Petition for Writ of Certiorari — Arron Benedetti, et al., Petitioners v. Marin County, California, et al.

Supreme Court briefApr 24, 2026

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No.

In the Supreme Court of the United States

_________

ARRON B ENEDETTI ; ARTHUR B ENEDETTI ;

ESTATE OF W ILLIE B ENEDETTI ,

Petitioners,

C OUNTY OF MARIN , CALIFORNIA, ET AL.

Respondents.

_________

On Petition For A Writ Of Certiorari

To The Court Of Appeal Of The State Of California

First Appellate District, Division Four

_________

PETITION FOR A WRIT OF CERTIORARI

_________

J OHANNA B. TALCOTT

Pacific Legal Foundation

4440 PGA Blvd., Suite 307

Palm Beach Gardens, FL

33410

D EBORAH J. L A F ETRA

Pacific Legal Foundation

3100 Clarendon Blvd.,

Suite 1000

Arlington, VA 22201

J EREMY TALCOTT

Counsel of Record

Pacific Legal Foundation

555 Capitol Mall,

Suite 1290

Sacramento, CA 95814

(916) 419-7111

jtalcott@pacificlegal.org

Counsel for Petitioners

QUESTIONS PRESENTED

Owners of agriculturally zoned land in Marin

County, California, may lawfully build a single-family

residence on their property. But the County refuses

to issue a residential building permit unless the

landowner records a restrictive covenant limiting

ownership to commercial farmers who actively and

directly farm the land. The covenant runs with the

land in perpetuity, binding all future owners. The

California Court of Appeal upheld the requirements,

finding that forcing property owners to be commercial

farmers furthers the County’s goal of “maintain[ing]

agriculture as a viable industry.” The questions

presented are:

1. Whether Marin County may, under its power to

promote the public health, safety, morals, or general

welfare, compel private landowners to enter and

permanently remain in a government-chosen

occupation as a condition of a residential development

permit?

2. Whether the Due Process Clause of the

Fourteenth

Amendment—which

protects

the

fundamental right to “engage in any of the common

occupations of life,” Meyer v. Nebraska, 262 U.S. 390,

399 (1923)—also encompasses the fundamental right

not to be forced into an occupation of the government’s

choosing?

PARTIES TO THE PROCEEDING AND

RULE 29.6 STATEMENT

Petitioners Arron Benedetti, Arthur Benedetti, and

the Estate of Willie Benedetti were the plaintiffs and

appellants below. Petitioners are natural persons or

an estate.

Respondents are County of Marin, California, who

was respondent below, and California Coastal

Commission, who was Real Party in Interest below.

iii

STATEMENT OF RELATED CASES

These proceedings are directly related to the abovecaptioned case under Rule 14.1(b)(iii):

Benedetti v. County of Marin, No. CIV2103128,

Marin County Superior Court (Feb. 23, 2024).

Benedetti v. County of Marin, No. A170403,

California Court of Appeal (Aug. 29, 2025).

Benedetti v. County of Marin, California Supreme

Court, No. S293396 (Dec, 10, 2025).

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Petition for a Writ of Certiorari ................................. 1

Opinions Below ........................................................... 4

Jurisdiction ................................................................. 4

Constitutional and Statutory Provisions Involved .... 4

Statement of the Case ................................................ 5

A. Factual Background ..................................... 5

B. Legal Proceedings ......................................... 8

Reasons for Granting the Petition ........................... 10

I. Requiring Landowners to Change

Their Occupation to Obtain a Building

Permit Exceeds Even the Broadest

Conception of the Police Power ....................... 12

A. The Police Power Cannot Encompass

Compelling Individuals Into StateChosen Occupations to Achieve

Land Use Goals........................................... 13

B. History and Tradition Suggest That

Compelled Occupation Falls Outside

the Legitimate Scope of Governmental

Power .......................................................... 17

C. The Lease Alternative Does Not Cure

the Constitutional Violation—It

Compounds It.............................................. 20

II. Marin County’s “Land Use” Regulation

Requiring Owners to Accept the

Government’s Choice of Occupation

Impinges on a Fundamental Right ................. 23

A. Occupational Liberty Is a Fundamental

Constitutional Right with Deep Roots in

History and Tradition................................. 23

B. The Mandated Covenant Fails Under

Any Standard of Review ............................. 29

III. This Case Presents a Clean Vehicle

for Resolving Questions of Nationwide

Importance ....................................................... 31

Conclusion ................................................................. 33

APPENDIX

Opinion, Court of Appeal of the State of

California, First Appellate District,

filed August 29, 2025 .............................................. 1a

Judgment Denying Complaint and Petition for

Writ of Mandate, Superior Court of California,

County of Marin, filed February 23, 2024 ........... 30a

Order denying petition for review, Supreme

Court of California, filed December 10, 2025 ...... 55a

Marin County Local Coastal Program Land

Use Plan, Adopted by the Board of Supervisors

April 24 and December 11, 2018 (excerpts) ......... 56a

Marin County Local Coastal Program –

Implementation Plan §§ 20.32-024-20.32.030 ..... 69a

Marin County Local Coastal Program –

Implementation Plan § 20.130.030 ...................... 82a

TABLE OF AUTHORITIES

Cases:

Adams v. City of Harahan,

95 F.4th 908 (5th Cir. 2024) ................................ 17

Alcaraz v. Vece,

14 Cal. 4th 1149 (1997) ......................................... 6

Allgeyer v. Louisiana,

165 U.S. 578 (1897) ............................................... 2

AmeriSource Corp. v. United States,

525 F.3d 1149 (Fed. Cir. 2008) .............................. 2

Birkenfield v. United States,

369 F.2d 491 (3d Cir. 1966) ................................. 17

Boy Scouts of Am. v. Dale,

530 U.S. 640 (2000) ............................................ 2-3

Brooks-Scanlon Co. v. Railroad

Commission of Louisiana,

251 U.S. 396 (1920) ............................................. 16

Building Indus. Ass’n of Cent. Cal. v.

