Supreme Court Rules Government Can't Seize Raisins To Manipulate Prices

[Purveyor]

Source: Associated Press

June 22, 2015 at 9:00 AM, updated June 22, 2015 at 9:03 AM

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court ruled Monday that a 66-year-old program that lets the government take raisins away from farmers to help reduce supply and boost market prices is unconstitutional.

In an 8-1 ruling, the justices said forcing raisin growers to give up part of their annual crop without full payment is an illegal confiscation of private property.

The court sided with California farmers Marvin and Laura Horne, who claimed they were losing money under a 1940s-era program they call outdated and ineffective. They were fined $695,000 for trying to get around the program.

A federal appeals court said the program was acceptable because the farmers benefited from higher market prices and didn't lose the entire value of their crop.

Read more: http://www.oregonlive.com/business/index.ssf/2015/06/supreme_court_rules_government.html

[Agnosticsherbet]

1. The thought of the California Raisans in internment camps

haunts me. So this is a good decision.

[Bluenorthwest]

2. 'Frieinds, Romans, Countrymen, lend me your ears, I come not to seize your berry but to praise it'.

or something

[jtuck004]

3. FREE THE RAISINS!!

[Demeter]

4. I doubt anyone can argue with this--they started with the easy ones

[Fred Sanders]

5. Now farmers of raisins will go the way of farmers of grain and corn...only mega-farms will survive.

[procon]

6. Is that how the 'free market' is supposed to work?

So, the government is working hand in hand with growers and their various industry lobbyists in setting up artificial props that manipulate the supply chain which results in price fixing to gouge consumers... say, how many other ag industries are following the same policy... FREEDOM!

Lather.
Rinse.
Repeat.

[truthisfreedom]

7. Now, to keep smaller growers alive,

The government will have to BUY the raisins.

[d_legendary1]

10. School lunches? Why not!

I loved those little boxes of raisins that came with our meal.

[elleng]

8. Kind of.

Held: The Fifth Amendment requires that the Government pay just
compensation when it takes personal property, just as when it takes
real property. Any net proceeds the raisin growers receive from the
sale of the reserve raisins goes to the amount of compensation they
have received for that taking—it does not mean the raisins have not
been appropriated for Government use. Nor can the Government
make raisin growers relinquish their property without just compensation
as a condition of selling their raisins in interstate commerce.
Pp. 4–18.
(a) The Fifth Amendment applies to personal property as well as
real property. The Government has a categorical duty to pay just
compensation when it takes your car, just as when it takes your
home. Pp. 4–9.
(1) This principle, dating back as far as Magna Carta, was codified
in the Takings Clause in part because of property appropriations
by both sides during the Revolutionary War.

http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/14pdf/14-275_c0n2.pdf

[usaf-vet]

9. in the early 1960 this was happening in the cranberry industry

I worked for a cranberry grower in the early nineteen 60's. We grew fresh fruit berries. The government forced the growers to destroy truck loads of berries. I drove a dump truck load of fresh berries to a prescribed dump where we dump the load. A worker would then pour diesel fuel over the pile so no one could recover the berries. Seemed stupid then remains stupid now.