In Florida, a bitter fight over cutting down orange trees

According to Gilbert's consultants, that could add $150 million to $250 million in additional claims, potentially pushing the price tag over the billion-dollar mark.

Will compensation costs force the state to reconsider the economics of its eradication program?

"One would have hoped that our government leaders would have taken that into consideration before they embarked on this program," Gilbert says.

Terence McElroy, a spokesman for the Florida Department of Agriculture, says the courts may deem the $100 and $55 offers to be constitutionally adequate. He says the US government pays compensation of $55 per tree to citrus grove owners who lose trees in the canker eradication effort. "That is what they pay people who make a living from their trees," he says.

Under that program, every tree within 1,900 feet of a diseased tree is destroyed - which means the government is paying $55 for every tree in a 260-acre area of a densely planted citrus grove. Analysts say that works out to roughly $10,000 per acre or a payment of $2.6 million total.

In contrast, most homeowners have one, two, or three trees. And many feel a personal attachment to their trees.

"I have a 15-foot grapefruit tree out there [in the backyard] that is irreplaceable," says Fort Lauderdale resident John Haire. "I value it at $5,000."

While class-action lawsuits have already been authorized in Miami-Dade and Broward counties, the state has convinced a judge in Palm Beach County that homeowners should fight for compensation individually rather than banding together.

Boca Raton lawyer Barry Silver is representing many Palm Beach County residents in the fight. He says the state knows that if each resident is required to hire and pay a lawyer, many will simply give up. "They want to make it as onerous as possible for people to exert their constitutional rights," Mr. Silver says.

The Florida Supreme Court is expected to issue a ruling dealing directly with the compensation issue. That ruling could come at any time, and perhaps as early as Thursday, legal analysts say.

In the meantime, Florida's $9 billion citrus industry is struggling in the face of a 3 percent drop in orange juice sales last year. Much of the decrease is believed tied to so-called low-carb diets that discourage consumption of orange juice.

At the same time, growers anticipate a record crop this season - a development that will likely depress prices and cut into already thin profit margins at Florida's groves, says Casey Pace of Florida Citrus Mutual, a growers' association.

Ms. Pace says a study by the association found that it would cost citrus growers $342 million a year to live with citrus canker should the state's eradication effort fail. "You add $342 million in cost," Pace says, "and you will see a lot of people going out of business."

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