Opinion ID: 427345
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: equal protection--plaintiffs and msu employee physicians

Text: 8 As noted above, one of plaintiffs' equal protection claims centers on the challenged policy's discrimination between MSU employee physicians and plaintiffs. The Supreme Court made painfully 4 clear in City of New Orleans v. Dukes, 427 U.S. 297, 303, 96 S.Ct. 2513, 2516-2517, 49 L.Ed.2d 511 (1976), the correct level of scrutiny for state policies like the one involved here. 9 Unless a classification trammels fundamental personal rights or is drawn upon inherently suspect distinctions such as race, religion, or alienage, our decisions presume the constitutionality of the statutory discriminations and require only that the classification challenged be rationally related to a legitimate state interest. 10 Plaintiffs, not claiming that they are members of a protected class or that the practice of medicine constitutes exercise of a fundamental right, agree that the rational relationship standard is appropriate. They further admit that the asserted state interest in good student health care is legitimate. Plaintiffs challenge to MSU's private practice policy rests on their contention that the policy is not rationally related to good student health care. 11 In making such a challenge, plaintiffs must shoulder a heavy burden as explained in Kite v. Marshall, 661 F.2d 1027, 1030 (5th Cir.1981), cert. denied, 457 U.S. 1120, 102 S.Ct. 2934, 73 L.Ed.2d 1333 (1982). 12 A state action viewed under the rational basis banner is presumed to be valid. In such a situation, the burden is not upon the state to establish the rationality of its restriction, but is upon the challenger to show that the restriction is wholly arbitrary. 13 Pappanastos v. Board of Trustees of the University of Alabama, 615 F.2d 219, 221 (5th Cir.1980), states that the court's task is to inquire whether any state of facts may be conceived to justify the challenged policy. We must, therefore, examine the justifications defendant asserts for allowing its employee physicians to use campus facilities for private practice. The inquiry is an abbreviated one, though, for we have to look no further than to the challenged policy's basic function. Discriminating between doctors who work for the university and those who don't is simply part of MSU's method of compensating its employees. That a rational relationship exists between compensating doctors and running a medical care program can hardly be challenged. 14 Aside from their complaint that MSU discriminatorily bestows benefits upon its employee physicians, plaintiffs can also be heard to complain about the particular nature of those benefits. Plaintiffs assert that MSU's in-kind compensation of its doctor employees gives those doctors a special competitive advantage with respect to private practice. Such a claim, however, does not fall within the purview of the equal protection clause. Having found that MSU's compensation scheme constitutes a rational effort to promote a student medical care program, we can look no further. 5 Even if MSU could compensate its doctor employees in a manner that was equally effective but less disadvantageous to plaintiffs, we cannot impose upon the state our view of what may constitute the fairest or most rational scheme. Alford v. City of Lubbock, Texas, 664 F.2d 1263, 1267 (5th Cir.1982), cert. denied, 456 U.S. 975, 102 S.Ct. 2239, 72 L.Ed.2d 848 (1982); see also Dandridge v. Williams, 397 U.S. 471, 485-87, 90 S.Ct. 1153, 1161-1162, 25 L.Ed.2d 491 (1970). As pointed out in City of New Orleans v. Dukes, supra, 427 U.S. at 303, 96 S.Ct. at 2516-2517, 15 the judiciary may not sit as a superlegislature to judge the wisdom or desirability of legislative policy determinations made in areas that neither affect fundamental rights nor proceed along suspect lines. 6 16