Cnty. of Stanislaus,

190 Cal. App. 4th 582 (2010) ............................... 12

Calder v. Bull,

3 U.S. (3 Dall.) 386 (1798) .............................. 18-19

Castellano v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.,

373 F.3d 817 (7th Cir. 2004) ............................... 21

Cedar Point Nursery v. Hassid,

594 U.S. 139 (2021) ............................................. 20

Chisholm v. Georgia,

2 U.S. (2 Dall.) 419 (1793) ................................... 29

Christensen v. State,

266 Ga. 474 (1996) ............................................... 19

vii

City of Youngstown v. Kahn Bros. Bldg. Co.,

112 Ohio St. 654 (1925) ....................................... 14

Colbert v. Rickmon,

747 F. Supp. 518 (W.D. Ark. 1990) ..................... 20

Commonwealth v. Strauss,

191 Mass. 545 (1906) ........................................... 25

Conn v. Gabbert,

526 U.S. 286 (1999) ....................................... 25, 31

Davis v. Grain Dealers Mut. Ins. Co.,

128 So. 2d 27 (La. Ct. App. 1961) ....................... 21

DCP Farms v. Yeutter,

957 F.2d 1183 (5th Cir. 1992) ............................. 15

Debbane v. City & Cnty. of San Francisco,

No. A172067 (Cal. Ct. App. 2025) ....................... 11

Department of Public Works v. City of San Diego,

122 Cal. App. 159 (1932) ..................................... 16

Dolan v. City of Tigard,

512 U.S. 374 (1994) ............................................... 8

Edwards v. Arthur Andersen LLP,

44 Cal. 4th 937 (2008) ......................................... 26

Engquist v. Oregon Dep’t of Agric.,

478 F.3d 985 (9th Cir. 2007) ............................... 31

Fassett v. City of Brookfield,

402 Wis.2d 265 (Ct. App. 2022)........................... 30

Fox v. Standard Oil Co. of N.J.,

294 U.S. 87 (1935) ............................................... 15

Free Enter. Fund v. Public Co. Acct. Oversight Bd.,

561 U.S. 477 (2010) ........................................ 12-13

Frost & Frost Trucking Co. v. Railroad Comm’n,

271 U.S. 583 (1926) ............................................... 3

Grace v. The Walt Disney Co.,

93 Cal. App. 5th 549 (2023) ................................. 15

viii

Greene v. McElroy,

360 U.S. 474 (1959) ............................................... 2

Josten’s, Inc. v. Cuquet,

383 F. Supp. 295 (E.D. Mo. 1974) ....................... 26

Kinsman v. Unocal Corp.,

37 Cal. 4th 659 (2005) ......................................... 21

Koontz v. St. Johns River Water Mgmt. Dist.,

570 U.S. 595 (2013) ............................................... 3

Lopez v. Superior Court,

45 Cal. App. 4th 705 (1996) ................................. 21

Lufkin Rule Co. v. Fringeli,

57 Ohio St. 596 (1898) .................................... 17-18

Matter of Smith v. Town of Mendon,

4 N.Y.3d 1 (2004) ................................................. 12

Meyer v. Nebraska,

262 U.S. 390 (1923) .............................. 2, 23, 30-31

Miller v. Miller,

8 Ky. Op. 41 (Ct. App. 1874) ............................... 25

Moore v. Michigan,

355 U.S. 155 (1957) ............................................... 3

Mugler v. Kansas,

123 U.S. 623 (1887) ............................................. 13

Nash v. City of Santa Monica,

37 Cal. 3d 97 (1984) ............................................... 9

Nectow v. City of Cambridge,

277 U.S. 183 (1928) ............................................. 14

New State Ice Co. v. Liebmann,

285 U.S. 262 (1932) ............................................... 2

New York v. United States,

505 U.S. 144 (1992) ............................................. 15

Nixon v. Shrink Missouri Gov’t PAC,

528 U.S. 377 (2000) ............................................. 13

Nollan v. California Coastal Commission,

483 U.S. 825 (1987) ............................................... 8

Overbagh v. Patrie,

8 Barb. 28 (N.Y. Gen. Term 1850) ................ 18, 28

People ex rel. Kuhn v. Common Council of Detroit,

70 Mich. 534 (1888) ............................................. 25

Perry v. Sindermann,

408 U.S. 593 (1972) ............................................. 22

Peterson v. Superior Court,

10 Cal. 4th 1185 (1995) ....................................... 21

Phillips v. Vandygriff,

711 F.2d 1217 (5th Cir. 1983) ............................... 2

Pierce v. Society of Sisters,

268 U.S. 510 (1925) ............................................. 24

Poe v. Ullman,

367 U.S. 497 (1961) ............................................. 13

Robinson v. Diamond Housing Corp.,

463 F.2d 853 (D.C. Cir. 1972) ............................. 17

Ross v. Sadgbeer,

21 Wend. 166 (N.Y. Sup. Ct. 1839) ..................... 17

S. Cal. Edison Co. v. Bourgerie,

9 Cal. 3d 169 (1973) ............................................... 5

Sheetz v. Cnty. of El Dorado,

601 U.S. 267 (2024) .......................................... 9-10

Smith v. Texas,

233 U.S. 630 (1914) ............................................. 17

Spann v. City of Dallas,

111 Tex. 350 (1921) ........................................ 15-16

Staats v. Vintner’s Golf Club, LLC,

25 Cal. App. 5th 826 (2018) ............................. 6, 21

State of Washington ex rel. Seattle Title

Trust Co. v. Roberge,

278 U.S. 116 (1928) ............................................. 14

Tiwari v. Friedlander,

26 F.4th 355 (6th Cir. 2022) ................................ 26

Trs. of Union Coll. in Town of Schenectady in State

of N.Y. v. Members of Schenectady City Council,

91 N.Y.2d 161 (1997) ........................................... 14

Truax v. Raich,

239 U.S. 33 (1915), clarified on rehearing,

724 F.2d 490 (5th Cir. 1984) ...................... 2, 24-25

Ultra Lube, Inc. v. Dave Peterson

Monticello Ford-Mercury, Inc.,

No. C8-02-658, 2002 WL 31302981

(Minn. Ct. App. Oct. 15, 2002) ............................ 26

Union Pac. Ry. Co. v. Botsford,

141 U.S. 250 (1891) ............................................. 27

United States v. Sharpe,

470 U.S. 675 (1985) ............................................ 1-2

V Lions Farming, LLC v. Cnty. of Kern,

100 Cal. App. 5th 412 (2024) ............................... 12

Vill. of Euclid v. Ambler Realty Co.,

272 U.S. 365 (1926) ............................................. 14

Vill. of Hudson v. Albrecht, Inc.,

9 Ohio St. 3d 69 (1984) ........................................ 14

Washington v. Glucksberg,

521 U.S. 702 (1997) ................................. 19, 27, 29

Yee v. City of Escondido,

503 U.S. 519 (1992) ....................................... 10, 16

U.S. Constitution:

U.S. Const. amend. XIV, § 1 ....................................... 4

Statutes:

28 U.S.C. § 1257(a) ..................................................... 4

Cal. Civil Code § 815.1 .............................................. 12

Cal. Civil Code § 1714 ................................................. 6

Chicago Municipal Code § 5-10-030 ......................... 11

Chicago Municipal Code § 5-10-060 ......................... 11

Maryland Renters’ Rights and Stabilization

Act of 2024, https://tinyurl.com/5fhhxucn

(visited Apr. 23, 2026) ......................................... 11

S.F. Bus. & Tax Regs. Code, §§ 2950-2963 .............. 11

Other Authorities:

2 Rathkopf’s The Law of Zoning and

Planning (4th ed. 1995) ....................................... 30

Madison, James, Essay on Property, in

4 Letters & Other Writings of James

Madison 478 (1884) ............................................. 24

Mahoney, Julia D., Perpetual Restrictions on

Land and the Problem of the Future,

88 Va. L. Rev. 739 (2002) ............................... 32-33

Marin Cnty. Dep’t of Agriculture, Weights &

Measures, Economic Contributions of

Marin Cnty. Agriculture (July 2025),

https://tinyurl.com/2rnyu2yu ............................. 6-7

McCormack, Wayne, Lochner, Liberty,

Property, and Human Rights,

1 N.Y.U. J.L. & Liberty 432 (2005) ..................... 24

Mill, John Stuart, On Liberty (1859) ....................... 19

Point Reyes lawsuits to force closures after

decade-long battles, AgDaily (Mar. 25,

2025), https://tinyurl.com/42pd32fp ...................... 7

xii

Smith, Steven D., Meyer, Pierce, and the

Formation of Persons,

26 J. Contemp. Legal Issues 55 (2025) ............... 24

Tennessee Dep’t of Agric., Farmland Preservation

Program, https://tinyurl.com/c4aaknnc

(visited Apr. 23, 2026) ......................................... 32

Treasurer & Tax Collector, City and County

of San Francisco, Commercial Vacancy

Tax, https://tinyurl.com/ep9mf3wf

(visited Apr. 23, 2026) ......................................... 11

U.S. Dep’t of Agric., Agricultural

Conservation Easement Program,

https://tinyurl.com/bdhssucj

(visited Apr. 23, 2026) ......................................... 32

U.S. Dep’t of Agric., Land Conservation,

https://tinyurl.com/3sj8ra45

(visited Apr. 23, 2026) ......................................... 31

Valauri, John T., Federalism, Mandates

and Individual Liberty,

43 N. Ky. L. Rev. 175 (2016) ............................... 27

PETITION FOR A WRIT OF CERTIORARI

Brothers Arron and Arthur Benedetti are

plumbers. They inherited agriculturally zoned land in

Marin County, California, on which they wish to build

a home for Arthur to live out his retirement years.

