The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday sided with a California
family that produces raisins and said the government can’t just take their
products without paying for them. “The Fifth Amendment requires that the
government pay just compensation when it takes personal property, just as when
it takes real property. Any net proceeds the raisin growers receive from the
sale of the reserve raisins goes to the amount of compensation they have
received for that taking – it does not mean the raisins have not been
appropriated for government use,” the court said.
“Nor can the government make raisin growers relinquish their
property without just compensation as a condition of selling their raisins…”
The
opinion was written by Chief Justice John Roberts in a case brought by raisin producer Marvin Horne. It
stemmed from a government order from the secretary of agriculture that raisin
producers relinquish a certain percentage of their crop – in the year in
question it was 47 percent – to the government at no charge.
The government’s intent purportedly was to “stabilize” a
market, and it disposed of the confiscated raisins however it chose. If there
was any income left after government expenses it distributed that
proportionally to the raisin producers.
Horne argued that violated his constitutional protections
against the government seizure of private property. Horne, of Fresno,
California, even refused entry to government agents when they arrived at his
operation to confiscate his crop.
The government argued that he could pay a fine estimated at
about $700,000, and then file a claim for reimbursement. A lower court had
ruled that the constitution’s “Takings Clause” doesn’t apply to raisins, and
the impact of the Supreme Court decision won’t be fully known for some time,
since besides the order to confiscate raisins, the government also has various
orders to take almonds, plums, spearmint oil and the like.
The specific order in this case stemmed from the 1937
Agricultural Marketing Agreement Act, a result of the Great Depression.
A United States Department of Agriculture official told Fox
News there would be proposed changes in the rules based on the decision.
Roberts described how the Hornes had not only produced their
own raisins, but acted as a “handler” and bought raisins from other small producers,
so actually had purchased some of the raisins the government demanded for free.
“In 2002, the Hornes refused to set aside any raisins for
the government believing they were not legally bound to do so. The government
sent trucks to the Hornes’ facility at eight o’clock one morning to pick up the
raisins, but the Hornes refused entry,” he said.
The court’s opinion said, “The government has a categorical
duty to pay just compensation when it takes your car, just as when it takes
your home. The Takings Clause provides: ‘Nor shall private property be taken
for public use, without just compensation.’”
The opinion continued, “The principle reflected in the
clause goes back at least 800 years to Magna Carta, which specifically
protected agricultural crops from uncompensated takings. Clause 28 of that
charter forbade any ‘constable or other bailiff’ from taking ‘corn or other
provisions from any one without immediately tendering money therefore, unless
he can have postponement thereof by permission of the seller.’”
Roberts wrote, “The reserve requirement imposed by the
Raisin Committee is a clear physical taking. Actual raisins are transferred
from the growers to the government. Title to the raisins passes to the Raisin
Committee. The committee’s raisins must be physically segregated from
free-tonnage raisins. … The committee disposes of what become its raisins as it
wishes, to promote the purposes of the raisin marketing order.”
He continued, “Raisin growers subject to the reserve
requirement thus lose the entire ‘bundle ‘ of property rights in the
appropriated raisins – ‘the right to possess, use and dispose of’ them.”
He wrote that it doesn’t matter that the raisin growers
eventually may get some payment back from the government after it disposes of
the raisins and pays its own expenses.
The opinion called that an “indeterminate value” and noted
that during several of the years in question, those “rights” effectively were
“worthless.”
The opinion said the family should simply be relieved of the
fines and penalties brought by the government.
One justice, Sonia Sotomayor, argued that the confiscations
should be allowed to continue.
She said the Hornes retained an interest in the raisins –
through the possibility that the government may decide to offer them some sort
of payment for their confiscated raisins after the government disposes of them
and pays itself.
She said the “government cannot be blamed” for market
conditions in the market that it has set up that very program to control.
While she admitted the government’s actions would directly
impact the producers’ potential income, she accused the other justices of
making mistakes.
First, she wrote, was the “breezy assumption” that a
government demand producers hand over nearly half their crop was a “taking,”
and that such a regulatory “taking” is inappropriate.
“It is not the case … that government agents …. are storming
raisin farms in the dark of night to load raisins onto trucks,” she wrote.
http://www.wnd.com/2015/06/supremes-rule-in-government-grab-of-private-property/
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