BILLINGS, Mont. - A federal judge overstated the potential harm that could come from a government plan allowing for limited shipments of Canadian cattle after mad cow disease was found in that country, a federal appeals court panel concluded.

The written order by a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals was released Monday, 11 days after the judges overturned a temporary court order issued in March by U.S. District Judge Richard Cebull. His order stalled a government plan to resume cattle trade with Canada for the first time since May 2003.

Cebull granted a request by R-CALF United Stockgrowers of America, a ranchers' group, which argued cattle and expanded beef trade with Canada would pose a threat to both U.S. consumers and cattle producers. Canada has confirmed three cases of mad cow disease since May 2003, including two earlier this year.

Cebull last week postponed a hearing, originally scheduled for Wednesday, on R-CALF's request to indefinitely close the border to cattle and beef trade. Cebull cited the fact he had not yet seen the appeals court's rationale for overturning his decision.

The panel, in an at-times strongly worded order, said R-CALF hadn't shown a likelihood of succeeding on the merits of its case. It also said Cebull's concern with a potential "stigma" hurting the U.S. cattle industry seemed overstated.

In issuing the preliminary injunction in March, days before cattle trade was to resume, Cebull said the court order was justified, given the "serious irreparable harm that will occur when Canadian cattle and meat enter the U.S. and co-mingle with the U.S. meat supply."

But the appeals court panel pointed to the broad support for resuming fuller trade with Canada from U.S. meatpackers and others.

"If the final rule posed a true risk of exposing American beef to an irreparable stigma, one would not expect to see such a broad coalition of industry members supporting its implementation," the court said.

Bill Bullard, R-CALF's CEO, said on Monday that attorneys were reviewing the decision but that the group didn't see it as the last word in the case. He said he doesn't believe it should preclude a full hearing on the facts.

Terri Teuber, a USDA spokeswoman, said the agency was pleased with the opinion but was making no assumptions about what might still happen at the district court level.

Jeremy Russell, a spokesman for the National Meat Association, whose members include meat packers and processors, said the court's decision seemed to leave little legal "wiggle room" for R-CALF.

"The order is a step-by-step dismissal of all of the scare-mongering that R-CALF put into this court case from the very beginning," he said.

Cebull, in his written opinion in March, said USDA had shown a "preconceived intention, based upon inappropriate considerations, to rush to reopen the border" despite what he called the agency's own uncertainties about possible effects to human and animal health.

But the appeals panel said "any increased risk to human and animal health created by the final rule is negligible."

It cited factors such as a low incidence of mad cow disease in Canada, safeguards in the United States against the disease and no cases tied to Canadian beef that involve variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, a fatal brain disorder that, in humans, has been linked to eating tainted cattle products.

The judges also said that beef demand and consumer confidence remained strong in this country after the December 2003 discovery of a cow in Washington state with mad cow disease. That animal had come from Canada.