Opinion ID: 2224358
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Rights at stake

Text: The majority's assertion that the clean and sanitary ordinance does not threaten any constitutionally protected rights is clearly wrong. The ordinance, as applied in this case, tramples upon one of Ms. Reha's most fundamental rights, the right to be left alone, especially in the privacy of her home. See FCC v. Pacifica Found., 438 U.S. 726, 748, 98 S.Ct. 3026, 3039, 57 L.Ed.2d 1073 (1978); and Bolger v. Youngs Drug Products Corp., 463 U.S. 60, 77, 103 S.Ct. 2875, 2886, 77 L.Ed.2d 469 (1983) (Rehnquist, J., concurring). See also Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479, 484-85, 85 S.Ct. 1678, 1681-82, 14 L.Ed.2d 510 (1965); Jarvis v. Levine, 418 N.W.2d 139, 147-49 (Minn.1988); and State v. Gray, 413 N.W.2d 107, 111 (Minn.1987). In this case, there are competing interests: Ms. Reha's right to live in the home environment of her choosing versus the city's power and duty to promote health and safety. It must be conceded that Ms. Reha's privacy rights must at some point give way to the city's interest in general health and welfare. But that point was not reached in this case. The city's interest in health and safety is not implicated by a failure to keep a clean and sanitary home because there is no way to know what that phrase means. The city does have a strong interest in ensuring that homeowners maintain an unblocked path of egress, and probably of ingress, so that residents can escape fire, flood or other disaster and emergency personnel can enter to do their jobs without unnecessary risk to their safety. And the city has a strong interest in preventing vermin infestations and the spread of germs and disease. Both of those interests are reflected in sections 244.600 and 244.960, mentioned above. And if this case had been brought under those ordinances, the city's important interests in health and safety probably would have outweighed Ms. Reha's right to the lifestyle of her choice. But that is not the case here. The city can show no legitimate interest in clean and sanitary homes without first defining what those terms mean. [1] Because the city has failed to do so in this ordinance, its interest must be subordinated to the important right of Ms. Reha to live the way she chooses.