Horne v. U.S. Department of Agriculture
Issues
Do the Department of Agriculture’s regulations—requiring that a percentage of raisin crops be “reserved” for the government to use to control supply—constitute a taking necessitating just compensation?
This case presents the Supreme Court with the opportunity to clarify what constitutes a taking. The Hornes argue that the Marketing Order, requiring raisin handlers to deliver a reserve portion of a growers’ crop to the government, constitutes a categorical taking under the Fifth Amendment. The Department of Agriculture, on the other hand, argues that the reserve requirement is simply a time-use limitation that is lawful and does not require just compensation under the Fifth Amendment. This case will have important implications for property owners generally, and will affect the government’s options regarding how to regulate agriculture in ways to protect producers and consumers.
Questions as Framed for the Court by the Parties
- Whether the government's “categorical duty” under the Fifth Amendment to pay just compensation when it “physically takes possession of an interest in property,” Arkansas Game & Fish Comm’n v. United States, 133 S. Ct. 511, 518 (2012), applies only to real property and not to personal property.
- Whether the government may avoid the categorical duty to pay just compensation for a physical taking of property by reserving to the property owner a contingent interest in a portion of the value of the property, set at the government’s discretion.
- Whether a governmental mandate to relinquish specific, identifiable property as a “condition” on permission to engage in commerce effects a per se taking.
In 1949, Respondent Department of Agriculture promulgated the Marketing Order Regulating the Handling of Raisins Produced from Grapes Grown in California (“Marketing Order”) under authority of the Agricultural Marketing Agreement Act of 1937 (“AMAA”). See Horne v. U.S. Dept.
Written by
Edited by
Additional Resources
- Michael Doyle: U.S. Supreme Court Argument Set in Challenge to Raisin-Price Regulation, The Fresno Bee (Mar. 13, 2015).
- David A. Fahrenthold: One Grower’s Grapes of Wrath, Washington Post (July 7, 2013).