Update January 20, 2015: here are links to the most recent reports and the cert-stage briefs in the second go-round for the case: Horne II "The World's Most Outdated Law" Crahses Headlong Into Takings.
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It's not really the "Sun-Maid Girl," but rather the organization the trademark now represents, Sun-Maid Growers of California., who filed this amicus brief supporting the U.S.D.A. in Horne v. United States Dep't of Agriculture, No. 12-123 (cert. granted Nov. 20, 2012).
The brief makes one main point: the Hornes, as raisin "handlers" cannot assert a takings defense because they didn't have title to the raisins they claimed were taken, and thus lack standing:
Petitioners indisputably have no standing to assert a Takings defense to avoid civil liability, as handlers, for failing to set aside as reserve tonnage the raisins produced by other producers, because as handlers petitioners never took title to raisins produced by other producers subject to the reserve tonnage requirement. Instead, the marketing order transferred title directly from the producers to the Raisin Administrative Committee. If petitioners had complied with the reserve tonnage requirement with respect to the raisins produced by other producers, those producers, to the extent that petitioners' compliance with the marketing order would have effected a compensable "taking," would have been required to bring a claim in the Court of Federal Claims under the Tucker Act, 28 U.S.C. § 1491(a)(1).
Brief. at 6 (citation omitted).
Oh, we just can't wait for the oral arguments in this case.
In a footnote, the brief argues that the case could be dismissed as improvidently granted. See Brief at 7 n.3.
The petitioners' brief is here. The amicus brief filed by Texas is here. The brief filed by the Cato Institute, the NFIB, the Center for Constitutional Jurisprudence, and the Reason Foundation is here. The brief by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is here. The amici brief by five constitutional law scholars is here. The USDA's merits brief is here. The amicus brief of the International Municipal Lawyers Assocation is here. The case is scheduled for argument on March 20, 2013.
Brief of Sun-Maid Growers of California as Amicus Curiae in Support of Respondent, No. 12-123 (Feb. 21, 201...