App. 6a. Such a residence is designated by the County

as a “principal permitted use” of the property and

allowed under the zoning code. App. 4a-5a. But the

County refuses to issue a building permit unless the

brothers agree to operate a commercial farming

enterprise on the land in perpetuity, or contract with

someone else to do so. App. 5a. The Benedettis are

plumbers. They are not farmers, have never been

farmers, and have no desire to become farmers. They

also do not seek to convert the land to a different

zoning class. App. 6a. But unless they agree to a

restrictive covenant forever requiring them and any

future owners to be “actively and directly engaged” in

commercial agriculture, App. 5a, the County will

never permit them to build one house on their

property. The California Court of Appeal upheld this

requirement as an acceptable exercise of the police

power, rejecting multiple constitutional challenges.

App. 21a-23a, 28a.

This

petition

presents

two

interlocking

constitutional questions that this Court has never

answered. The first is structural: does the police

power include the power to conscript private citizens

into commercial occupations of the government’s

choosing?1

While broad, the police power does have limitations. United

States v. Sharpe, 470 U.S. 675, 696 (1985) (Marshall, J.,

concurring in the judgment) (“[T]he Constitution imposes certain

The second is individual: even if the police power

were broad enough to allow government to impose

such a mandate, the liberty protected by the

Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process Clause

encompasses “the right of the individual to . . . engage

in any of the common occupations of life.” Meyer v.

Nebraska, 262 U.S. 390, 399 (1923). That right is

fundamental—rooted in common law, confirmed by

the Fourteenth Amendment, and inseparable from the

concept of ordered liberty. Greene v. McElroy, 360

U.S. 474, 506-07 (1959); Allgeyer v. Louisiana, 165

U.S. 578, 589-90 (1897) (“The ‘liberty’ mentioned in

that [Fourteenth] amendment . . . is deemed to

embrace the right of the citizen . . . to live and work

where he will; to earn his livelihood by any lawful

calling; to pursue any livelihood or avocation[.]”);

Phillips v. Vandygriff, 711 F.2d 1217, 1222 (5th Cir.

1983) (“It requires no argument to show that the right

to work for a living in the common occupations of the

community is of the very essence of the personal

freedom and opportunity that it was the purpose of the

[fourteenth] Amendment to secure.”) (alteration in

original; quoting Truax v. Raich, 239 U.S. 33, 41

(1915), clarified on rehearing, 724 F.2d 490 (5th Cir.

1984)). Its necessary corollary—the inverse right not

to be compelled by government into an occupation not

of one’s choosing—is equally fundamental. Cf. Boy

limitations on police powers no matter how reasonably those

powers have been exercised.”); New State Ice Co. v. Liebmann,

285 U.S. 262, 302 (1932) (constitutional protection of due process

serves as a limitation on the otherwise plenary police power);

AmeriSource Corp. v. United States, 525 F.3d 1149, 1154 (Fed.

Cir. 2008) (“As expansive as the police power may be, it is not

without limit. The limits, however, are largely imposed by the

Due Process Clause.”).

Scouts of Am. v. Dale, 530 U.S. 640, 648 (2000) (the

right to associate includes the inverse right to refrain

from associating); Moore v. Michigan, 355 U.S. 155,

161 (1957) (criminal defendant’s constitutional right

to be represented by counsel includes the right not to

be represented). The unconstitutional conditions

doctrine reinforces both: government may not

leverage its permitting authority to extract the

surrender of a constitutional right that it could not

override by direct command. Because the government

could not simply order the Benedettis to become

commercial farmers, it may not accomplish the same

result by conditioning a building permit on their

agreement to do so. Koontz v. St. Johns River Water

Mgmt. Dist., 570 U.S. 595, 604 (2013) (The

unconstitutional conditions doctrine exists precisely

to prevent government from leveraging its permit

authority to “coerc[e] people into giving [rights] up.”).

The Court of Appeal’s ruling invites additional—

and previously unheard of—governmental authority

over the occupational choices of private citizens. See

Frost & Frost Trucking Co. v. Railroad Comm’n, 271

U.S. 583, 594 (1926) (“If the state may compel the

surrender of one constitutional right as a condition of

its favor, it may, in like manner, compel a surrender

of all. It is inconceivable that guaranties embedded in

the Constitution of the United States may thus be

manipulated out of existence.”).

The Court should grant certiorari to address two

constitutional questions this Court has never

answered—whether the police power extends to

compelling private citizens into a government-chosen

occupation, and whether the individual has a

fundamental constitutional right not to be forced into

such an occupation.

OPINIONS BELOW

The decision of the California Court of Appeal is

published at 113 Cal. App. 5th 1185, 1190 (2025),

reproduced in Petitioner’s Appendix at App. 1a. The

superior court’s judgment and order dismissing the

claims is reproduced at App. 30a. The California

Supreme Court’s order denying review is reproduced

at App. 55a.

JURISDICTION

On December 10, 2025, the California Supreme

Court denied a timely Petition for Review. On

February 5, 2026, this Court granted an application

for an extension of time to file a petition for writ of

certiorari, to and including April 24, 2026. This case

arises under the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments

to the United States Constitution. This Court has

jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1257(a).

CONSTITUTIONAL AND STATUTORY

PROVISIONS INVOLVED

Section 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S.

Constitution provides in pertinent part:

No State shall make or enforce any law which

shall abridge the privileges or immunities of

citizens of the United States; nor shall any State

deprive any person of life, liberty, or property,

without due process of law; nor deny any person

within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the

laws.

Relevant portions of Marin County’s Land Use Plan

and Local Coastal Program are reprinted at App. 56a83a.

STATEMENT OF THE CASE

A. Factual Background

1. Arron and Arthur Benedetti are professional

plumbers. They inherited two contiguous parcels of

land totaling 267 acres in the rolling coastal hills of

Marin County from their father, Willie Benedetti, who

owned and ran a successful turkey farming operation.

App. 6a. Willie Benedetti shut down his farming

operation and sold the stock and equipment prior to

his death. Ibid. Arron lives in the sole home on the

property, that he shared with his father. Ibid. Arthur

wishes to build his own home, as permitted by the

existing zoning, to spend the rest of his days living on

the land his family has owned for generations. Ibid.

But constructing that home triggers an extraordinary

regulatory burden: The County would require the

Benedetti brothers to agree to actively farm or ranch

the land forever. App. 5a.

2. In 2021, Marin County amended its Local

Coastal Program (LCP) to prohibit construction of an

additional dwelling unit on properties in the Coastal

Agricultural Production Zone (C-APZ), where the

Benedetti land is located, unless the landowner

records a restrictive covenant2 that runs with the land

and obligates the owner (and every future owner) to

remain “actively and directly engaged” in commercial

agriculture. Ibid. Under the LCP, the only alternative is to lease the land to a commercial agricultural

Restrictive covenants are recognized as constitutionally

protected property interests under California law. S. Cal. Edison

Co. v. Bourgerie, 9 Cal. 3d 169, 172 (1973). Once recorded, such

covenants run with the land, binding future owners and creating

an enforceable property interest that benefits the covenantee—

in this case, the County.

producer. Ibid. Either way, the Benedettis are forced

into either active farming or managing farmers and

farmland,3 occupations for which they have no

training, no expertise, and no interest. App. 6a.

These requirements apply regardless of the

landowner’s suitability or interest in being a farmer

or rancher. They apply whether or not farming is

commercially feasible. They even apply if the land is

not agriculturally viable.4 App. 4a-6a. Unless the

The lease option offers little respite from the direct farming

requirement given California law that places affirmative duties

on landowners in the management and maintenance of their

property, potentially making them liable for injuries or hazards,

even without personal involvement in the instrumentalities of

harm. See, e.g., Cal. Civil Code § 1714 (“Everyone is responsible,

not only for the result of his or her willful acts, but also for an

injury occasioned to another by his or her want of ordinary care

or skill in the management of his or her property or person,

except so far as the latter has, willfully or by want of ordinary

care, brought the injury upon himself or herself.”); Staats v.

Vintner’s Golf Club, LLC, 25 Cal. App. 5th 826, 833 (2018)

(interpreting Section 1714 to require that “a person who controls

property must ‘inspect [the premises] or take other proper means

to ascertain their condition’ and, if a dangerous condition exists

that would have been discovered by the exercise of reasonable

care, has a duty to give adequate warning of or remedy it”

(citation omitted)). “This duty to maintain land in one’s

possession in a reasonably safe condition exists even where the

dangerous condition on the land is caused by an instrumentality

that the landowner does not own or control.” Alcaraz v. Vece, 14

Cal. 4th 1149, 1156 (1997).

