Opinion ID: 811592
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Suspect Classification

Text: Gallagher alternatively seeks intermediate scrutiny of the Ordinance on equal protection grounds, maintaining that smokers are a suspect or quasi-suspect class due “to discrimination, animus, stigma and second class characterization.” Under the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause, a law that treats a suspect classification of people differently than similarly situated individuals is subject to heightened scrutiny. See Gilmore v. Cnty of Douglas, Neb., 406 F.3d 935, 937 (8th Cir. 2005). A class may be found suspect if the class shares “an immutable characteristic determined solely by the accident of birth,” Frontiero v. Richardson, 411 U.S. 677, 686 (1973), or is “saddled with such disabilities, or subjected to such a history of purposeful unequal treatment, or relegated to such a position of political powerlessness as to command extraordinary protection from the majoritarian political process,” San Antonio Indep. Sch. Dist. v. Rodriguez, 411 U.S. 1, 28 (1973). Courts considering claims that smokers constitute a suspect or quasi-suspect class have rejected them, noting “that smokers as a class lack the[se] typical characteristics that traditionally have triggered heightened scrutiny when the governmental action targets a group.” N.Y.C. C.L.A.S.H., Inc. v. City of New York, 315 F. Supp. 2d 461, 482 (S.D.N.Y. 2004); see also Giordano v. Conn. Valley Hosp., 588 F. Supp. 2d 306, 31314 (D. Conn. 2008). -6- Unlike the suspect or quasi-suspect classifications of race, alienage, national origin, or gender, see City of Cleburne, Tex. v. Cleburne Living Ctr., 473 U.S. 432, 440-41 (1985), we conclude that smokers do not share some immutable characteristic beyond their control and they do not require special protection by the courts because of vast discrimination against smokers or their political powerlessness. Nor could we plausibly find to the contrary based upon this complaint. Gallagher pled only a single fact in his complaint regarding smokers belonging to a suspect class—a reference to one advertisement describing smokers as “persecuted.” Because Gallagher did not plead facts plausibly indicating that smokers constitute a suspect or quasi-suspect class, the district court did not err in dismissing this claim. See Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 678.