Agriculture

Subscribe to Agriculture via RSS

(We’re not sure who captured and posted the above video — wasn’t us — but to whomever did so, thank you.)

Earlier this week, our colleague Mark M. Murakami spoke at the University of Hawaii Law School on a panel about “The PLDC and Property Rights in Hawaii.” PLDC refers to the Public Land Development Corporation, a state agency created in 2011 to develop state-owned lands, primarily in concert with private entities. Since its formation, the PLDC has become highly controversial, and the Hawaii Senate recently voted to repeal it.

Joining Mark on the panel were Professor Shelley Saxer (Pepperdine); Marti Townsend, Executive Director of the Outdoor Circle; and Chris Lee, State House of Representatives member.

In the event you don’t want to view the entire session, we’ve put Mark’s remarks and his responses to audience questions in a separate (high-quality) audio file, which you can steam or…

Continue Reading Podcast And Video: The PLDC And Property Rights In Hawaii – A Panel Discussion

Having recently attended the 7th International Conference of the Academic Association on Planning, Law, and Property Rights in Portland, Oregon, we offer this irreverent view of that city’s culture, “Insufferable Portland,” by Mark Hemingway at the Weekly Standard. The landscape he portrays should be familiar to anyone who knows Portland, Berkeley, the Upper West Side, Santa Monica, Boulder, Chapel Hill, or Ann Arbor. Some highlights:

Case in point: One of the most commented-on sketches from the show [Portlandia] is a scene from the first episode in which Armisen and Brownstein are sitting in a restaurant. After asking their waitress a series of absurd questions about whether the chicken they are about to eat is local​—​”the chicken is a heritage breed, woodland raised chicken that’s been fed a diet of sheep’s milk, soy, and hazelnuts. .  .  . His name was Colin, here are his papers”​—​the couple ends…

Continue Reading Portland: Planning Utopia Or Hipster Paradise?

Update January 20, 2015: here are links to the most recent reports and the cert-stage briefs in the second go-round for the case: Horne II “The World’s Most Outdated Law” Crahses Headlong Into Takings. 

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

It’s not really the “Sun-Maid Girl,” but rather the organization the trademark now represents, Sun-Maid Growers of California., who filed this amicus brief supporting the U.S.D.A. in Horne v. United States Dep’t of Agriculture, No. 12-123 (cert. granted Nov. 20, 2012).

The brief makes one main point: the Hornes, as raisin “handlers” cannot assert a takings defense because they didn’t have title to the raisins they claimed were taken, and thus lack standing:

Petitioners indisputably have no standing to assert a Takings defense to avoid civil liability, as handlers, for failing to set aside as reserve tonnage the raisins produced by other producers, because as handlers petitioners never took title…

Continue Reading “Sun Maid Girl” Files Amicus Brief In California Raisin Takings Case

Update: Gideon Kanner’s thoughts on the case here.

As we mentioned in this post about earlier proceedings in the case, when the plaintiff/property owner’s name is “Jerry McGuire” and he is asserting a claim for compensation, it’s inevitable that we all make reference to the “show me the money” catchphrase from Jerry Maguire, the 1996 Cameron Crowe film. So we have.

With that out of the way, let’s get to the Federal Circuit’s opinion in Maguire v. United States, No. 2012-5073 (Feb. 20, 2013), in which the court held that McGuire’s takings claim was not ripe and he had no “property” that was taken.

First, the facts. McGuire leased farmland from an Arizona indian tribe, administered by the Bureau of Indian Affairs. The BIA removed a bridge that connected two of the parcels over a canal, which effectively landlocked one of the parcels. The bridge…

Continue Reading Fed Cir Doesn’t Show Jerry McGuire The Money: Property Owner Required To Pursue “Ambiguous and Informal” Permit Procedure

Here’s the amicus brief filed today on behalf of the International Municipal Lawyers Association in Horne v. United States Dep’t of Agriculture, No. 12-123 (cert. granted Nov. 20, 2012). The brief argues:

Petitioners have needlessly complicated the vindication of their asserted rights under the Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment by failing to file a straightforward claim for just compensation in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims. Petitioners have long participated in the raisin industry marketing program which they now believe results in a taking. Thus, they could easily have filed a claim for just compensation in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims based on this asserted taking. Instead, petitioners decided to disregard federal law requiring that they participate in the program and now seek to invoke the Takings Clause to defend against the sanctions imposed as a result of their illegal action.