4 Marin County describes a vast array of risks inherent in

commercial farming, including “wildfires, droughts, floods,

pandemics, crop pests and diseases, food safety-related outbreaks, new regulations, new competitors, labor availability and

cost, price drops, tariffs and other trade policies, and rising costs

for fuel, equipment, water and other inputs,” any one of which

can “deal a damaging blow.” Marin Cnty. Dep’t of Agriculture,

Benedetti brothers agree to a restrictive covenant that

compels their participation in commercial farming

forever (or contract with someone to do so on their

behalf), the County will not grant the permits

necessary to build Arthur’s home. App. 5a.

The Benedetti brothers are plumbers. They have

never been commercial farmers, nor do they wish to

become commercial farmers. Arthur’s desired home

would be consistent with the existing zoning of the

property. App. 4a. It does not affect surrounding land

uses or interfere with any agricultural activity—the

land is already zoned exclusively for agriculture and

agricultural accessory structures and activities. Ibid.

The “agriculture” zone authorizes dwellings for the

landowner, “intergenerational family,” and farm

workers, as well as other related structures such as

processing facilities and airstrips. App. 4a-5a. Nevertheless, the County refuses to issue the Benedetti

brothers a permit for the development of Arthur’s

home unless they personally undertake commercial

farming themselves or forever commit to a commercial

agricultural lease.5 App. 5a. The County maintains

that this restriction is necessary to preserve the area’s

agricultural character by deterring any development

that contributes to a market for residential real estate

in agricultural areas. App. 19a. This justification has

Weights & Measures, Economic Contributions of Marin Cnty.

Agriculture at 15 (July 2025), https://tinyurl.com/2rnyu2yu.

5 Meanwhile, the National Park Service purchased and shut

down a dozen multigenerational farms in Marin County against

the owners’ wishes, to settle lawsuits by environmental groups

who prefer open space to agricultural use. Point Reyes lawsuits

to force closures after decade-long battles, AgDaily (Mar. 25,

2025) (“the agreement will result in a reduction of nearly 17,000

acres of commercial ranching”), https://tinyurl.com/42pd32fp.

no basis in any direct land-use impact of the proposed

home and instead employs an unprecedented exercise

of regulatory authority to further the County’s

preferred policy outcome: land use rules that are

directed not at the land but at the landowner himself.

B. Legal Proceedings

In September 2021, the Benedetti brothers,

individually and as representatives and executors of

their father’s estate, sued Marin County and the

California Coastal Commission in state court under

42 U.S.C. § 1983.6 App. 6a-7a. They claimed that,

under the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process

Clause, the LCP’s perpetual covenant requirement

unconstitutionally conditioned development of their

property on their permanently surrendering the right

to be free from compelled entry into a state-chosen

profession. Ibid. The Benedettis also claimed that the

provisions facially violate the Fifth Amendment

because conditioning a residential building permit on

a perpetual obligation to engage in a government

selected occupation cannot satisfy the nexus and

proportionality standards of Nollan v. California

Coastal Commission, 483 U.S. 825 (1987), and Dolan

v. City of Tigard, 512 U.S. 374 (1994). App. 6a-7a.

The trial court rejected Petitioners’ constitutional

claims on the merits, applying rational basis review to

reject the due process claim and concluding that the

Benedettis’ facial Nollan/Dolan claim could not

proceed because the condition operated through a

permit process, requiring an application to “ripen” the

challenge. App. 53a-54a.

Other state claims are not at issue in this Petition.

The California Court of Appeal affirmed in a

published opinion. App. 1a. The court applied

rational basis review to the Benedettis’ due process

claim, relying exclusively on Nash v. City of Santa

Monica, which upheld a requirement preventing

demolition or conversion of rental units without a

permit and rejected a landlord’s argument that the

law unconstitutionally conditioned his right to stop

being a landlord on relinquishing his right not to sell

his property. 37 Cal. 3d 97, 106 (1984). Concluding

that the perpetual covenant requirement “does not

obligate landowners to work in agriculture; they are

only limited in their ability to work in fields other

than agriculture on a specific property,” the Court

declined to apply strict scrutiny. App. 26a. It likewise

found no “involuntary servitude” concerns because the

requirement “only obligates the landowners to engage

in agriculture, which is an occupation quintessentially

arising out of and attached to their land,” and

emphasized that a landowner is “free to lease the

property to someone else to engage in agriculture” or

may “choose to sell the property if they no longer wish

to engage in agriculture.” Ibid. On that basis, the

court held that the covenant does not facially violate

the Benedettis’ fundamental right to work (or not

work) because, in its view, there is a reasonable relationship between the condition and the Defendants’

interests in “the maintenance of agriculture as a

viable industry in the coastal zone by preventing the

incursion of residential development and residential

property values into agricultural lands . . . .” App.

26a-27a.

The court confirmed that the Benedettis could raise

facial Nollan/Dolan challenges to legislative permit

conditions, see Sheetz v. Cnty. of El Dorado, 601 U.S.

267, 276-77 (2024), but concluded that the

unconstitutional conditions claim failed on the merits

because the perpetual covenant requirement “easily”

met Nollan’s essential nexus test by “separating

agricultural from non-agricultural uses and

preventing residential use values from driving up the

costs of agricultural land.” App.19a. The court

further held that the covenant requirement satisfied

Dolan’s rough proportionality test “on its face”

because any residential development not used to

support ongoing agriculture, no matter the size or

type, reduced, by some measure, the “incremental”

residential development pressures posed by even one

additional non-agricultural dwelling. App. 22a-23a.

The California Supreme Court denied review on

December 10, 2025. App. 55a.

REASONS FOR GRANTING THE PETITION

This Court’s property and occupational liberty

jurisprudence operates on the core assumption that

individuals are able to voluntarily enter—or exit—a

regulated market or occupation. The Court relies on

that individual right to justify applying the

deferential rational basis standard to intrusive

regulation of commercial enterprises. For example, in

Yee v. City of Escondido, 503 U.S. 519, 527, 531 (1992),

the Court upheld financially burdensome regulation

on the grounds that the property owner voluntarily

chose to enter the rental market and could leave it at

will. See id. at 528 (“A different case would be

presented were the statute, on its face or as applied,

to compel a landowner over objection to rent his

property or to refrain in perpetuity from terminating

a tenancy.”). This Court’s decisions thus rest on the

principle that if individual liberty and autonomy

mean anything, then the government cannot coerce

you into practicing a certain trade or business. It is

simply beyond government’s power to compel someone

into a field they do not wish to be in, nor can it force

someone to continue to practice a certain occupation if

that person no longer wishes to engage in it.

Recently, however, states and local governments

are asserting their broad police powers to strong-arm

citizens to enter trades and occupations they do not

wish to enter or restricting their ability to leave

certain businesses. These aggressive and novel uses

of the police power require a reevaluation of the

Court’s foundational assumption of free entry and

exit. California leads the way. For example, San

Francisco taxes property owners who allow their

property to remain vacant—that is, they chose not to

become or remain landlords.

Treasurer & Tax

Collector, City and County of San Francisco,

Commercial Vacancy Tax.7 And cities increasingly

limit property owners’ right of alienation by requiring

the owner first offer it for sale to tenants. See, e.g.,

Chicago Municipal Code §§ 5-10-030, 5-10-060;

Maryland Renters’ Rights and Stabilization Act of

2024.8

This case, from California’s Marin County, is the

latest and most egregious example.

7 https://tinyurl.com/ep9mf3wf (visited Apr. 23, 2026).

See

also S.F. Bus. & Tax Regs. Code, §§ 2950-2963 (“Empty Homes

Tax”), the validity of which is currently being litigated. Debbane

v. City & Cnty. of San Francisco, No. A172067 (Cal. Ct. App.

2025).

8 https://tinyurl.com/5fhhxucn (visited Apr. 23, 2026).

