7 U.S.C. § 247
Section 247 · Fair treatment in storage of agricultural products
Amended 2 times on record
Applied in 9 court decisions — leading case Stevens v. Farmers Elevator Mutual Insurance (1966)
Most recently applied in Syngenta Seeds, Inc. v. Bunge North America, Inc. (October 2014)
How often courts cite this section
Court decisions citing this, by year.Markers show enactment, consequential amendments, and circuit splits over this section — watch for a citation surge after a change or a disagreement. The dip in the last several years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so recent citations are undercounted.
Subject to the capacity of a warehouse, a warehouse operator shall deal, in a fair and reasonable manner, with persons storing, or seeking to store, an agricultural product in the warehouse if the agricultural product—
(1) is of the kind, type, and quality customarily stored or handled in the area in which the warehouse is located;
(2) is tendered to the warehouse operator in a suitable condition for warehousing; and
(3) is tendered in a manner that is consistent with the ordinary and usual course of business.
Nothing in this section prohibits a warehouse operator from entering into an agreement with a depositor of an agricultural product to allocate available storage space.
Editorial notes U.S. Code · Office of the Law Revision Counsel
Prior Provisions
A prior section 247, acts Aug. 11, 1916, ch. 313, pt. C, §6, 39 Stat. 486; July 24, 1919, ch. 26, 41 Stat. 266; Feb. 23, 1923, ch. 106, 42 Stat. 1283; Mar. 2, 1931, ch. 366, §2, 46 Stat. 1463, required bond as condition to granting of license and additional bonds if first bond determined to become insufficient, prior to the general amendment of this chapter by Pub. L. 106–472. See section 245 of this title.
A prior section 8 of act Aug. 11, 1916, ch. 313, pt. C, was classified to section 250 of this title, prior to the general amendment of this chapter by Pub. L. 106–472.