Deny!…Thomas v. County of Humboldt: The United States Supreme Court Says No to Hearing Seventh Amendment Claim

It’s been three years since the Institute for Justice filed the class action lawsuit Thomas v. County of Humboldt, on behalf of local property owners facing cannabis abatements, and today the United States Supreme Court denied hearing one of five claims (pages 18-22) citing it is not the “proper vehicle” for incorporating the Seventh Amendment for reasons laid out in Humboldt County’s Brief in Opposition (pages 34-58). 

Overview of reasons the case should be denied from Humboldt County’s legal team.

This federal class action suit challenges the constitutionality of Humboldt County’s satellite cannabis abatement program that began in the wake of cannabis legalization and saw rural “high cannabis concentration” communities issued  over 1200 abatement notices, hitting property owners with hundreds of thousands, even millions in fines for alleged cannabis violations. To date, Humboldt County has collected millions in fines and compliance agreement fees, but some property owners refused to sign county compliance agreements or pay fines. This group of hundreds of abated property owners is “the class” in the suit. 

Abatement totals and status as of September 2022, pre lawsuit, derived from a county public’s records request

The Institute for Justice wrote in their press release this “Denial does not affect IJ’s core case, which continues after a Ninth Circuit win striking down Humboldt County’s abusive fines process,” adding,

 While the Court declined to take up that specific constitutional question, despite a statement of support from Justice Gorsuch, the rest of the underlying case continues in the district court after a major victory in the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for property owners. The question of a civil jury trial was just one of the multiple ways that Humboldt’s code enforcement system violates the constitution—namely, that Humboldt’s program of levying tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars in daily-accruing fines against landowners remains deeply unconstitutional.

…In a statement on the denial of certiorari, Justice Neil Gorsuch emphasized that the right to a civil jury trial is a fundamental constitutional protection that deserves the Court’s attention. He wrote that “surely, those who founded our Nation considered the right to trial by jury a fundamental part of their birthright,” “so much so that they cited its deprivation at the hands of colonial authorities as one of the reasons for breaking ties with England.” He further emphasized that the “Court should confront its Seventh Amendment holding soon. A right ‘of such importance,’ one that ‘occupies so firm a place in our history,’ deserves no less.”

“Justice Gorsuch is right,” said IJ Senior Attorney Robert Johnson. “The right to a civil jury is a cornerstone of our liberty, and IJ will continue working to ensure that Americans don’t lose it simply because the government calls a proceeding ‘civil’ instead of ‘criminal.’ We will keep pressing this issue until the Court takes it up.

All hope is not lost for the plaintiffs. This US Supreme Court petition pertains to only one of the five claims in the overall lawsuit. The jury trial claim was rejected by the court of appeals because the Seventh Amendment is currently not incorporated to the states, essentially meaning this right only applies to federal cases. 

On the SCOTUS Blog, an independent website covering the U.S. Supreme Court, they summarized the case as follows,

“Thomas v. Humboldt County, California … [argues] that the county’s administrative hearings deprive them of a jury. Specifically, they contend that the Supreme Court’s 1916 decision Minneapolis & St. Louis Railroad Co. v. Bombolis, which held that the Seventh Amendment – concerning jury trials – doesn’t bind the states, is an outdated relic from the era before the court began incorporating, or applying, the Bill of Rights against the states. “Friends of the court” who have filed briefs supporting the property owners include not only the Cato Institute and the Buckeye Institute, but also two founders of the Federalist Society, professors Steven Calabresi and Gary Lawson.

The county counters that the issue isn’t ripe for the Supreme Court’s review because Thomas won a partial victory on appeal and the case has been remanded for further proceedings, and that its administrative tribunals are appropriately resolving cases. The county argues that Bombolis remains good law and that respect for longstanding precedent and federalism counsel in favor of a denial. It further argues that even if the Seventh Amendment were incorporated against the states, the property owners’ actions would not warrant jury trials.”

Plaintiffs are devastated by the news today, mainly because they feel the US Supreme Court relied on Humboldt County’s law firm’s misrepresentations of them and misstatements of facts.

