Horne v. Department of Agriculture

No. 14-275. Argued April 22, 2015. Decided June 22, 2015. Certiorari to the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Judgment reversed (750 F.3d 1128, reversed). Opinion of the Court by Chief Justice Roberts, joined in full by Justices Scalia, Kennedy, Thomas, and Alito and joined in part by Justices Ginsburg, Breyer, and Kagan; Justice Thomas filed a concurring opinion; Justice Breyer filed an opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part, in which Justices Ginsburg and Kagan joined; Justice Sotomayor filed a dissenting opinion.

Editorial note. A marketing order promulgated under the Agricultural Marketing Agreement Act of 1937 required raisin handlers, in certain years, to reserve a percentage of the crop for the account of the Raisin Administrative Committee, which acquired title and disposed of the reserve in non-competitive markets or by donation, returning any net proceeds to the growers. The petitioners, California raisin growers who also handled their own crop, refused to set aside raisins in two seasons and were assessed the value of the withheld raisins together with civil penalties.

Editorial note. After an earlier decision in the same litigation held the takings defence properly raised in the enforcement proceeding, the Ninth Circuit rejected the defence on the merits, reasoning that personal property receives lesser protection and that any taking was conditioned on the voluntary choice to sell raisins in interstate commerce. The Supreme Court reversed.

Editorial note. Three issues were decided. The Fifth Amendment draws no distinction between real and personal property for purposes of the categorical physical-takings rule. The reserve requirement was a physical taking, because actual raisins were transferred out of the growers' possession and title vested in the committee, extinguishing the rights to possess, use, and dispose of them. And neither the possibility of a return from the reserve pool nor the growers' choice to participate in the raisin market converted the appropriation into a permissible condition; the contingent net proceeds go to the amount of just compensation, not to whether a taking occurred. The rule that follows is that a governmental appropriation of identified personal property is a per se taking, and the compensation owed is the fair market value of what was taken.

Editorial note. The Chief Justice traced the protection of personal property to the Magna Carta tradition and to the colonial grievance against uncompensated seizures of goods, and reasoned that Loretto's categorical rule turns on the character of the invasion rather than the classification of the thing invaded. Selling raisins in interstate commerce is not a government benefit that may be conditioned on the surrender of property, unlike the voluntary submission of data for the advantage of registration in Ruckelshaus v. Monsanto Co.; the growers' only alternative was to abandon a lawful use of their crop. The Court further held that no remand for calculation was needed, the Government having already assessed the raisins' fair market value.

Editorial note. Horne carries the physical-takings analysis beyond land and so completes the treatise's account of what property the Takings Clause protects. It also disciplines the voluntary-participation argument, confining Monsanto's expectations reasoning to regulatory measures that fall short of appropriation, and it distinguishes appropriation of the thing itself from regulation of its price or sale.

Editorial note. Followed and applied. Cedar Point Nursery v. Hassid, 594 U.S. 139 (2021), relied on Horne in holding that an appropriation of a right of access is a per se taking and in rejecting the argument that participation in a regulated industry licenses appropriation.

Editorial note. Read with U.S. Const. amend. V (Takings Clause) and the treatise chapter on physical takings.