The government can’t take your raisins without paying you, the Supreme Court ruled Monday in a case that centered on personal property rights.
The Supreme Court ruled 5-4 Monday that the federal raisin crop regulations were unconstitutional because they violated property rights by not paying farmers. The court effectively reversed a lower court’s ruling on the case.
The federal government puts out “marketing orders” that require growers of certain produce to set aside crops to help maintain stable products. The marketing order for raisins requires that growers put a certain amount of their crops in reserve for the government free of charge.
The government does a lot of things with the raisins, including donating them, selling them to noncompetitive markets and disposing of them at times, according to the court’s ruling. The grower gets back any leftover profits after the government takes its expenses for administering the program.
About a decade ago, farmer and raisin producer Marvin Horne refused to set aside any raisins because he said it was unconstitutional for the government to take them without adequate compensation.
Horne was required to set aside 47 percent of his raisin crop in 2002-03 and 30 percent in 2003-04. He refused and was fined upwards of $200,000 by the federal government.
Horne noted in court filings that farmers were not given any money back by the federal government for those two years of reserves.
A majority of the court found the reserve requirements violated the Constitution’s Fifth Amendment, which requires the government to pay when it takes personal property.
Chief Justice John Roberts in his majority opinion also disagreed with the government’s point that the reserve requirement isn’t taking anything from raising growers because the market is voluntary. The government argued that if they don’t like it they can plant different crops or sell their raisin-variety grapes as table grapes for juice or wine.
“‘Let them sell wine’ is probably not much more comforting to the raisin growers than similar retorts have been to others throughout history,” Roberts wrote.
He was joined by Justices Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas, Antonin Scalia and perennial swing vote Anthony Kennedy. Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan voted for the government.