Requiring Landowners to Change Their

Occupation to Obtain a Building Permit

Exceeds Even the Broadest Conception of

the Police Power

A typical “agricultural easement” in California

limits non-agricultural use of the land and may

require dedication of agricultural or conserved land in

mitigation of development on agricultural land. See

Building Indus. Ass’n of Cent. Cal. v. Cnty. of

Stanislaus, 190 Cal. App. 4th 582, 592, 594 (2010). An

“agricultural conservation easement” is defined as “an

interest in land, less than fee simple, that represents

the right to prevent the development or improvement

of the land, as specified in Section 815.1 of the Civil

Code,9 for any primary purpose other than agricultural production.” V Lions Farming, LLC v. Cnty. of

Kern, 100 Cal. App. 5th 412, 422 (2024). See also

Matter of Smith v. Town of Mendon, 4 N.Y.3d 1, 10

(2004) (footnote added) (conditioning site plan

approval on owner’s acceptance of a conservation

easement). While this limits other use of the land, it

does not affirmatively require agricultural use of the

land by the landowner. Marin County appears to be

the first jurisdiction to leverage its power to place

conditions on development by making personal

demands on the landowner.

The novelty of this law is alone reason enough for

this Court’s intervention. Sometimes “the most

telling indication of [a] severe constitutional problem

. . . is the lack of historical precedent” for Congress’s

Cal. Civil Code § 815.1 states that the purpose of a

“conservation easement” is “to retain land predominantly in its

natural, scenic, historical, agricultural, forested, or open-space

condition.”

action. Free Enter. Fund v. Public Co. Acct. Oversight

Bd., 561 U.S. 477, 505 (2010) (internal quotation

marks omitted). This Court has acknowledged that

the evidence to be presented in support of a legislative

enactment “var[ies] . . . with the novelty and

plausibility of the justification raised.” Nixon v.

Shrink Missouri Gov’t PAC, 528 U.S. 377, 391 (2000);

Poe v. Ullman, 367 U.S. 497, 554 (1961) (Harlan, J.,

dissenting) (“[C]onclusive, in my view, is the utter

novelty of this enactment.”) (criminalizing contraception). Here, the County has imposed a new and

novel requirement—purportedly under its power to

regulate land-use—that targets not the land, but the

landowner, and conscripts that landowner into a

government-chosen commercial activity in perpetuity.

That previously unknown use of the police power

raises significant constitutional concerns and

warrants review before this Court.

A. The Police Power Cannot Encompass

Compelling Individuals Into StateChosen Occupations to Achieve

Land Use Goals

The

foundational

rule

police

power

jurisprudence—stated by this Court in Mugler v.

Kansas, 123 U.S. 623 (1887), and reaffirmed

consistently since—is that a purported exercise of the

police power must have a real or substantial relation

to public health, public morals, or public safety, and,

if none is found, courts must “so adjudge, and thereby

give effect to the Constitution.” Id. at 661. Courts are

not “bound by mere forms, nor are they to be misled

by mere pretenses”; they are “under a solemn duty—

to look at the substance of things.” Ibid.

This Court applied that principle in the zoning

context in Nectow v. City of Cambridge, 277 U.S. 183,

187-88 (1928), vacating a zoning action that had “no

foundation in reason and is a mere arbitrary or

irrational exercise of power having no substantial

relation to the public health, the public morals, the

public safety or the public welfare in its proper sense.”

See also Vill. of Euclid v. Ambler Realty Co., 272 U.S.

365, 395 (1926) (zoning provisions must have a

“substantial relation to the public health, safety,

morals, or general welfare”).

And in State of

Washington ex rel. Seattle Title Trust Co. v. Roberge,

278 U.S. 116, 121 (1928), the Court stated the

affirmative command: “Legislatures may not, under

the guise of the police power impose restrictions that

are unnecessary and unreasonable upon the use of

private property or the pursuit of useful activities.”

State courts have thus applied this Court’s

formulation to invalidate zoning regulations as

beyond the police power. See, e.g., Trs. of Union Coll.

in Town of Schenectady in State of N.Y. v. Members of

Schenectady City Council, 91 N.Y.2d 161, 167 (1997)

(holding that excluding educational uses from a

district bore no substantial relation to the public

health, safety, morals or general welfare, placing the

regulation beyond the City’s zoning authority); see

also City of Youngstown v. Kahn Bros. Bldg. Co., 112

Ohio St. 654, 666 (1925), disapproved of by Vill. of

Hudson v. Albrecht, Inc., 9 Ohio St. 3d 69 (1984)

(invalidating a zoning ordinance as having “no

relation to the public health, safety, morals, and

welfare,” and therefore outside of the inherent police

power of the state).

The Marin covenant satisfies none of these

requirements. The Court of Appeal acknowledged the

point: the covenant’s purpose “is not mitigating the

general impacts of residential development.” App.

20a. Its purpose is to advance the County’s policy

preference for “maintain[ing] agriculture as a viable

industry” in the Coastal Zone by mandating that

persons who hold title to C-APZ land operate

commercial farming enterprises. App. 26a-27a. That

is not the regulation or mitigation of harmful activity

that threatens “the public health, the public morals,

the public safety or the public welfare.” It is the

conscription of persons into a government-favored

commercial enterprise.10 Those are categorically

different exercises of governmental authority.

The underlying C-APZ zoning already restricts the

Benedettis’ land to agricultural and supporting uses,

with residential dwellings as a principal permitted

use. App. 4a. The covenant does not change any of

that. What it adds is a personal obligation on the

human being who holds title. Even the most extensive

understanding of the police power cannot extend this

far. “Constitutional powers can never transcend

constitutional rights. The police power is subject to

the limitations imposed by the Constitution upon

every power of government; and it will not be suffered

to invade or impair the fundamental liberties of the

10 Governments

retain legitimate ways to favor certain

industries over others, including tax treatment, Fox v. Standard

Oil Co. of N.J., 294 U.S. 87, 100 (1935), and subsidies, see, e.g.,

DCP Farms v. Yeutter, 957 F.2d 1183, 1185 (5th Cir. 1992)

(describing federal farm subsidy programs); Grace v. The Walt

Disney Co., 93 Cal. App. 5th 549, 560 (2023) (upholding city

subsidy for selected businesses subject to a “living wage”

ordinance). The forced farming mandate “crosse[s] the line

distinguishing encouragement from coercion.” New York v.

United States, 505 U.S. 144, 166, 175 (1992).

citizen[.]” Spann v. City of Dallas, 111 Tex. 350, 356

(1921).

This Court presupposed the existence of a similar

limit in Yee, 503 U.S. at 528, holding that restrictions

on mobile home space rentals did not effect a taking,

but reserving judgment for “[a] different case . . . were

the statute, on its face or as applied, to compel a

landowner over objection to rent his property or to

refrain in perpetuity from terminating a tenancy.”

That hypothetical case, in which a landowner is

stripped of the right to choose whether to engage in a

particular business, mirrors this one. The California

Court of Appeal once understood that mandated

personal obligations masquerading as land use

regulations exceeded the police power. “While [a

state’s] police power may limit and restrict the uses to

which an owner may put his property, it may not

compel him to use such property for a particular

purpose if he prefers to abandon such a use thereof.”

Department of Public Works v. City of San Diego, 122

Cal. App. 159, 166-67 (1932). This Court applied this

principle even to common carriers in Brooks-Scanlon

Co. v. Railroad Commission of Louisiana, 251 U.S.

396, 399 (1920), holding that “[a] carrier cannot be

compelled to carry on even a branch of business at a

loss, much less the whole business of carriage.”

Private landowners who have never held themselves

out as commercial agricultural operators should stand

on even stronger ground than regulated common

carriers.

B. History and Tradition Suggest That

Compelled Occupation Falls Outside the

Legitimate Scope of Governmental Power

Throughout American history, questions regarding

whether and when the government may impinge on a

person’s liberty interest in pursuing the occupation of

his choice arose in the context of regulation barring or

restricting entry to a profession. See, e.g., Smith v.

