Does Congress have the power under the Commerce Clause to penalize a farmer for growing wheat in excess of his allotted quota even if the excess may be consumed entirely on the farm, and does applying the amended penalty to his already-planted crop violate the Fifth Amendment's Due Process Clause?

Roscoe Filburn (appellee) owned a small farm in Montgomery County, Ohio, where he kept dairy cattle, sold milk, and raised poultry. He routinely grew a small acreage of winter wheat, selling some, feeding some to livestock and poultry, using some for flour for home consumption, and saving some for seed. Under the Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1938, the Secretary of Agriculture established a 1941 wheat acreage allotment of 11.1 acres and a normal yield of 20.1 bushels per acre for Filburn's farm. He received notice of the allotment in July 1940 and again in July 1941. He nevertheless sowed 23 acres and harvested 239 bushels from his 11.9 excess acres. The May 26, 1941 amendment, enacted after planting but before harvest, increased the penalty on the farm marketing excess from 15 cents to 49 cents per bushel, totaling $117.11, and subjected the entire crop to a lien. Filburn did not pay the penalty or store or deliver the excess as the regulations allowed, so the county committee refused him a marketing card. The Secretary had also given a radio address before the wheat growers' referendum, in which 81 percent of voters approved the quotas. The Act defined marketing of wheat to include feeding it to poultry or livestock that are sold, and penalties applied regardless of whether any wheat was actually sold.

Filburn filed suit in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Ohio against the Secretary of Agriculture, three members of the County Agricultural Conservation Committee, and a member of the State Agricultural Conservation Committee. He sought to enjoin enforcement of the marketing penalty and a declaratory judgment that the wheat quota provisions were unconstitutional under the Commerce Clause and the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment. The Secretary moved to dismiss for improper venue but later waived the objection and answered; the other defendants moved to dismiss for lack of enforcement authority, and after denial they answered. The case was submitted on the pleadings and a stipulation of facts. A three-judge district court, with one judge dissenting, held that the Secretary's radio speech invalidated the referendum and that the May 26, 1941 amendment, to the extent it increased the penalty above 15 cents and subjected the entire crop to a lien, was impermissibly retroactive under the Fifth Amendment as applied to Filburn, or alternatively that the equities favored him. It permanently enjoined collection of a penalty above 15 cents per bushel and enforcement of the lien. The Secretary and his co-defendants appealed directly to the United States Supreme Court, which heard argument and reargument.

(Jackson, J.)

Yes. Congress may regulate wheat grown for personal consumption under the Commerce Clause, and the penalty as applied does not violate due process.

The Secretary's speech did not invalidate the referendum. Nothing showed any voter was misled or that the speech affected the outcome, and a Cabinet officer's imprecise remarks cannot defeat an Act of Congress.

On the commerce question, the label attached to an activity, whether "production," "consumption," or "marketing," is immaterial, and the formalistic direct/indirect distinction no longer controls. Even if an activity is local and not itself commerce, Congress may reach it if it exerts a substantial economic effect on interstate commerce. This returns to Chief Justice Marshall's broad conception of the commerce power in Gibbons v. Ogden and follows United States v. Darby and United States v. Wrightwood Dairy Co.

Home-consumed wheat is the most variable factor in the disappearance of the wheat crop. Wheat grown for the farmer's own use satisfies a need that would otherwise be met by purchases in the market, so it competes with wheat in commerce. If wholly unregulated, such wheat would overhang the market and defeat the Act's purpose of supporting prices. Although Filburn's own contribution may be trivial, his contribution combined with that of many similarly situated farmers is far from trivial. The power to regulate commerce includes the power to regulate prices and practices affecting prices. Conflicts of economic interest are for Congress to resolve, not courts, and the wisdom or fairness of the regulatory plan is not a judicial question.

The due process challenge fails. Control of total supply depends on control of individual supply, and the farmer received substantial benefits, including guaranteed prices far above world prices and options to avoid the penalty by storage or delivery. Because the penalty attached only upon threshing, an act occurring after enactment of the amendment, it was not impermissibly retroactive, and Filburn showed no resulting loss. It is not a denial of due process for the government to regulate that which it subsidizes. The judgment is reversed.