For example, the county alleges no permits were denied and the property owners were culpable for the abatements.

But the plaintiffs were in fact denied permits to remedy the abatements while the abatements are pending.

The plaintiffs also expressed disappointment in being painted as guilty or culpable when they say they are not guilty of anything but buying property once used for cannabis activities by previous owners.

Rhonda Olsen [Image from Nikki Norris]

When asked how she felt when she received the notice, Olson said,

It is so ridiculous, the first day of fines is more than the property was worth. Here I am just trying to do something good for the community, and I mean what does the county expect from me? Seven million, really?! I can’t imagine why we wouldn’t get a jury trial with this kind of money at stake.

When Olson saw the abatement notices she says she promptly removed the prior owners empty pvc hoop house frames, she hired engineers, lawyers, and she felt she exhausted all legal remedies to comply with the county’s demands— but she was denied permits needed to correct the alleged violations, including issues based on legacy logging. 

An Email thread between Code Enforcement’s Warren Black and Rhonda Olson show the county’s practice of denying permits to remedy abatements while the abatement is pending.

In an email from Humboldt County Code Enforcement’s Warren Black to Olson he wrote,

I received your email…where you stated that the grading was done for a timber harvest plan. Unfortunately, the fact that the flats were used for cannabis cultivation is why the violation exists. For normal timber operations flats are permitted but the moment they are used for unpermitted cannabis cultivation they will need to be addressed by a licensed engineer…Just an FYI, no permits will be issued for properties with open Code Enforcement cases.

Olson faced the complete loss of all her properties and limited income, and felt without a legal remedy.

Olson continued saying,

When I first moved here people were building, they weren’t just surviving, it’s really sad what’s happened…now the county can just take your property and everything you have, and it makes no sense that I never got a chance to defend myself. The county went after me because I didn’t sign a compliance agreement with them. But the contract required me to admit I grew cannabis— when I didn’t. It required me to admit that I committed environmental crimes— which I didn’t,  and they required me to forfeit my right to sue— but I knew this was so wrong and so I said no. Now I’m stuck. I did everything I could to comply, but I wasn’t going to sign a contract saying I did things I didn’t do.

Back in 2023, McKinleyville-based federal Judge Robert Illman dismissed all five of the Institute for Justice’s claims without hearing any arguments (full dismissal here), essentially ruling (1) the plaintiffs don’t have a right to be in court because they either haven’t been harmed by receiving the abatement, or they waited too long to sue; and (2) even if the county is doing what the plaintiffs accuse them of doing, it doesn’t actually violate their Constitutional rights. 

The Institute for Justice then filed an appeal in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. After oral arguments were heard in April 2024, four of five claims won in the ninth circuit, and the case was then remanded, or sent back, to the district federal court’s Judge Illman, who was recently reappointed. 

Olson reflects on today’s news, saying,

We still have the court process in [McKinleyville] to go through. We should get to put on our case then. It is a disappointment, but I hope …the truth will come out in court. This loss is just a setback…we still have four other claims to argue.”

Screenshot of Humboldt County’s “BRIEF IN OPPOSITION TO PETITION FOR A WRIT OF CERTIORAR” which outlines the five claims raised in the case.

This case was poised to have national significance because the Seventh Amendment right to a jury trial has not been applied to state and local governments. 

Throughout this year, as the US Supreme Court considered hearing this case, debates ensued around the Thomas v. Humboldt County Supreme Court petition. Numerous legal scholars and lawyers debated the issue of incorporation of the Seventh Amendment.

Legal scholars were divided on the implications.

Sam Bray, a professor at Notre Dame, wrote that applying the Seventh Amendment to the states would be “folly,” adding,

[I]t would be a grave mistake to incorporate against the states the same civil jury trial right that applies against the federal government….There are strong originalist grounds for incorporating some of the Bill of Rights (albeit not through the Due Process Clause). But the originalist argument for incorporation is unusually weak for the civil jury trial right. Essentially all states have civil jury trial rights…[the] incorporation of the civil jury trial right would be a neutron bomb … It would likely require jury trials in many cases that now are resolved by [other] court[s], with destabilizing effects on its jurisprudence and on the corporate law economy of the United States.

