Courts Rejects Attempt To Block Recovery On Citrus Canker Compensation

By Growing Produce Staff|December 2, 2011

A Florida court has rejected an attempt by the Florida Department of Agriculture to block recovery on a judgment awarding more than $19 million in compensation to thousands of Palm Beach County homeowners whose healthy, uninfected citrus trees were destroyed under the citrus canker eradication program. Palm Beach County Circuit Judge Robin L.

Rosenberg entered the order last week following a March trial where a jury determined the amount of compensation owed to the homeowners.
The state argued that the homeowners are required to petition the legislature for a special appropriation to pay the judgment. Judge Rosenberg disagreed with the state, concluding that the statute is inapplicable where the state took the homeowners’ private property for a public purpose.

Between 2000 and early 2006, the state destroyed over 600,000 healthy, uninfected residential citrus trees under the eradication program. The state abandoned the program in 2006 when the USDA concluded that eradication of citrus canker was not feasible.

Source: Grossman Roth, P.A