Horne v. Department of Agriculture
The Supreme Court ruled that a federal program requiring raisin growers to physically hand over a share of their crop to the government, without payment, is a taking of property that requires just compensation under the Fifth Amendment.
The decision confirms that the government's duty to pay when it physically takes property applies just as strongly to personal property like raisins as it does to land, and it relieves the Horne family of a roughly $680,000 fine and penalty.
“The Government has a categorical duty to pay just compensation when it takes your car, just as when it takes your home.”
The Court's core holding that the Takings Clause protects personal property just as it protects real property.
How it got here: After the Supreme Court first ruled the Hornes could raise their takings defense, the Ninth Circuit rejected that defense on the merits, and the Hornes again asked the Supreme Court to review the case.
The Case in Depth
What happened
Under a Depression-era federal program, raisin growers in certain years had to set aside a share of their crop — sometimes nearly half — for the government's use, free of charge, to help stabilize raisin prices. Marvin and Laura Horne, who both grow and handle raisins, refused to turn over their share, believing the requirement was unconstitutional, and the government fined them the market value of the withheld raisins plus penalties.
The question before the Court
Does the government have to pay raisin farmers for raisins it forces them to hand over for free under a federal marketing program?
The Court's answer
Yes — the Court ruled that when the government physically takes a farmer's raisins, even to sell or give away later, it must pay for them just as if it had seized land. The reserve requirement forced growers to hand over title and control of a share of their crop, which is exactly the kind of direct physical seizure the Takings Clause has always required compensation for, regardless of whether it involves a house or a bag of raisins.
The Court also rejected the government's backup arguments: letting growers keep leftover sale proceeds doesn't erase the taking, and requiring farmers to give up raisins as the "price" of selling the rest isn't a fair trade, because selling produce isn't a special government favor. Since the government had already valued the raisins when it calculated the Hornes' fine, no further proceedings were needed — the fine was simply canceled.
Curious how the Court got there? See the step-by-step legal reasoning →
Why it matters
The ruling protects farmers and other property owners from being forced to surrender goods to the government without payment, even under long-standing agricultural programs. It signals that similar federal marketing orders requiring farmers to set aside crops for government use may need to be redesigned or may expose the government to compensation claims.
What changes now
This is a final merits decision, not a temporary order. The Hornes no longer owe the roughly $680,000 fine and penalty. The ruling does not require any further proceedings to calculate compensation, since the Court treated the government's own fine calculation as the measure of the raisins' value. The decision may prompt review of other federal marketing programs that require producers to give up goods without payment.
What this does not decide
The Court did not decide whether the raisin program serves a legitimate "public use," a separate constitutional requirement — Justice Thomas's concurrence flagged that question as unresolved. The majority also did not adopt the government's proposed method for calculating compensation by offsetting alleged marketing benefits, since it found the government had already effectively valued the taking.
Concurrences and dissents
Concurrence — Justice Thomas
Justice Thomas joined the majority in full but added that it is far from clear the raisin program actually takes raisins for genuine 'public use,' since the government mostly gives or sells them away to exporters and foreign governments. He suggested that if the taking is not for public use, calculating 'just compensation' on remand would be pointless anyway.
Dissent in part — Justice Breyer
Justice Breyer agreed that a physical taking occurred but disagreed with the majority's refusal to send the case back for a determination of just compensation. He argued that under longstanding precedent, courts must offset the value of any benefit the reserve requirement gave to the raisins growers kept and sell, and that this offset could mean no compensation is actually owed.
Dissent — Justice Sotomayor
“Loretto sets a high bar for such claims: It requires that each and every property right be destroyed by governmental action before that action can be said to have effected a per se taking.”The dissent's central objection that the growers' retained right to proceeds should defeat the takings claim.
Justice Sotomayor argued that a per se physical taking under Loretto requires that every property right be destroyed, and because the growers retained a right to any net proceeds from the reserve raisins, no per se taking occurred here. She would have affirmed the Ninth Circuit and let the government condition market access on giving up part of the crop, as it may already do under other precedents.
How the Court got there
The legal reasoning, step by step
- The Court applied the rule that a direct government seizure of property — as opposed to a mere restriction on how property can be used — is a per se taking, meaning compensation is required automatically without weighing other factors.
- The Court found nothing in the text or history of the Takings Clause distinguishing personal property (like raisins) from real property (like land): the government's duty to pay when it physically takes something applies equally to both.
- Because actual raisins were physically transferred to a government committee, which took title and decided how to sell, donate, or dispose of them, the Court treated this as a clear physical appropriation rather than a mere use restriction.
- The Court rejected the argument that letting growers keep any leftover sale proceeds erased the taking, reasoning that once a physical taking occurs, any money returned to the owner only affects how much compensation is owed, not whether a taking happened at all.
- The Court also rejected the idea that growers voluntarily traded their raisins for the 'benefit' of being allowed to sell the rest, holding that selling produce in interstate commerce is not a special government favor that can be conditioned on giving up constitutional protections.
- Having found a taking with a fixed, already-calculated compensation amount (the fine itself, based on fair market value), the Court concluded there was no need to send the case back for further valuation proceedings.
Doctrinal impact
Cases affected by this decision
Reaffirms Loretto v. Teleprompter Manhattan CATV Corp. (458 U. S. 419)
The Court relied on Loretto's rule that physical appropriations are automatic takings requiring compensation.
Distinguishes Andrus v. Allard (444 U. S. 51)
That case involved no forced physical surrender of property, unlike the raisin program's forced handover.
Distinguishes Ruckelshaus v. Monsanto Co. (467 U. S. 986)
Selling raisins isn't a special government benefit like a hazardous-chemical sale permit was in that case.
Distinguishes Leonard & Leonard v. Earle (279 U. S. 392)
Unlike wild oysters owned by the state, raisins are private property the growers already owned outright.