Source: https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/368/25
Timestamp: 2019-04-23 12:21:35+00:00

Document:
Keith MARTIN, Appellant, v. Herbert WALTON, as Probate Judge of Johnson County, Kansas.
See 368 U.S. 945, 82 S.Ct. 376.
Howard E. Payne, Olathe, Kan., for appellant.
J. Donald Lysaught, Kansas City, Kan., for appellee.
The appeal is dismissed for want of a substantial federal question. Upon plenary consideration, we are satisfied that, both on their face and as applied to appellant, Kan.Gen.Stat., 1949, § 7104, and amended Kan.Sup.Ct. Rules 41 and 54 promulgated by the Supreme Court of Kansas, acting within its competence under state law, are not beyond the allowable range of state action under the Fourteenth Amendment. See, e.g., Dent v. State of West Virginia, 129 U.S. 114, 9 S.Ct. 231, 32 L.Ed. 623; Graves v. State of Minnesota, 272 U.S. 425, 47 S.Ct. 122, 71 L.Ed. 331; Schware v. Board of Bar Examiners, 353 U.S. 232, 239, 77 S.Ct. 752, 756, 1 L.Ed.2d 796; Hitchcock v. Collenberg, 353 U.S. 919, 77 S.Ct. 679, 1 L.Ed.2d 718; Kovrak v. Ginsburg, 358 U.S. 52, 79 S.Ct. 95, 3 L.Ed.2d 46. We cannot disregard the reasons given by the Kansas Supreme Court for the Rules in question. 187 Kan. 473, 357 P.2d 782. Nor does the fact that the Rules may result in 'incidental individual inequality' make them offensive to the Fourteenth Amendment. Phelps v. Board of Education, 300 U.S. 319, 324, 57 S.Ct. 483, 485, 81 L.Ed. 674.
Mr. Justice WHITTAKER took no part in the disposition of this case.
If this were a case where an attorney, though a member of the Kansas Bar, practiced law only in Missouri, the reasons for Rules 41 and 54 * as declared by the Kansas Supreme Court, would be adequate to sustain them. For we are told by that court that they were designed 'to provide litigants in (Kansas) tribunals with the service of a resident attorney familiar with local rules, procedure and practice and upon whom service may be had in all matters connected with actions or proceedings proper to be served upon an attorney of record.' 187 Kan. 473, 485, 357 P.2d 782, 791.
4. There has been a 'failure of those attorneys to familiarize themselves with the rules of local practice and procedure by reason of their infrequent appearance before the (Kansas) courts and tribunals.' 187 Kan. 473, 482483, 357 P.2d 782, 790.
These four factors, applicable perhaps to 'Kansas licensed attorneys officed in Missouri' (187 Kan., at 482, 357 P.2d, at 790), plainly have no relevancy to petitioner who has an active practice in Kansas. This case is therefore quite different from those where 'incidental individual inequality' (Phelps v. Board of Education, 300 U.S. 319, 324, 57 S.Ct. 483, 485, 81 L.Ed. 674) results from putting many into one class, treating them all alike, and disregarding slight or minor differences among them.
If Kansas can deny this lawyer his livelihood, so can Missouri. When Kansas denies him the right to pursue his livelihood, it destroys his competence for reasons that have no relation to competency. States have great leeway in making classifications, in providing general rules, in differentiating evils by broad lines or by narrow ones. Where, however, a State declares what purpose the law has, no room is left to conceive of any other purpose it may serve. See Allied Stores of Ohio, Inc., v. Bowers, 358 U.S. 522, 530, 79 S.Ct. 437, 442, 3 L.Ed.2d 480. A law, fair on its face, may be applied in a way that violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Yick Wo v. Hopkins, 118 U.S. 356, 373374, 6 S.Ct. 1064, 1072, 1073, 30 L.Ed. 220. Here the law as applied has no relation whatsoever to the declared evil at which the law was aimed. It is, therefore, invidious in its application, striking without reason at a citizen's activities which touch several States, as constitutionally they are entitled to do under our federal regime. Cf. Edwards v. People of State of California, 314 U.S. 160, 62 S.Ct. 164, 86 L.Ed. 119.
Accordingly, the application of these Rules to petitioner causes him to be singled out for discriminatory treatment, even though he has passed the Kansas Bar and is equally as competent as other Kansas lawyers to practice in that State. The fact that an attorney maintains an office and practices law in two States has no 'rational connection' with his 'fitness or capacity to practice law' (Schware v. Board of Bar Examiners, supra, 353 U.S. 239, 77 S.Ct. 756) and does not without more give either State the right to deprive him of his livelihood in light of the requirements of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

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