Court Opinion

ID: 9463024
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 22:56:22.749217+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:37:54.146064
License: Public Domain

*1017ELY, Circuit Judge
(concurring):
I reluctantly concur. The event in question occurred during the cutting of timber, the plan of the land owner being that after the land was cleared, grapevines would be planted, grapes would be grown, wine would be produced therefrom and, eventually, a portion of the wine would be sold in interstate commerce. It requires no great imagination to envision any number of circumstances that could have prevented the fulfillment of the eventual objective. For that reason, it is almost inconceivable to me that an accident at such an early stage could be held to have an interstate nexus, a nexus based on nothing more than the avowed intention of one man to do something sometime in the future that would involve interstate commerce. To me, it is virtually unthinkable that the Founding Fathers could have foreseen the extent to which an increasingly expansive interpretation of the Commerce Clause could so infringe local authority.
Notwithstanding all of the foregoing, in light of Wickard v. Filburn, 317 U.S. 111, 63 S.Ct. 82, 87 L.Ed. 122 (1942), Farmers Irrigation Co. v. McComb, 337 U.S. 755, 69 S.Ct. 1274, 93 L.Ed. 1672 (1949), and Hodgson v. Ewing, 451 F.2d 526 (5th Cir. 1971), I do not feel that I can conscientiously dissent.