conduct is at issue.
Month three through month six: experts and the causation record
Entomologists. Mycologists. Drone systems engineers. Agricultural economists. Veterinary pathologists. Toxicologists. We retain the experts whose work will prove what happened to your herd, your land, your workers, or your certification. Their reports — built on the preserved evidence and the independent samples — become the backbone of the case. We also retain a life-care planner or economic-loss expert if the loss is ongoing.
Month six through filing: the federal court complaint
If the SF-95 is denied — or if six months pass without a final decision — we file the federal complaint. The complaint names the United States as a defendant under the FTCA, names the private contractors and manufacturers as defendants under Texas state law, and pleads every available cause of action: negligence, trespass, ultrahazardous activity, products liability, and negligent entrustment. The complaint is filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas — the court where Ralph Manginello is admitted to practice and where our federal trial team operates.
Discovery and depositions
The federal government’s depositions are where the case is won or lost. We depose the USDA program managers, the DHS personnel, the grant recipient’s safety officer, the drone operator, the contractor’s project lead. We depose the agency officials who signed off on the safety protocols. We depose the experts the government intends to call. We force the federal government to explain, under oath, exactly what safety protocols existed, exactly who knew what, and exactly when they knew it. The corporate-choice thesis — the same thesis that wins trucking cases — is what wins federal program cases. Companies make choices. Agencies make choices. The question is whether the choice was reasonable. The deposition is where reasonableness is tested.
Trial
Federal cases go to trial. The FTCA carries the case to a federal jury sitting in the Southern District of Texas. The jury will be a cross-section of South Texans — people who understand ranching, who understand the Valley, who understand that a federal program must follow its own rules. We try these cases. We do not settle them on the government’s terms. The number at the end of the case is built from the evidence we have spent the previous months preserving, documenting, and testing.
The People You Want on Your Side
Ralph Manginello has spent more than 27 years in courtrooms across Texas and in federal court. He tried cases arising from the BP Texas City refinery explosion — one of the largest industrial disasters in American history. He has recovered more than $50 million for Texas families over the course of his career. He is a former journalist and a championship-team point guard from Cheshire Academy, where he was inducted into the Athletic Hall of Fame. He explains like a storyteller. He fights like a competitor who hates losing. He is admitted to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas — the federal trial bar admission that lets him stand in front of a federal judge and argue for you.
Lupe Peña is a third-generation Texan with family roots tying to the King Ranch. He was born and raised in Sugar Land, where he lives with his family. He spent years inside a national insurance defense firm — the rooms where adjusters and their software decided how to deny, delay, and devalue claims like yours. He knows how Colossus-style settlement software undervalues injuries. He knows the playbook. Now he runs it in reverse. He serves Texas families fully in Spanish, and we say so with pride. Lupe’s full background is on our site.
Together, we are a Texas trial team built for cases that pit a single rancher or landowner against a federal agency, a federal contractor, or a multi-billion dollar industry. We are not the right fit for every case. If your situation falls outside what we do, we will tell you. If it is what we do, we will move the day you call.
You can read about Ralph’s background and meet our team on the Attorney911 site. The consultation is free. The fee is contingent. You do not pay unless we win. We serve clients across Texas, and we serve them in English and in Spanish. Hablamos Español.
What You Should Do Right Now
If the USDA, DHS, or any Grand Challenge contractor has contacted you, do not sign anything until we review it. A waiver signed today is a release of your rights tomorrow.
If a drone has flown over your property, taken video, or applied any substance — write down the date, the time, the location, the type of aircraft, the personnel you saw, and any registration markings you could read. Then call us. The 30-day data clock is running.
If any of your livestock have died, become ill, or stopped eating — get a necropsy arranged immediately. Time is tissue, and the federal program is documenting everything. You should be too.
If your workers have developed respiratory symptoms, skin reactions, or other illness they did not have before the program began — document the symptoms, document the timeline, document which release events they were near. Our workplace injury team has handled these kinds of cases, and we know how to document the causal chain.
If your organic certification is at risk — get an independent lab sample pulled and tested. Time is degrading the evidence.
Whatever you do, do not delay. The Federal Tort Claims Act gives you two years from the date your claim accrues. The drone flight logs are typically retained for 30 days. The biological samples are degrading in the Valley heat. The witnesses’ memories are fading. The 30-day clock and the two-year clock both run in the federal government’s favor. We are built to make them run in yours.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the USDA Grand Challenge and how does it affect South Texas ranchers?
The Grand Challenge is a $105 million USDA grant program launched in January, funding 40 separate research projects to develop new tools against the New World Screwworm. The program includes AI-controlled drones (operated in partnership with DHS), genetically modified or selectively bred hyper-active sterile male flies, insect-killing fungi, minimum-risk insecticides, detection dogs, and novel traps. Five Texas universities are funded recipients. The program is being deployed in the Rio Grande Valley as a preemptive strike — there are no confirmed screwworm cases in U.S. wildlife — and the experimental nature of the tools means ranching operations in the region are part of an active research landscape, not just a protected agricultural zone.