Steve Calabresi, a professor at Northwestern and former Dean at Yale disagreed. He wrote about the history and importance of this Seventh Amendment case in Reason, a publication of the Libertarian think tank of the same name , stating,

The Bill of Rights was originally enacted in 1791 to constrain Congress; protections against state overreach were left to state constitutions. But the Fourteenth Amendment was created to provide federal protection against state power; and since the Civil War, the Court has held (through a process called “incorporation”) that nearly all the Bill of Rights applies to the states via the Fourteenth Amendment…The right to civil jury trial was among the three civil rights most deeply rooted in American history and tradition at the time of the framing of the federal Bill of Rights along with the right to criminal jury trial and the right to the free exercise of religion.

Today, only two of the provisions of the Bill of Rights have not yet been incorporated. 

Calabresi explains,

The right to civil jury trial …is by far and away the most important right in the Bill of Rights that has not yet been incorporated; the other two unincorporated rights are the Third Amendment’s protection against the quartering of soldiers in peoples’ homes (a practice that no longer happens) and the right to indictment by a grand jury (which is meaningless since prosecutors can persuade grand juries to indict even “a ham sandwich“).”

Calabresi continued to detail in Reason,

Cases like Thomas v. County of Humboldt, which involve a dispute between the government and a private citizen, where petitioners are challenging millions of dollars of fines assessed against impoverished litigants in administrative proceedings by the government with no right to a civil jury trial, show that incorporation of the Seventh Amendment is as urgent as was incorporation of the Excessive Fines Clause in Timbs v. Indiana, 586 U.S. 146 (2019)… A continuing failure by the Supreme Court to incorporate the civil jury trial right against the States would thus be an embarrassing omission from the Court’s caselaw given that this right is even more deeply rooted in American history and tradition than are almost any other right including especially the right to own a gun for one’s own self-defense…The case for the incorporation of the Seventh Amendment is much stronger than was the case for the incorporation of the Second Amendment.” 

Jared McClain is one of the lead attorneys on the case for the Institute for Justice. 

McClain argued to the US Supreme Court,

[Humboldt County] urges [The Supreme Court] to simply wait and incorporate the civil- jury right later. And it’s no wonder. For places like Humboldt, juryless enforcement actions are big business. The longer the court waits to decide the incorporation question, the longer these governments can profit from their deprivation of fundamental rights.

Initially, Humboldt County did not respond to the Institute for Justice’s petition, but in June the US Supreme Court requested a response. 

In that response filed in July, Humboldt County’s legal team wrote, 

Petitioners’ attempts to portray themselves as innocent victims of Humboldt’s code-enforcement regime blink reality… rather all were directly responsible for the significant code violations on their properties, or brought their properties with knowledge of these violations, perhaps seeking bargain real estate rather than rush to impose and collect penalties, the record reflects the county attempted to achieve voluntary compliance for years.

Plaintiff Corrine Thomas, a Southern CA fire refuge who purchased her Miranda property with hopes to retire peacefully in the redwood forest with her family, explained,

Many homeowners like my husband and I were abated and given excessive fines for properties we purchased not knowing the previous homeowner had been illegally growing cannabis, nor that we would be held liable. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that “actual notice” was not given to purchasers like us. Though we went through escrow and Title, and there was no record of illegal cannabis use or an abatement. Our realtor never indicated an issue either. We feel like Humboldt County [“laid in wait”]for two years until we purchased the property only to abate us at $12000.00 a day for ninety days.  Jury trial or not, the Institute for Justice is preparing for litigation that will open up these abuses by the County of Humboldt, and will trigger reform and fairness to the residents of not only Humboldt County, but all the states in the Nine Circuit Court of Appeals. In response to the Supreme Court petition, the County changed some of their Codes, hoping to avoid the lawsuit. Their changes were vague and didn’t address all the issues in our lawsuit. Therefore, the Institute for Justice has started the litigation process and Warren Black will be deposed on October 14.

