Long Distance Citrus Canker Runaround -- Yours Is No Disgrace?

Given that we just saw the State blow $120k on dubious "expert" anti-gay adoption testimony, I don't want to overstate anything.

But is it too much to suggest that the State's furious scorched earth litigation strategy in defending the citrus canker lawsuits -- paying Adorno & Yoss hundreds of thousands of dollars (millions?) to force Bobby Gilbert to try multiple suits in different forums for the last six years -- ranks up there with one of the more colossally stupid wastes of taxpayer money in recent memory?

I guess I say that given the canker eradication program they have spent so much money vigorously defending at taxpayer expense -- a program that radically changed the landscape of South Florida -- was such a wanker in the first place.

As I've previously written, if you grew up in South Florida you probably remember orange, lemon, grapefruit, sour orange, blood orange, tangelo, those weird hard orange/lemon hybrid fruits, and all manner of citrus in your backyard, in your neighbor's backyard, in the empty yards, in the swales, on your way to school, on your way to your friend's house, and pretty much everywhere you went.

You could bike around the block and collect all the citrus refreshment/armed weaponry you needed in a matter of moments, and later on it turned out all that backyard fruit made a great marinade!

But those days are gone.

In their place, we've had a perpetual transfer of taxpayer funds into the coffers of Adorno & Yoss, so they could seriously argue that suits that raise similar issues in different counties all have to proceed simultaneously (rather than wait for the benefit of an appellate ruling in one of the cases that could impact the legal issues raised in the other suits).

That should have been a big sign that something was rotten in the overly zealous way these cases were defended.

I have no idea why the State feels the need to so obstinately defend their questionable citrus canker program in the first place (pride/hubris from the decisionmakers involved?) but we are finally beginning to see the light at the end of the Wal-Mart voucher tunnel:

The Fourth District Court of Appeal unanimously held that some 55,000 Broward property owners are due $11 million for healthy trees felled by state chain saws from 1995 to 2006.

``Government has regulatory power for the very purpose of safeguarding the rights of citizens, not for destroying them,'' the judges wrote. ``Under any possible meaning, if government cuts down and burns private property having value, then government has taken it. And if government has taken it, government must pay for it.''

Confirming a widely held belief among property owners, the ruling said it was ``apparent from the history of this case that [the Department] destroyed these privately owned healthy trees not because they were `imminently dangerous' to anybody, but instead to benefit the citrus industry.''

Maybe now -- finally -- we have a window for the State to take a breath, reach out and turn off the Adorno litigation spigot and try to find a reasonable resolution to this fiasco?

Of course not:

``We respectfully disagree with the appeal court, and we will appeal it to the Florida Supreme Court,'' Florida Department of Agriculture spokesman Terence McElroy said, citing $44.5 million already paid on claims around the state.

Although the decision applies only to the Broward suit, plaintiffs' attorney Robert Gilbert said it will affect class actions pending in Miami-Dade, Palm Beach, Lee and Orange counties. He called the state's repeated appeals ``abusive.''

Florida ``wasted over $500 million destroying these trees, and millions more battling us in court,'' he said.

Why the reflexive, split-second reaction calling for an appeal? Is it more of the bury-your-head-and-keep-on-going legal strategy we've seen so far?

How about "we intend to carefully study the appellate opinion and confer as to what additional legal steps, if any, will be taken."

Obviously, the state's entitled to a defense and you need to find some numbers everyone can live with, but come on already.

You can read the entire opinion here, but I found the special concurrence by Judge Levine to be powerful:

I fully agree with the majority opinion, but I write to emphasize the clear legal right of the individual homeowner to receive just compensation as a result of the actions of the State. The State's actions in cutting down these trees most assuredly constituted "takings," whether under the regulatory takings or physical takings analysis, that demanded just compensation. Regardless of the type of takings denominated here, the result in this case must be the same — full and just compensation to the homeowners.

By requiring the State to abide by its constitutional obligation to compensate individual homeowners, we safeguard the property rights of all. "The sacred rights of property are to be guarded at every point. I call them sacred, because, if they are unprotected, all other rights become worthless or visionary." Joseph Story, The Value and Importance of Legal Studies (1829), in Miscellaneous Writings of Joseph Story 503, 519 (William W. Story ed., 1852).

Property rights, what a concept!