Supreme Court throws out state's union access rule

California farmers and their advocates welcomed a United States Supreme Court ruling that invalidates a decades-old state regulation allowing union organizers to recruit new members on a farm employer's property.

The case, Cedar Point v. Hassid, centered on a regulation adopted in 1975 by the state Agricultural Labor Relations Board. The rule granted unions seeking to organize farm employees the ability to occupy farm property for as many as three hours a day—before or after work or at lunchtime—for up to 120 days a year.

Two agricultural employers—Cedar Point Nursery of Dorris and Fowler Packing Co. of Fresno—sued the state in 2016, saying the regulation amounted to a taking of private property by the government in violation of the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. In a 6-3 ruling issued June 23, the Supreme Court agreed, determining the state may not force employers to allow organizers onto their property without paying just compensation.

"The access regulation appropriates a right to invade the growers' property and therefore constitutes a per se physical taking," Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the majority. "Rather than restraining the growers' use of their own property, the regulation appropriates for the enjoyment of third parties the owners' right to exclude."

Carl Borden, senior counsel for the California Farm Bureau, described the ruling as "an important victory for private-property rights."

"As a practical matter, it means union organizers cannot gain access to farms and ranches without paying just compensation," Borden said. "Organizers still have plenty of other ways to contact farm employees, but the state access regulation clearly was a physical taking of private property that violated the Fifth Amendment."

Fresno attorney Howard Sagaser, who worked on the case, called the decision "a step in the right direction towards restoring or obtaining balance in the Agricultural Labor Relations Act." Voiding the access regulation, he added, "makes it much easier to comply with global food safety guidelines and all the other regulations that California farmers have to deal with."

Joshua Thompson, director of legal operations for the Pacific Legal Foundation, presented the farm employers' case during oral arguments before the Supreme Court in March. He said California farmers and ranchers "now enjoy the right that every other business in California has always enjoyed."

"It is a vindication of every farmer and agricultural business' rights to decide for themselves who (is) and who's not allowed on their property," Thompson said. "And if the government wants to give that right to other people, whether it be union organizers or whomever, they have to pay for it. That's what the Constitution demands, and that is what we as Americans have a right to demand of our government."

Borden filed four friend-of-the-court briefs on behalf of the California Farm Bureau as the case made its way to the nation's highest court, and Thompson said those efforts were crucial to the outcome.

"The California Farm Bureau support was particularly needed and welcomed and influential," along with that of the American Farm Bureau Federation and other employer organizations that filed briefs in support, Thompson added.

In turn, Borden said Farm Bureau "appreciates the work by the Pacific Legal Foundation and the two agricultural employers—Cedar Point Nursery and Fowler Packing—that stuck with this case all the way through to the U.S. Supreme Court."

"The California Farm Bureau has a decades-old policy opposing the access regulation as a violation of private-property rights, and we supported the effort to have the regulation overturned," he said.

In a concurring opinion, Justice Brett Kavanaugh discussed a 1956 U.S. Supreme Court case, National Labor Relations Board v. Babcock & Wilcox Co., in which the court ruled that an employer could disallow union organizers access to company property unless no alternate means of communication were available.

"Babcock strongly supports the growers' position in today's case," Kavanaugh wrote, "because the California union access regulation intrudes on the growers' property rights far more than Babcock allows."

Soon after its 1975 adoption, the access regulation narrowly survived a challenge before the California Supreme Court, and Kavanaugh noted the dissent in that case authored by California Supreme Court Justice William Clark.

"Justice Clark stressed that 'property rights are fundamental,'" Kavanaugh wrote. "And he concluded that the California union access regulation 'violates the rule' of Babcock and thus 'violates the constitutional provisions protecting private property.' In my view, Justice Clark had it exactly right."

Sagaser, a law student and extern for Clark at the time, said he appreciated Kavanaugh's acknowledgment of his late mentor.

"Although Justice Clark didn't live to see that, I'm glad that people understand that," Sagaser said. "He was right back in 1975, and people should have listened to him."

The U.S. Supreme Court sent the case back to the Ninth Circuit district court "for further proceedings consistent with this opinion."

(Kevin Hecteman is an assistant editor of Ag Alert. He may be contacted at khecteman@cfbf.com.)