Litigation Update: Cedar Point Nursery v. Shiroma

On May 8, 2019, the Ninth Circuit issued a 2-1 decision in Cedar Point Nursery v. Shiroma. In Cedar Point, California agricultural growers asked the court to invalidate an Agricultural Labor Relations Board regulation that allowed union organizers to come on to the growers’ property to solicit workers to join the union for 3 hours per day and 120 days per year. The growers contend that the regulation amounts to a physical taking under the Fifth Amendment. The Ninth Circuit majority rejected that argument, and held that the physical takings doctrine did not apply because the union organizers were not allowed around-the-clock access to the growers’ property. The dissent would have held for the growers, and reasoned that the Supreme Court has never endorsed a law that allowed non-employee labor organizers to enter a grower’s private property for substantial periods of time, when none of the employees live on the employer’s premises.
Join the teleforum to hear reactions from Wen Fa and Bethany Berger. Wen Fa is an attorney with the Pacific Legal Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to vindicating property rights and individual liberty. Mr. Fa was the primary drafter of the Growers’ Ninth Circuit brief and argued the case before the Ninth Circuit panel. Bethany Berger is a law professor at the University of Connecticut and an expert on property law.
Featuring:
Wen Fa, Attorney, Pacific Legal Foundation
Prof. Bethany Berger, Wallace Stevens Professor of Law, University of Connecticut School of Law
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