This effort should fail for three…

Continue Reading IMLA Amicus Brief In California Raisin Takings Case: Tucker Act Is Exclusive Method Of Raising Takings Arguments

Mark your calendars: on Thursday, February 21, 2013, James Burling, director of the Pacific LegalFoundation and principal attorney at PLF’s Property Rights practice group and U. Hawaii lawprof Maxine Burkett willdiscuss “Do Property Rights Matter When The Environment IsGoing To Hell In A Handbasket?“

The forum — presented by the EnvironmentalLaw Program and the Federalist Society — will beginat 12:15 p.m. in CR1. Light refreshments will be served. Please RSVP to elp@hawaii.edu.

More below.

Do Property Rights Matter When the Environment is Going to Hell in a Handbasket?


Continue Reading PLF’s Jim Burling To Discuss Property Rights And The Environment At U.H. Law School

Here’s the SG’s merits brief in Horne v. United States Dep’t of Agriculture, No. 12-123 (cert. granted Nov. 20, 2012),

In Horne, the question is whether farmers who assert that an agricultural regulations known as “marketing orders,” by which they are forced to surrender large percentages of their raisin crops to the USDA without payment or else face massive fines, can raise the argument that to do so would be a taking when defending against the fine, or if their only option is to pay the fine and file a lawsuit in the Court of Federal Claims to recover just compensation. The Ninth Circuit held the District Court had no jurisdiction to hear the takings defense, and the only option was new litigation instituted by the Hornes in the CFC to get the fine back.

The SG’s brief argues the Hornes do not have standing to assert a…

Continue Reading Government Brief In California Raisin Takings Case

What we’re reading today:

  • Grand Central Station and The Takings Clause – from the Constitutional Law Prof Blog, a link to a WNYC/NPR podcast about Grand Central Terminal and the Penn Central takings case. Worth listening, if only to hear the money quote near the end: “you see New Yorkers all the time staking claim in this building, pointing up at cerulean blue sky saying ‘hey, this belongs to us.'” Yes, we guess it does. And you know what? You didn’t pay for it.
  • Another one about the 100th anniversary of Grand Central: Gideon Kanner writes Calling All Grand Central Junkies!, linking to the NY Times‘s republication of its 1913 special celebrating the opening of the terminal.
  • In that vein, a snarky commentary about the wonders of Pennsylvania Station. Who needs a cerulean blue sky?
  • In what reads more like a redeveloper’s press release, the Washington Post

…
Continue Reading Wednesday Round-Up: Grand Central, Oysters No More, And Originalist Takings

Here‘s what we think is the final top-side amicus brief in Horne v. United States Dep’t of Agriculture, No. 12-122 (cert. granted. Nov. 20, 2012), supporting the petitioner/property owner. Filed by the Chamber of Commerce of the United States, the brief argues that where “the government requires a direct transfer of funds, and where a party seeks equitable relief in resisting application of that statute in an enforcement action, that party need not seek ‘compensation’ in a duplicative second lawsuit under the Tucker Act.” Br. at 5.

In Horne, the question is whether farmers who assert that an agricultural regulations known as “marketing orders,” by which they are forced to surrender large percentages of their raisin crops to the USDA without payment or else face massive fines, can raise the argument that to do so would be a taking when defending against the fine, or if their…

Continue Reading Final Amicus Brief In Cal Raisin Takings Case: Property Owner Can Raise Equitable Takings Defense

We’re used to knee-jerk reactions by state and local governments to takings claims: whatever the circumstances, the property owner is wrong, and loses. So it’s nice to see a brief where a state government stakes out a more objective position.

Texas has filed an amicus brief in Horne v. United States Dep’t of Agriculture, No. 12-122 (cert. granted. Nov. 20, 2012), in support of the petitioner/property owner. In Horne, the question is whether farmers who assert that an agricultural regulations known as “marketing orders,” by which they are forced to surrender large percentages of their raisin crops to the USDA without payment or else face massive fines, can raise the argument that to do so would be a taking when defending against the fine, or if their only option is to pay the fine and file a lawsuit in the Court of Federal Claims to recover just compensation.

Continue Reading Texas’ Amicus Brief In California Raisin Takings Case: Y’all Don’t Need To Make This So Complicated