Appeals Court Rejects Nebraska's Corporate Farm Ban
By Dave
Reynolds, Inclusion Daily Express
December 18, 2006
LINCOLN,
NEBRASKA--The U.S. 8th Circuit Court of Appeals has upheld a lower court's
decision that Nebraska's ban on corporate farms is unconstitutional.
At issue is Initiative 300, which Nebraska voters approved in 1982 and
which prohibits corporations and some other business entities from owning
farmland or engaging in agricultural activity in the state. Several ranchers --
including some with disabilities -- sued the state, claiming that I-300
discriminates against them because it requires at least one family member who
owns a farm to be engaged in its daily physical activities. The plaintiffs also
claimed that the law keeps them from trying to form family corporations to
protect their own operations or to combine their operations with neighbors.
Last December, U.S. District Judge Laurie Smith-Camp ruled that I-300
violates the commerce clause of the U.S. Constitution, along with Title II of
the Americans with Disabilities Act, which prohibits disability discrimination
in public services. Nebraska Attorney General Jon Bruning appealed Smith-Camp's
decision, claiming that, among other things, two of the plaintiffs couldn't sue
the state because they do not have disabilities and have not been 'injured' by
I-300.
On December 13 of this year, the three-judge panel of the appeals court
upheld Smith-Camp's decision, ruling that I-300 discriminates against
out-of-state businesses. It did not rule on whether the law violates the
ADA.
The next day, Bruning released a statement saying that his office would
request a rehearing of the case by the entire Eighth Circuit panel.
Related decision:
Jim Jones v. John Gale (U.S. Court of
Appeals for the Eighth Circuit)
http://www.ca8.uscourts.gov/opndir/06/12/061308P.pdf
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