Opinion ID: 791768
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Excludability

Text: 44 The Supreme Court has recently recognized that the right to exclude is perhaps the most fundamental of all property interests. Lingle v. Chevron U.S.A., Inc., ___ U.S. ___, ___, 125 S.Ct. 2074, 2082, 161 L.Ed.2d 876 (2005). The Members contend that they have an exclusive interest in their respective peanut quota allotments. They argue that cases such as American Pelagic, Conti, and Mitchell Arms are distinguishable on the ground that the licenses awarded to the various citizens in those cases were not exclusive, whereas the peanut quota allotments awarded here were exclusive. Conversely, the government argues that, at most, peanut quota holders under the 1996 FAIR Act have the power to exclude others from taking advantage of their allotment and that this limited power of exclusion is no different from a fisherman's ability to exclude others from using his fishing license. The government contends that it is still the sole arbiter of who has access to the peanut quota allotments in much the same way as it determines who shall be permitted to obtain a fishing license. The government's position fails to appreciate the difference between a license and a quota. 45 The salient difference between the licenses in the noted cases and the peanut quota allotment is that the value of the peanut quota is considerably more concrete. A license represents a limited suspension of the otherwise general restrictions imposed by the government—in the case of a fishing license, it is merely a representation by the government that it will not interfere with the licensee's efforts to catch fish. The number of licenses to be issued under such a scheme is not fixed. Each additional license dilutes the value of the previously issued licenses. So long as the government retains the discretion to determine the total number of licenses issued, the number of market entrants is indeterminate. Such a license is by its very nature not exclusive. Neither the fisherman nor the firearms salesman can exclude later licensees from entering the market, increasing competition, and thereby diminishing the value of his license. 46 Conversely, the awarding of each additional peanut quota under the 1996 FAIR Act did not increase competition. Peanut quotas represented a right to plant and produce a certain amount of peanuts at a certain price in specific crop years. The statutory scheme limited the number of total pounds of quota peanuts and, in conjunction with the price supports, guaranteed a minimum price on the peanuts. Once a particular quota had been awarded, the granting of further quotas did not dilute that allotment. Under the quota program, the government served as a surety on large agricultural loans for any quota holder who grew peanuts. That benefit, which was a form of monetary subsidy, accompanied every peanut quota that was issued and was not subject to dilution by the issuance of additional peanut quotas. By awarding a quota holder a set price on a fixed quantity of peanuts, the government established a defined market for each quota holder—a market exclusive to that quota holder. Thus, the fact that the government was entitled to confer quota benefits without any prescribed limitation does not mean that the quotas were not a form of property. 47 A property right accrues when the government has seen fit to take a limited resource and secure it for the benefit of an individual or a predetermined group of individuals. The peanut quota holders possessed an excludable interest, because the peanut quota program isolated their particular interest from competition. For the reasons stated, we conclude that the Members established a property interest cognizable under the Fifth Amendment.