After an article “Punished for another Crimes” was published here detailing the Thomas’s case, the article was featured in the Humboldt County Supervisor’s meeting on March 23, 2022. In that meeting the county changed their policy which required current owners to demolish structures once used for alleged cannabis activities. 

Humboldt County’s legal team wrote about this policy change to the Supreme Court stating, “In March 2022, the county advised the Thomas’s of a new policy, offering property owners, a path to permit, illicit cannabis structures, avoiding demolition, by providing a restoration plan describing a lawful, non-cannabis use for a structure.”

This was not the only law change pertaining to the cannabis abatement program. In July 9, 2025, the day before Humboldt County’s lawyers filed their response to the US Supreme Court, the abatement program policies were also changed “to better reflect existing processes and to set appropriate boundaries on the assessment of administrative civil penalties to reflect the intent of existing ordinances, and to prevent misunderstandings of that intent,” according to a staff report.

Screenshot of the Humboldt County staff report that details the changes to their abatement program

The Supreme Court agrees to hear only a small fraction of the petitions it receives each year — typically fewer than one percent — underscoring the rarity of a case being accepted for review. 

The remaining four claims are awaiting trial before Judge Illman, after a win in the Ninth Circuit.

Although the majority of the cannabis industry has dried up in Humboldt County, and the cannabis abatement program as we once knew it has ceased, this lawsuit continues to be significant to property owners who challenge past enforcement actions.

Institute for Justice Attorney Jared McClain wrote in the press release,

No one should face life-altering fines without the protection of a jury of their peers…The Supreme Court’s decision not to take this case doesn’t change the fact that Humboldt’s scheme of crushing ordinary people under massive penalties for minor code issues is still unconstitutional—whether the fines are brought before a jury or not. We’ll continue fighting to stop it….IJ will continue litigating Thomas v. Humboldt County in federal court to vindicate its clients’ property rights and ensure that local governments cannot use ruinous fines to punish or control ordinary Americans.”

Stay connected with the RHBB for more updates and comments on this decision.

Earlier:

• • Penalties, Costs, Fines, and Fees: A Deep Look at the Humboldt County Cannabis Abatement Process
  • Punished for Another’s Crimes: Humboldt County Demands New Owners Destroy Any Unpermitted Building Used for Cannabis Cultivation
  • ‘Buildings for Rich People’: Part Two of Punished for Another’s Crimes, a Look at the Ramifications of the Abatement Process
  • Humboldt County Cannabis Abatement Program “Unconstitutional,” Says the Institute for Justice Which Today Filed a Federal Class Action Lawsuit
  • Humboldt County Files a Motion to Dismiss the Institute for Justice’s Federal Class Action Lawsuit Against Its Cannabis Abatement Program
  • The Pressure Is the Point’: The Institute for Justice Has Filed an Amended Complaint for the Lawsuit Against the Humboldt County Cannabis Abatement Program
  • Federal Judge Dismisses Lawsuit Challenging Humboldt County’s Cannabis Abatement Process
  • Undeterred: After Judge Grants County’s Motion to Dismiss All Claims Against Abatement Program, Plaintiffs and their Lawyers Appeal
  • Humboldt County Strikes Back With Response to Institute of Justice Claims in Federal Class Action Lawsuit Against the Cannabis Abatement Program
  • Humboldt County Cannabis Abatement Lawsuit Moves Forward in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals with a Reply Brief From the Institute of Justice
  • Ninth Circuit Hears Appeals in Landmark Case Against Humboldt County’s Cannabis Abatement Program
  • Federal Class Action Lawsuit Against Humboldt County’s Cannabis Abatement Program Makes National News and Even International News
  • Another Look at the Ninth Circuit Ruling on Humboldt Cannabis Fines from The Canna Law Blog
  • High Stakes in Humboldt: Supreme Court Asked to Hear Landmark Cannabis Fine Case