U.S. raisin reserve ruled unfair

Government must pay farmers for fruit, Supreme Court says

WASHINGTON -- The federal government must compensate raisin growers who are required to set aside part of their crop during high-production years, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled, gutting a decades-old program designed to stabilize prices.

The high court ruled the raisin-reserve requirement was a governmental "taking" of private property, something the Constitution outlaws unless officials provide "just compensation." The court overturned more than $600,000 in penalties assessed against a couple who refused to comply with the reserve rule.

The court still has seven cases to decide, including the right of same-sex couples to marry and the ability of low- and middle-income Americans to receive subsidies to help them afford insurance under the health care overhaul.

The justices will meet again Thursday to hand down more opinions and almost always finish their work by the end of June.

Writing for the court on the raisin decision, Chief Justice John Roberts said the government could accomplish the same goal by limiting production, rather than taking possession of extra raisins.

"A physical taking of raisins and a regulatory limit on production may have the same economic impact," Roberts wrote. "The Constitution, however, is concerned with means as well as ends."

Seven of the other eight justices agreed with Roberts that the program was a taking, though only four joined the part of his opinion that overturned the fine against Marvin and Laura Horne.

Three justices, led by Stephen Breyer, said the case should have been returned to a lower court to assess the benefits the Hornes received from the price-support program. Justice Sonia Sotomayor dissented.

The court "ultimately instructs the government that it can permissibly achieve its market-control goals by imposing a quota without offering raisin producers a way of reaping any return whatsoever on the raisins they cannot sell," she wrote. "I have trouble understanding why anyone would prefer that."

The Hornes grow seedless grapes for raisins in central California. The U.S. Department of Agriculture filed a complaint against them after they refused to set aside raisins in the 2002-03 and 2003-04 growing seasons.

The Agriculture Department said penalties imposed by an administrative law judge were justified because the Hornes benefited from the higher prices created by the reserve pool. The government takes ownership of the raisins in the pool, later selling them if market conditions warrant and giving raisin distributors some of the proceeds.

Under the program, authorized by a 1937 statute, each year a committee made up primarily of raisin producers and handlers decides based on market conditions whether to impose a reserve requirement. The program applies to California raisins, which constitute 99 percent of the U.S. market.

The raisin reserve requirement is an unusual one, and the justices said during arguments in April that the case won't affect most other Agriculture Department programs.

The case is Horne v. Department of Agriculture, 14-275.

Hoteliers' rights upheld

Also Monday, a divided high court threw out a Los Angeles ordinance that lets police demand access to hotel registries, in a ruling that raises questions about hundreds of similar laws around the country.

Voting 5-4, the justices sided with hotel owners who said the law violates their constitutional right against unreasonable searches. The majority faulted the law for not giving hotel owners the chance to object to a judge before having to comply.

"A hotel owner who refuses to give an officer access to his or her registry can be arrested on the spot," Sotomayor wrote for the majority. "The court has held that business owners cannot reasonably be put to this kind of choice."

Roberts and Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito dissented.

"The warrantless inspection requirement provides a necessary incentive for motels to maintain their registers thoroughly and accurately," Scalia wrote. "They never know when law enforcement might drop by to inspect."

Los Angeles officials said the measure deters drug trafficking and prostitution by prodding hotels and motels to comply with requirements that they register all guests.

The city requires hotels and motels to record information about their guests, including name, address and license-plate number. A version of the ordinance has been in effect for 100 years.

The high court clash concerned only the ability of police to demand access to that information, not the record-keeping requirement.

The case is Los Angeles v. Patel, 13-1175.

Information for this article was contributed by staff members of The Associated Press.

A Section on 06/23/2015

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