Stable Inv. P'ship v. Vilsack, No. 14-1712 (7th Cir. 2015)
Annotate this CaseStable purchased farmland through an Illinois land trust. Heartland Bank took title as trustee. Under Illinois land trusts the trustee holds both legal and equitable title to the trust property; the beneficiary holds a special personal property interest in trust proceeds. Exclusive power to manage trust assets belongs to the beneficiary, including authority to direct the trustee in dealing with title. The identity of trust beneficiaries is shielded. Interests in the property can be pledged, assigned, or sold more simply than with other forms of ownership. Stable entered into a Crop Share Cash Farm Lease, agreeing to share equally in the proceeds (or losses) from the crop that the tenant (Blunier) produced, in lieu of rent. At the time, a “producer” of certain agricultural commodities, including the crops cultivated by Blunier, was eligible for farm subsidies under the USDA’s Direct and Counter Cyclical Program, 7 U.S.C. 7901. “Producer” was “an owner, operator, landlord, tenant, or sharecropper that shares in the risk of producing a crop and is entitled to share in the crop.” Stable sought subsidies. The USDA concluded that it was not an eligible owner. The district court agreed. The Seventh Circuit affirmed, finding the denial neither contrary to the statute nor arbitrary.
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