Texas, 233 U.S. 630, 636 (1914) (“Liberty means more

than freedom from servitude, and the constitutional

guaranty is an assurance that the citizen shall be

protected in the right to use his powers of mind and

body in any lawful calling.”); Adams v. City of

Harahan, 95 F.4th 908, 913-15 (5th Cir. 2024)

(discussing cases); Birkenfield v. United States, 369

F.2d 491, 493 (3d Cir. 1966) (“It is abundantly clear

that the government may not arbitrarily deny an

individual the opportunity to engage in a chosen

private profession.”); Robinson v. Diamond Housing

Corp., 463 F.2d 853, 867 (D.C. Cir. 1972) (“There

would be severe constitutional problems with a rule of

law which required an entrepreneur to remain in

business against his will.”).

State decisions reflect both the importance of the

liberty interest in occupational choice as well as the

underlying policies that favor individual assessment

of one’s own talents and skills in choosing a livelihood.

For example, Ross v. Sadgbeer explained that “the law

will not permit” a “contract to deprive a man of his

livelihood, and the public of a useful member, without

any benefit to the plaintiff.” 21 Wend. 166, 167 (N.Y.

Sup. Ct. 1839). And Lufkin Rule Co. v. Fringeli, 57

Ohio St. 596, 603 (1898), explained that the

presumption that general restraints on trade are

illegal “arises from the fact that any restraint of the

kind tends to oppression, by depriving the individual

of the right to engage in a pursuit or trade with which

he is generally most familiar, and consequently the

community of the services of a skillful laborer.”

The New York Supreme Court’s decision in

Overbagh v. Patrie, 8 Barb. 28 (N.Y. Gen. Term 1850),

illustrates how deeply this principle runs in American

law. Overbagh voided a lease condition—far less

intrusive than the Marin covenant—that required

payment of a fraction of purchase money on any

alienation of inherited farmland.

The court

condemned such conditions as against public policy:

Such conditions have the effect of preventing a

change of occupation. They require the son to

live upon and cultivate the same farm his father

has tilled, though he may be unfitted for the employment, and may have been designed by

nature for some other calling better adapted to

his taste and capabilities. He is denied the

opportunity to go abroad into the world to reap

the rewards of his enterprise and industry,

except at the sacrifice of a large share of the

estate made valuable by the toil and industry of

his fathers. In a land where the professions and

trades are open to all, he is subjected to all the

discouragements of caste.

Id. at 44.

While the historical use of the police power is

broad, it is not unlimited. Calder v. Bull, 3 U.S. (3

Dall.) 386, 388-89 (1798), identified the inherent

limits of legislative power:

a legislature “may

command what is right, and prohibit what is wrong;

but they cannot . . . violate the right of an antecedent

lawful private contract; or the right of private

property.” A mandate compelling a private citizen to

operate a commercial enterprise on their private

property in perpetuity does not “command what is

right.” It effectively commandeers both the person

and the property: “Mankind are greater gainers by

suffering each other to live as seems good to

themselves, than by compelling each to live as seems

good to the rest.” Christensen v. State, 266 Ga. 474,

481 (1996) (Sears, J., dissenting) (quoting John Stuart

Mill, On Liberty 28-29 (1859)). Marin County’s

restrictive covenant is the antithesis of that

constitutional principle, exceeding even the condition

condemned in Overbagh.

Rather than merely

penalizing alienation, it affirmatively mandates

perpetual commercial farming. If a nineteenthcentury court recognized that conditions preventing “a

change of occupation” were void as against public

policy, a mandate affirmatively imposing a specific

occupation finds no support anywhere in this Nation’s

legal tradition. The complete absence of historical

precedent for this form of regulation confirms that it

falls outside the traditional scope of the police power.

Washington v. Glucksberg, 521 U.S. 702, 720-21

(1997).

The most troubling feature of the ruling below is its

complete absence of any principled limit on governmental power. The court held that the covenant

requirement was a valid land-use regulation because

it bore a sufficient connection to the County’s general

interest in agricultural preservation. But if any

commercial mandate tied to any articulated governmental policy interest is subject to and survives

rational basis review, then local governments have

effectively unlimited power to conscript landowners

into any occupation they deem beneficial. Such

conscription is inherently constitutionally suspect.

See, e.g., Colbert v. Rickmon, 747 F. Supp. 518, 525-28

(W.D. Ark. 1990) (holding unconstitutional a

requirement that attorneys represent indigent clients

without pay).

C. The Lease Alternative Does Not Cure the

Constitutional Violation—It Compounds

The Court of Appeal suggested that the Benedettis

may satisfy the covenant by leasing their land to a

commercial agricultural producer rather than

farming it personally. App. 26a-27a. This does not

cure the constitutional problem; it deepens it. A

landowner who is required—on pain of losing the

ability to build his home—to enter into a commercial

lease with an agricultural producer is not free from

commercial agriculture. Entering such a lease is

participation in commercial agriculture, just by a

different modality. The government has not offered

an escape from the mandate; it has offered a choice

between two forms of compelled commercial

involvement in farming.

The requirement also effects a physical invasion of

the Benedettis’ property by requiring them to allow a

third-party commercial agricultural operator the right

to occupy and work on their private property. This is

a per se physical taking, categorically distinct from

regulatory burdens on land use. Cedar Point Nursery

v. Hassid, 594 U.S. 139, 149-50 (2021) (governmentcompelled access to private property constitutes a per

se physical taking requiring just compensation).

The lease option also exposes the Benedettis to

significant and ongoing legal liability that they, as

plumbers with no farming expertise, are wholly

unequipped to manage. Under California law, a

commercial landowner “cannot totally abrogate its

landowner responsibilities merely by signing a lease.”

Lopez v. Superior Court, 45 Cal. App. 4th 705, 715

(1996) (citation omitted). At the time a lease is

executed and upon renewal, the landlord must inspect

the premises and make them reasonably safe from

dangerous conditions—even if the lease purports to

assign that obligation to the tenant. Ibid. “Those who

own or occupy property have a duty to maintain their

premises in a reasonably safe condition.” Staats, 25

Cal. App. 5th at 833 (footnote omitted); see also

Kinsman v. Unocal Corp., 37 Cal. 4th 659, 674 (2005)

(landowner must inspect or take other proper means

to ascertain the condition of the premises). Peterson

v. Superior Court, 10 Cal. 4th 1185, 1189 (1995),

confirms that landlords who breach the applicable

standard of care “may be held liable under general tort

principles for injuries resulting from defects in their

premises.” Commercial farming operations involve

sophisticated and dangerous machinery and

agricultural chemicals; a farming operation may itself

constitute hazardous employment,11 and the

Benedettis could be held liable for injuries sustained

by a lessee’s employees, contractors, or even third

parties. See Castellano v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., 373

F.3d 817, 822 (7th Cir. 2004) (lessor liable for casualty

damage to lessee’s property); Peterson, 10 Cal. 4th at

1189 (While strict liability does not apply, this “by no

means absolves hotel proprietors or landlords of all

Davis v. Grain Dealers Mut. Ins. Co., 128 So. 2d 27, 29 (La.

Ct. App. 1961) (farming operation is “hazardous” when using

motorized vehicles).

potential responsibility for such injuries; on the

contrary, hotel proprietors and landlords that breach

the applicable standard of care still may be held liable

under general tort principles for injuries resulting

from defects in their premises.”). Leases are also

subject to breach, disputed interpretation, and

litigation—all of which the Benedettis would be

required to navigate as the legally responsible

landowners of an active agricultural operation they

did not choose and do not want.

Modern farming involves sophisticated and

dangerous machinery and chemicals. Someone forced

to farm or to be responsible for a tenant farmer must

have sufficient knowledge and motivation to maintain

a safe and productive working environment. The

Benedettis are plumbers. They lack the skills and

interest in either farming the land themselves or

overseeing a tenant farmer. The Benedettis face a

binary choice: be conscripted into commercial farming

personally, or be conscripted into a perpetual

commercial lease for physical invasion of their

property and ongoing legal liability for a hazardous

enterprise they have no ability or desire to oversee.

