As we noted last week, the Supreme Court has again agreed to take up the case of the California raisins.
No one who was paying attention could claim too much of a surprise when the Ninth Circuit upheld a 1937 federal statute requiring raisin farmers to give the government a percentage of their yearly crop often without any compensation, which Justice Kagan had labeled "the world's most outdated law" in oral arguments the last time the case was up there.
But if you have to lose, it's probably best to "lose ugly," which the owners certainly did: the panel opinion from the infamous Ninth was built on a point so strange, the federal government didn't defend it during the cert process: that personal property isn't protected by the Takings Clause. The panel also concluded that the possibilty of the government giving the farmer back a portion of the value of the taken crop was enough to insulate it from takings liability.
We'll be following the case, naturally. But until the time when we can post the merits and amici briefs, here are links to commentary on the cert grant, as well as the cert briefs:
- If this isn’t a taking, what is? from lawprof Will Baude at Volokh
- Fresno County raisin farmer Horne will get his day in U.S. Supreme Court - Fresno Bee
- The Horne California Raisin Case Is Back In the Supreme Court - Gideon's Trumpet
- Does takings clause apply to personal property? SCOTUS to consider the issue in raisin case - ABA Journal
- SCOTUS Agrees to Review Government’s Uncompensated Taking of Raisin Crop in Major Property Rights Case - Damon Root at Reason (with video)
- More from Reason: WATCH: Hands Off The Raisins! Property Rights Case Headed Back to SCOTUS
- U.S. Supreme Court grants cert in Horne v. U.S.D.A. aka The Raisin Takings Case - Pacific Legal Foundation's Liberty Blog
- SCOTUS Repeaters - PrawfsBlawg
- Supreme Court Takes Up Dispute Over California Raisins - Associated Press
Here are the cert stage briefs of the parties:
Here are the cert stage amicus briefs (all in support of the Petitioners):
- State of Texas
- DKT Liberty Project and 18 Raisin Growers
- Constitutional and Property Law Scholars
- Pacific Legal Foundation
- Cato Institute, NFIB, Center for Constitutional Jurisprudence, Institute for Justice, Reason, Southeastern Legal Foundation
- Mountain States Legal Foundation
- U.S. Chamber of Commerce
Stay tuned for more.
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