Case Name: HARRY'S HARDWARE, INC. v. James C. PARSONS, Superintendent of Police, et al.
Court: Louisiana Supreme Court
Jurisdiction: Louisiana
Decision Date: 1982-01-25
Citations: 410 So. 2d 735
Docket Number: Nos. 81-C-1614, 81-C-1633
Parties: HARRY’S HARDWARE, INC. v. James C. PARSONS, Superintendent of Police, et al.
Judges: LEMMON, J., dissents.
Reporter: Southern Reporter, Second Series
Volume: 410
Pages: 735–741

Head Matter:
HARRY’S HARDWARE, INC. v. James C. PARSONS, Superintendent of Police, et al.
Nos. 81-C-1614, 81-C-1633.
Supreme Court of Louisiana.
Jan. 25, 1982.
Rehearing Denied March 19, 1982.
William J. Guste, Jr., Atty. Gen., Robert Caluda, Staff Atty., New Orleans, Harry F. Connick, Dist. Atty., John Craft and Kevin McNary, Asst. Dist. Attys., Salvador Anzel-mo, Brian Meisner, Asst. City Attys., Galen S. Brown, Deputy City Atty., for defendant-applicant.
Rene Lehmann, of Midió & Lehmann, New Orleans, for plaintiff-respondent.
Leopold Stahl, of Stahl & Berke, New Orleans, for intervenor.

Opinion:
BLANCHE, Justice.
Harry's Hardware, Inc. filed suit in Orleans Parish Civil District Court seeking to enjoin enforcement of the Sunday Closing Law, R.S. 51:191-194. Originally named as defendants were James C. Parsons, then Superintendent of the New Orleans Police Department and Harry Connick, in his capacity as District Attorney for the Parish of Orleans. As the petition attacked the constitutionality of the state statute, William Guste, the Louisiana Attorney General, was later made a defendant.
A temporary restraining order was granted, but following trial on the merits, the plaintiff's suit for permanent injunction was dismissed. On appeal, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeal reversed, finding the statute in question manifestly unconstitutional, and remanded the suit for issuance of a permanent injunction against its enforcement. 399 So.2d 632. As a state statute was declared unconstitutional, this case comes before us on an appeal of right.
Louisiana's Sunday Closing Law is comprised of four sections under Title 51 of the Revised Statute. Section 191 creates a general prohibition of the conduct of business on Sunday.
Section 192 exempts several types of businesses from the prohibition established by Section 191. Included among the exemptions are:
News dealers and newspaper offices, Printing offices,
Book stores,
Watering places and public parks,
Places of resort and recreation,
Livery stables,
Railroads,
Hotels and boarding houses,
Undertaker shops,
Art galleries,
Drug stores and apothecary shops,
Public and private markets,
Theatres, and
Restaurants.
Section 193 requires that barber shops be closed. Section 194(A) prohibits the sale of specific items on Sunday, including:
Clothing or wearing apparel,
Lumber or building supply materials,
Furniture,
Home or business or office furnishings,
Household, office or business appliances, and
Automobiles.
Section 194(E) provides an exemption to this prohibition for sales made for charitable, medical or funereal purposes. Sales within the French Quarter of New Orleans are also exempted.
Section 194(C) states the objectives of the Sunday Closing Law: "[T]o promote the health, recreation and welfare of the people of this state and to prevent unfair competition among persons, firms or business establishments . . ".
It is undisputed that Sunday Closing Laws are not per se unconstitutional. State legislatures within their general police powers may enact legislation setting aside a uniform day of rest and regulating or restricting sales on that day. McGowan v. State of Maryland, 366 U.S. 420, 81 S.Ct. 1101, 6 L.Ed.2d 393 (1961). The ultimate constitutionality of such a statute can be determined only by an examination of its particular provisions. A closing law may not create arbitrary and unreasonable business classifications which have no bearing on the public health and welfare considerations that prompted its enactment.
In both lower courts, the plaintiff contended that R.S. 51:192 creates an arbitrary and unreasonable classification. There is no doubt that drug and grocery stores are treated differently from hardware stores under the law. Drug stores and grocery stores (as public and private markets) may remain open on Sunday, while hardware stores must .be closed. Moreover, those drug and grocery stores may sell any item of their inventory not expressly prohibited from sale on Sunday by R.S. 51:194(A).
