Raisin Grower Wins Supreme Court Decision On Price Support
June 23, 2015 A farmer who refused to hand over half his raisin crop to the government as part of a New Deal-era price-support program won a major victory before the U.S. Supreme Court, as it decided the constitutional prohibition against uncompensated seizures extends to agricultural produce, according to Forbes magazine.
The court’s decision in Horne v. Dept. of Agriculture could threaten schemes that require farmers to turn their crops over to the government in exchange for the promise of greater price stability. However, as Justice Sonia Sotomayor noted in dissent, the government can still regulate production by enforcing quotas that prohibit farmers from selling their crop to anyone.
She called the majority opinion “baffling.” Justice Stephen Breyer, joined by Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Elena Kagan, agreed that the seizure was a taking requiring compensation, but argued for sending the case back to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals to determine how much the plaintiffs were owed after taking into account the value of price supports.
Source: Forbes.com
Subscribe Today For
