This just in: the Ninth Circuit has issued an opinion in Horne v. U.S. Dep't of Agriculture, No. 10-15270 (May 9, 2014), on remand from the U.S. Supreme Court's decision which we're all familiar with.
We won't be doing our usual "California Raisin" posting -- although here it is for those of you who, like us, still remember that ad campaign fondly -- and we haven't had a chance to fully digest the opinion, so until we do, here's the summary from the opinion:
Following a reversal and remand from the United States Supreme Court, the panel affirmed the district court’s summary judgment in favor of the United States Secretary of Agriculture in an action alleging that the Secretary’s egulatory program for California’s raisin producers violated the Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment. Pursuant to the Agricultural Marketing Agreement Act of 1937, the Department of Agriculture implemented a “Marketing Order” to ensure orderly market conditions by regulating raisin supply. The Secretary required California producers of certain raisins to divert a percentage of their annual crop to a reserve, and the Secretary could impose a penalty on producers who failed to comply with the diversion program. Plaintiffs, California raisin producers, alleged that the Secretary worked a constitutional taking by depriving raisin producers of their personal property, the diverted raisins, without just compensation.As a threshold issue, the panel held that the plaintiffs had standing to bring this constitutional challenge. Turning to the merits, the panel held that the Marketing Order and its penalties did not work a physical per se taking. The panel concluded that the Marketing Order’s reserve requirements - and the provisions permitting the Secretary to penalize the plaintiffs for failing to comply with those requirements - did not constitute a taking under the Fifth Amendment.
The 1937 Act was labeled "the world's most outdated law" by Justice Kagan in the Supreme Court oral arguments, and derided by Justice Scalia as "a crazy statute," but that didn't bother the three judges on the Ninth, who concluded only that the Hornes were "impatient" with "a regulatory program they view to be out-dated and perhaps disadvantageous to smaller agricultural firms." Slip op. at 28. But given the panel composition (Judges Reinhardt, Hawkins, and Gould), this one cannot have been that much of a surprise.
More to follow once we've had a chance to fully read and digest the opinion.
Horne v. U.S. Dep't of Agriculture, No. 10-15270 (9th Cir. May 9, 2014)