Can I refuse to allow USDA drone flights over my ranch?
Texas recognizes private property rights in the airspace above your land. A drone that crosses your property line without permission may constitute a trespass. That said, federal agencies have certain authorities to operate in navigable airspace, and the interaction between federal aviation authority and private airspace rights is a developing area of law. The practical answer is: contact us before you take action. A confrontation with a federal contractor on your own property is not the right first move. A documented record, a written objection, and a legal demand is.
What if my cattle die after a sterile fly release or fungi application?
Document the death immediately. Get a necropsy performed by a qualified veterinary pathologist. Pull tissue samples, blood work, and organ analysis. Pull weather data for the date of the suspected exposure. File an SF-95 administrative claim with the USDA within two years. We can pursue the federal government under the FTCA and the private contractors and manufacturers under Texas state law. Causation is the central fight, and the evidence that proves it must be preserved now.
How long do I have to file a claim against the USDA?
Two years from the date your claim accrues, under 28 U.S.C. § 2401(b), the Federal Tort Claims Act’s statute of limitations. The claim accrues when the harm occurs, not necessarily when you discover it. Once the SF-95 is filed, the agency has six months to respond, and if it denies the claim (or fails to respond), you have six more months to file suit in federal court. Texas’s two-year personal injury statute of limitations under Section 16.003 of the Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code runs in parallel for state-law claims against private contractors. The deadlines are unforgiving, and the federal government will use any missed deadline to end the case.
Do I have to sign the USDA’s access agreement or hold-harmless form?
No. A federal contractor cannot make signing a release a condition of regulatory compliance, and a private contractor has no authority to demand one. If you are being asked to sign an access agreement, a right-of-entry form, or a hold-harmless clause, have us review it before you sign. The agreement may look routine. It is not. It is a release of your future claims, and once signed, it is very difficult to undo.
What if the program ruins my organic certification?
Document everything. Pull independent soil and water samples and have them tested at a certified lab. Get a written statement from your certifying agent about the impact of the contamination on your certification. Calculate the loss of premium pricing, the loss of customer relationships, and the cost of recertification. File the SF-95 with USDA. Pursue the manufacturer of the contaminating product under Texas products liability law. The economic loss from losing organic certification can be seven figures for an established operation, and it is a recognized element of damages in Texas.
Who is liable if a contractor’s drone crashes on my property?
Potentially everyone involved: the federal agency that funded the program, the contractor that operated the drone, the manufacturer of the drone, and the manufacturer’s software provider. The federal government is generally not liable for the negligence of independent contractors, but the FTCA’s discretionary function exception is the only federal shield, and it has limits. The contractor that physically operated the drone is liable under ordinary negligence principles. The manufacturer may be liable under products liability if the drone malfunctioned. We pursue every available defendant in every available forum.
Is this a class action situation?
It may be. If a single release event — or a single program decision — affects multiple ranchers across a region, the case has the classic class action profile: numerous plaintiffs, common questions of law and fact, a common defendant, and damages that are individually modest but collectively substantial. Class actions in the federal program context face particular procedural hurdles, and they take time. We can evaluate whether your situation is appropriate for class treatment, and we can also pursue individual claims while a class action develops. The two are not mutually exclusive.
What should I do right now if I think the program has already affected me?
Stop talking to the federal government or its contractors without us. Preserve every piece of physical evidence. Pull samples, get the necropsy, document the timeline. Photograph everything. Note names, dates, times, locations, and registration markings. Pull weather data. Do not sign anything. Call us at 1-888-ATTY-911 for a free consultation. We move the day you call.
Does it matter that no screwworm cases have been confirmed in U.S. wildlife?
It matters for the program’s justification, but not for your legal rights. The program is preemptive. The harm the program may cause — chemical drift, biological contamination, drone crashes, loss of certification, livestock loss, worker illness — does not require a screwworm outbreak to give you a claim. If the program causes you harm while trying to prevent a hypothetical outbreak, you still have a claim. The federal government’s argument that “the program is necessary to prevent something worse” is not a defense to negligence, trespass, or products liability.
The Bottom Line
The USDA’s $105 million Grand Challenge is real. The drones are flying. The biological agents are being released. The South Texas ranching community is the testing ground. If the testing has affected your cattle, your exotic game, your organic certification, your workers, or your property, you have rights under federal and Texas law. The rights have deadlines. The evidence has a clock. The federal government has lawyers. So do we.
The consultation is free. The fee is contingent. You do not pay unless we win. Contact Attorney911 today at 1-888-ATTY-911, or use our online intake form to start the conversation. We serve Texas families in English and in Spanish. Hablamos Español. We will tell you honestly whether your case is one we can take, and we will move the day you decide.
Past results depend on the facts of each case and do not guarantee future outcomes. This page is legal information, not legal advice for your specific situation. The consultation is free and confidential.