Cedar Point Nursery v. Hassid

In 1975 the California legislature passed the California Agricultural Labor Relations Act and granted the Agricultural Labor Relations Board (the board) (defendant) authority to promulgate regulations under the act. The board passed a regulation granting labor organizations the right to access an agricultural employer’s property to meet with employees. The regulation allowed the labor organizations to access the property for four 30-day periods per year upon providing proper notice. In 2015 the labor organization United Farm Workers (United) entered the property of the strawberry grower Cedar Point Nursery (plaintiff) pursuant to the regulation. Cedar filed an action in federal district court against the board on the ground that the access regulation violated the Takings Clause in the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution. Cedar claimed that allowing organizations to have physical access to agricultural property amounted to a physical taking requiring just compensation. The board claimed that if the regulation constituted a physical taking, it would require many other regulations, such as health-and safety-inspection regulations, to constitute physical takings and would cause confusion between actions constituting a trespass and actions constituting a taking. The district court returned a verdict in the board’s favor on the ground that the regulation did not amount to a physical taking, because it did not allow the organizations complete and permanent access to the property. The matter was appealed. The court of appeals affirmed, agreeing with the district court that the regulation could not be considered a physical taking. The matter was appealed to the United States Supreme Court.