According to the plaintiff, there is no rational reason for this differing treatment. A majority of the non-food and non-drug items sold on Sunday by the drug and grocery stores are available for sale in plaintiff's hardware stores. The court of appeal found merit in this argument, and declared the Sunday Closing Law unconstitutional for the following reason:
"To permit drugstores and grocery stores to be open on Sunday and sell their non-drug and non-food stock while hardware stores carrying the same and/or similar merchandise are required to be closed constitutes invidious discrimination against hardware stores and is patently discriminatory."
We cannot agree that any discrimination inherent in the Closing Law is of such an unreasonable and invidious nature as to render the statute constitutionally infirm. Not every discrimination promulgated by statute is unconstitutional. The constitutional safeguard is offended only if the discriminatory classification rests on grounds wholly irrelevant to the achievement of the state's objective.
Unless a statute interferes with the exercise of fundamental personal rights, or is drawn upon inherently suspect distinctions such as race or religion, its constitutionality is presumed and the jurisprudence requires only that the classification challenged be rationally related to a legitimate state interest. City of New Orleans v. Dukes, 427 U.S. 297, 96 S.Ct. 2513, 49 L.Ed.2d 511 (1976).
The statement of legislative purpose in R.S. 51:194(C) expresses a twofold objective: promotion of the health, recreation and welfare of the citizens of this state, and prevention of unfair competition among persons, firms or businesses. To this end, the law provides for a forced day of rest. All businesses must close their doors on Sunday. This statutory requirement is followed by the vast majority of business operations in the State of Louisiana. The plaintiff has presented no evidence that the exceptions to this rule have become broader than the rule itself.
The exemptions created by the statute are those that the legislature deemed necessary to safely provide for the welfare of the public while mandating a forced closing of most businesses. Drug stores and public markets are exempted to allow the sale of medicine and food on Sunday. Funeral homes may remain open as the inevitability of death cannot be averted on Sunday. The exemptions for theatres, book stores and art galleries are consistent with the intent to provide a day of rest and recreation. Hotels are exempted to provide a place of residence for out-of-town visitors.
Each of the exemptions provided by the Sunday Closing Law is rationally related to the state's objective in enacting such a statute. The discrimination suffered by the plaintiff's hardware stores is a by-product of a rational legislative scheme whereby the leisure and recreation of the populace is fostered without concomitant deprivation of access to essentials such as food and medicine. This discimination does not become invidious merely because those drug and grocery stores which are allowed to remain open may also sell non-food and non-drug items.
Although the plaintiff demonstrated substantial similarity between the inventory of its hardware outlets and the inventories of present day drug and grocery stores, we do not find that this similarity renders any statutory distinction between hardware stores and food or drug stores arbitrary and unreasonable. While inventories may overlap, drug stores remain primarily retailers of pharmaceutical products and grocery stores remain primarily retailers of food items. To provide public access to precisely these essentials, rather than hardware or other non-food or non-drug items, drug and grocery stores may remain open on Sunday. We cannot say the legislature acted unreasonably or arbitrarily in treating food and drug stores in a different manner than hardware stores under the Sunday Closing Law.
The objectives behind the Sunday Closing Law were discussed by this Court in State v. Wiener, 245 La. 889, 161 So.2d 755 (La.1964). "The legislature, so it declares, enacted the law to promote the health, recreation and welfare of the people by making the first day of the week a day of rest and to prevent unfair competition by those who might choose to work while others rested." Keeping in mind the primary thrust of the statute, to provide a forced day of rest, it becomes apparent that the purpose of the Sunday Closing Law is not the prevention of all unfair competition among businesses. By enacting a general prohibition against the conduct of business on Sunday, the law extends the full benefit of the forced day of rest to merchants and other businessmen who might otherwise feel compelled to remain open.
Those businesses which may remain open on Sunday provide the public with necessary goods or services. Both objectives of the Sunday Closing Law are furthered by closely limiting this class of businesses. The legislature chose not to exempt hardware stores from the general Sunday prohibition. That decision does not render the statute unconstitutional. It is a legislative prerogative to ascertain which stores should and should not be open. That prerogative has not been exercised arbitrarily or unreasonably in this case.
For the foregoing reasons, the decision of the court of appeal is reversed and the injunction prohibiting the enforcement of R.S. 51:191-194 is hereby vacated.
LEMMON, J., dissents.
WATSON and CALOGERO, JJ., dissent and assign reasons.