Either path demands the surrender of constitutional

rights as the price of a building permit. A government

that offers only a choice between two constitutional

violations has not offered a constitutional alternative.

The unconstitutional conditions doctrine forbids

exactly that. See Perry v. Sindermann, 408 U.S. 593,

597 (1972) (government “may not deny a benefit to a

person on a basis that infringes his constitutionally

protected interests”).

If Marin County can require plumbers who inherit

farmland to become commercial farmers as the price

of a building permit, nothing in the court’s analysis

would prevent a municipality from conditioning

residential building permits on commitments to

operate other favored businesses, provide community

services, or engage in any other commercial activity

government might deem beneficial to the surrounding

area. The police power has never extended so far, and

this Court should say so.

II. Marin County’s “Land Use” Regulation

Requiring Owners to Accept the

Government’s Choice of Occupation

Impinges on a Fundamental Right

A. Occupational Liberty Is a Fundamental

Constitutional Right with Deep Roots in

History and Tradition

In Meyer v. Nebraska, 262 U.S. at 399, this Court

held that the liberty protected by the Fourteenth

Amendment

denotes not merely freedom from bodily

restraint but also the right of the individual to

contract, to engage in any of the common

occupations of life, to acquire useful knowledge,

to marry, establish a home and bring up

children, to worship God according to the

dictates of his own conscience, and generally to

enjoy those privileges long recognized at

common law as essential to the orderly pursuit

of happiness by free men.

The enumeration is telling. Occupational liberty—the

right to engage in the common occupations of life—

stands alongside marriage, worship, and family in

this Court’s account of constitutionally protected

liberty. It is not listed as a mere economic preference

subordinate to the police power; it is a fundamental

privilege of free persons long recognized at common

law. According to James Madison, property included

those “personal attributes that deserved private

autonomy from government action, such as opinions,

religious values and practices, and choice of

occupation.” Wayne McCormack, Lochner, Liberty,

Property, and Human Rights, 1 N.Y.U. J. L. & Liberty

432, 454 (2005) (citing James Madison, Essay on

Property, in 4 Letters & Other Writings of James

Madison 478 (1884)).

Two years later in Pierce v. Society of Sisters, 268

U.S. 510, 534-35 (1925), the Court reaffirmed that the

Fourteenth Amendment protects “the liberty of

parents and guardians to direct the upbringing and

education of children under their control,” and that

the state may not “standardize its children by forcing

them to accept instruction from public teachers only.”

The decision “articulated an inherent limit of

government in a liberal society. In trying to enforce

such standardization, the State of Oregon had not

been exercising ‘any proper power.’” Steven D. Smith,

Meyer, Pierce, and the Formation of Persons, 26 J.

Contemp. Legal Issues 55, 70 (2025) (citing Pierce, 268

U.S. at 536).

The underlying principle and

fundamental liberty interest that government may

not compel individuals to pursue the state’s chosen

path of life and vocation cannot be reconciled with

Marin County’s mandate that landowners pursue

commercial agriculture, or contract with others to do

so.

The historical roots of occupational liberty run deep

in both federal and state constitutional jurisprudence.

In Truax, 239 U.S. at 41, this Court recognized that

“the right to work for a living in the common

occupations of the community is of the very essence of

the personal freedom and opportunity that it was the

purpose of the [Fourteenth] Amendment to secure.”

State courts construing the same constitutional

tradition reached the same understanding. The

Michigan Supreme Court emphasized the connection

between work and personal autonomy. See People ex

rel. Kuhn v. Common Council of Detroit, 70 Mich. 534,

537 (1888) (“Liberty . . . means . . . to pursue such

callings and avocations as may be most suitable to

develop [a person’s] capacities, and to give them their

highest enjoyment.”); Commonwealth v. Strauss, 191

Mass. 545, 550 (1906) (The Fourteenth Amendment

protects “the right of every person to his life, liberty

and property, including freedom to use his faculties in

all lawful ways, ‘to live and work where he will, to

earn his livelihood by any lawful calling, to pursue any

livelihood or vocation[.]’”). When two tradesmen who

shared both a surname and occupation sought judicial

resolution of a dispute over which of them must stop

using his name to identify his business, the court

refused, holding that it is “wholly beyond the power of

the court” to require someone “to change his name or

his occupation.” Miller v. Miller, 8 Ky. Op. 41, 41 (Ct.

App. 1874). These authorities reflect a consistent

understanding across jurisdictions and eras: occupational liberty is among the most fundamental aspects

of personal freedom that the law protects. This was

true from the time of the Founding and especially so

after passage of the Fourteenth Amendment. Conn v.

Gabbert, 526 U.S. 286, 291-92 (1999) (“the liberty

component of the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due

Process Clause includes some generalized due process

right to choose one’s field of private employment”);

Tiwari v. Friedlander, 26 F.4th 355, 360-61 (6th Cir.

2022) (The Fourteenth Amendment reaches “laws

that impose substantive restrictions on individual

liberty, including the right to engage in a chosen

occupation.”).

Applying these principles to regulations that are

the inverse of this case—laws that unduly restrict the

ability of an individual to lawfully engage in their

chosen profession, courts are highly skeptical and

carefully scrutinize infringements on occupational

freedom. See, e.g., Ultra Lube, Inc. v. Dave Peterson

Monticello Ford-Mercury, Inc., No. C8-02-658, 2002

WL 31302981, at *6 (Minn. Ct. App. Oct. 15, 2002)

(rejecting a non-compete clause because it was an

“oppressive restraint upon the employee’s opportunities to work and earn a living”). Indeed, in

California, covenants not to compete are highly disfavored, and subject only to very limited exceptions.

Edwards v. Arthur Andersen LLP, 44 Cal. 4th 937,

945 (2008) (noting that “California settled public

policy in favor of open competition” making covenants

not to compete void, subject only to a few exceptions).

One court even called covenants not to compete, which

discourage employees from terminating their

employment, a form of “industrial peonage” because of

the coercive relationship between a large employer

and its employees. Josten’s, Inc. v. Cuquet, 383 F.

Supp. 295, 299 (E.D. Mo. 1974). Here, the County

used far greater coercive power to obtain a similar

result: once imposed, the Benedettis—and any future

owners of the property, whether their own children or

third-party purchasers—will be incapable of leaving

the government-imposed occupation.

The connection between occupational liberty and

bodily autonomy is direct and important. One’s choice

of occupation determines how one uses one’s brain,

one’s hands, one’s muscle—the daily direction of the

physical self. See Union Pac. Ry. Co. v. Botsford, 141

U.S. 250, 251 (1891) (“No right is held more sacred, or

is more carefully guarded by the common law, than

the right of every individual to the possession and

control of his own person, free from all restraint or

interference of others, unless by clear and

unquestionable authority of law.”). Whether to install

a sink or to plant seeds is a choice about how one

deploys one’s own faculties, labor, and time. That is

why Kuhn identified occupational choice as the means

by which a person develops capacities and achieves

their “highest enjoyment,” and why Strauss framed

the right as “freedom to use his faculties in all lawful

ways.” Just as government cannot commandeer the

body directly, it cannot commandeer it indirectly by

dictating the occupation in which it must labor.

Commandeering “connote[s] more than the mere

adjustment of activity already voluntarily entered

into;” it “also involve[s] control over and compulsion of

not just the activity in question, but also of the person

or entity involved itself.” John T. Valauri, Federalism,

Mandates and Individual Liberty, 43 N. Ky. L. Rev.

175, 213 (2016); id. at 208 (distinguishing regulation

of existing activity with commandeering, “a far

greater interference with individual will and freedom

than simple regulation”).

The Due Process Clause “specially protects those

fundamental rights and liberties which are,

objectively, ‘deeply rooted in this Nation’s history and

tradition,’ and ‘implicit in the concept of ordered

liberty,’ such that ‘neither liberty nor justice would

exist if they were sacrificed.’” Glucksberg, 521 U.S. at

720-21 (citations omitted).

Occupational liberty

satisfies both prongs of that test. The right to pursue

the callings of one’s choosing—and the correlative

right not to be compelled into callings not of one’s

choosing—is confirmed in the text of the Fourteenth

Amendment as construed in Meyer and Pierce,

recognized in common law going back centuries,

reflected in the Thirteenth Amendment’s prohibition

on involuntary servitude, treated as “of the very

essence of personal freedom” in Truax, and documented in the consistent understanding of courts from

Kentucky to Michigan to Massachusetts. It is difficult

to identify a liberty more deeply rooted in the Nation’s

history and tradition.

The right to engage in the common occupations of

life is a bilateral freedom. It encompasses the

affirmative right to enter a chosen occupation and the

negative right to decline an occupation not of one’s

choosing. If government cannot exclude a citizen from

her chosen occupation without constitutional scrutiny, it equally cannot conscript her into a different

one without equivalent scrutiny. These are mirrorimage violations of the same fundamental right.

The corollary right has ancient roots. In Overbagh,

the court held that a private contractual condition

with the practical effect of “preventing a change of

occupation” and requiring the son to cultivate the

same farm as his father, “though he may be unfitted

for the employment, and may have been designed by

nature for some other calling” was void as a violation

of public policy. 8 Barb. at *44. If private parties may

not impose such restrictions without violating public

policy, a government of limited powers surely may not

impose them directly. The corollary right is implicit

in every statement of the affirmative right: a right to

choose one’s occupation that could be overridden by a

government mandate imposing a different occupation

would be no right at all.

The Benedettis have not voluntarily entered

commercial agriculture. But the Benedettis now face

three equally unconstitutional choices: become

commercial farmers against their will, forego their

lawful right to develop their private property, or sell

their inherited land.

B. The Mandated Covenant Fails Under Any

Standard of Review

When government action directly targets a

fundamental liberty interest—as the Marin covenant

directly targets the right to occupational liberty—

heightened scrutiny is appropriate. Glucksberg, 521

U.S. at 721. The court below applied rational basis,

deferring to any conceivable legislative purpose. That

was error.

Rational basis is appropriate when

government incidentally burdens economic activity

through general social regulation. It is not appropriate when government directly and intentionally

overrides a fundamental constitutional right. See

Chisholm v. Georgia, 2 U.S. (2 Dall.) 419, 468 (1793)

(“The rights of individuals and the justice due to them,

are as dear and precious as those of the States.

Indeed, the latter are founded upon the former; and

the great end and object of them must be to secure and

support the rights of individuals, or else vain is

Government.”).

The County already achieves agricultural land-use

preservation through existing C-APZ zoning, which

restricts the land to agricultural and supporting uses,

including a home for the landowner. App. 4a-5a. The

covenant adds nothing as a land-use measure; it is

non-redundant only as a personal mandate on the

human beings who hold title, now and in perpetuity.

Even under the rational basis standard the Court

of Appeal applied, the covenant cannot stand. The

covenant’s purpose, as the Court of Appeal

acknowledged, “is not mitigating the general impacts

of residential development.” App. 20a. A condition

that addresses no harm caused by the proposed

development bears no rational relationship to any

legitimate land-use interest in the constitutional

sense. See Fassett v. City of Brookfield, 402 Wis.2d

265, 280 (Ct. App. 2022) (building permit condition

was invalid where there was “no evidence that the

proposed development would increase congestion,

decrease safety, or hinder the adequate provision of

transportation.”); 2 Rathkopf’s The Law of Zoning and

Planning § 28:27 (4th ed. 1995) (owners may not be

singled out as simply convenient targets of

opportunity for dealing with community problems).

The Benedettis’ proposed home does not threaten the

agricultural character of surrounding land; the

underlying C-APZ zoning already ensures that the

Benedettis cannot subdivide their land for residential

housing or other commercial uses. The covenant’s

only constitutionally cognizable effect is to conscript

the landowner into a specific commercial enterprise—

and that effect, whether analyzed under rational basis

or strict scrutiny, exceeds what the Due Process

Clause permits.

III. This Case Presents a Clean Vehicle for

Resolving Questions of Nationwide

Importance

This Court has consistently recognized the right to

engage in the common occupations of life, Meyer, 262

U.S. at 399, and the generalized right to choose one’s

field of employment, Conn, 526 U.S. at 291-92, but has

never addressed their necessary corollary—the right

not to be conscripted into an occupation not of one’s

choosing.

The Ninth Circuit has held that a

substantive due process claim may arise when

government arbitrarily prevents a person from

pursuing a chosen occupation, Engquist v. Oregon

Dep’t of Agric., 478 F.3d 985, 997 (9th Cir. 2007), but

no court of appeals has addressed whether the same

protection extends to affirmative compulsion into an

occupation not of one’s choosing. The Court should

grant review to resolve this unsettled question.

The police power question is equally unsettled. No

court at any level has ever upheld a zoning ordinance

mandating a specific commercial occupation for landowners as a condition of residential development. The

complete absence of historical precedent for this form

of regulation, combined with the long tradition of

decisions recognizing the limits of the police power in

compelling commercial activity, makes clear that the

Court of Appeal’s holding departs from settled

constitutional principles. This Court should restore

the traditional limits.

Agricultural preservation is a policy priority in

jurisdictions across the country, which often rely on

property owners’ voluntary adoption of conservation

easements or sale to a land trust.12 If the decision

below stands, other jurisdictions will have a template

for shifting from the constitutional option of voluntary

programs to incentivize farmland conservation into an

unconstitutional perpetual personal mandate on landowners. The principle is also generalizable well

beyond agriculture: any local government could

leverage its permitting authority to extract any

commercial commitment from any landowner, conditioned on any policy goal, so long as the commitment

bore some generalized relationship to any articulated

governmental interest.

The Benedettis cannot build a home on their

inherited land without either consenting to perpetual

commercial farming—something they have no desire

or ability to undertake—or selling the land their

father worked to provide for them. The constitutional

wrong is ongoing and concrete. The perpetual nature

of the Marin covenant makes the precedential risk

acute. As Professor Mahoney documented, perpetual

land restrictions that cannot adapt to changed economic circumstances impose significant social costs

precisely because they are irreversible. See Julia D.

Mahoney, Perpetual Restrictions on Land and the

12 See, e.g., Tennessee Dep’t of Agric., Farmland Preservation

Program, https://tinyurl.com/c4aaknnc (visited Apr. 23, 2026)

(grant program to incentivize farmland and forestland owners to

voluntarily enroll their land in a permanent conservation

easement); U.S. Dep’t of Agric., Land Conservation,

https://tinyurl.com/3sj8ra45 (visited Apr. 23, 2026) (voluntary,

incentive-based conservation to landowners); see also U.S. Dep’t

of Agric., Agricultural Conservation Easement Program,

https://tinyurl.com/bdhssucj (visited Apr. 23, 2026) (helping

“landowners, land trusts, and other entities protect, restore, and

enhance wetlands or protect working farms and ranches through

conservation easements”).

Problem of the Future, 88 Va. L. Rev. 739 (2002). Once

recorded, the Marin covenant binds not only the

Benedettis but every future owner of the property,

forever. Constitutional errors embedded in perpetual

deed restrictions have consequences that compound

over time. The Court’s intervention now prevents

those consequences from spreading through both

Marin County and the broader body of land-use law.

CONCLUSION

The petition for a writ of certiorari should be granted.

Respectfully submitted,

J OHANNA B. TALCOTT

Pacific Legal Foundation

4440 PGA Blvd., Suite 307

Palm Beach Gardens, FL

33410

D EBORAH J. L A F ETRA

Pacific Legal Foundation

3100 Clarendon Blvd.,

Suite 1000

Arlington, VA 22201

J EREMY TALCOTT

Counsel of Record

Pacific Legal Foundation

555 Capitol Mall,

Suite 1290

Sacramento, CA 95814

(916) 419-7111

jtalcott@pacificlegal.org

Counsel for Petitioners

APRIL 2026

This is a copy of a public record, reproduced as it was published. It is not legal advice, and it may not be the version a court would rely on. Check the official source before you cite it.