Opinion ID: 1477292
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Primary Case

Text: In Burning Tree I, Stewart Bainum, in his role as taxpayer, [5] and Barbara Renschler, a taxpayer and a woman seeking membership in the Burning Tree Club, a private country club that excluded women, sued the State, the Department of Assessments and Taxation, and the Club, seeking a declaratory judgment that the primary purpose exception found in Section 19(e)(4)(i) of Article 81, Maryland Code (1957, 1980 Repl.Vol.), [6] violated the ERA. Burning Tree I, 305 Md. at 59-60, 501 A.2d at 820. The Plaintiffs also sought to enjoin the State from extending preferential tax treatment to the Club, and sought a mandate that the Club entertain applications for female membership. [7] Id. at 60, 501 A.2d at 820. Section 19 (e) authorized the Department to make agreements with private country clubs such as Burning Tree whereby, in exchange for an agreement to preserve open spaces from development for a term of years, the club would receive a reduced real property tax rate. Id. at 56-57, 501 A.2d at 818-19. The statute established a dual system of assessments, one calculated under the ordinary assumption of best use, the other, lower assessment, calculated under the assumption that the land remain undeveloped. Id. at 57, 501 A.2d at 818-19. So long as the agreement was in effect, the State collected property tax only on the lower assessed value. In case the country club breached the agreement, the State could collect taxes prospectively on the higher assessed value; moreover, a portion of the tax that would have been due based on the difference between the lower and higher assessed values would have been accelerated and become payable immediately. In 1974, the General Assembly amended Section 19(e) to add an anti-discrimination provision, which conditioned the tax benefit on an agreement not to discriminate on account of race, color, creed, sex, or national origin, unless the clubs were operated with the primary purpose, as determined by the Attorney General, to serve or benefit members of a particular sex. Burning Tree I, 305 Md. at 57, 501 A.2d at 819 (emphasis added); 1974 Md. Laws, Chap. 870. The amended statute also contained a so-called periodic discrimination clause, exempting from the anti-discrimination provision those clubs which exclude certain sexes only on certain days and at certain times. Burning Tree I, 305 Md. at 57, 501 A.2d at 819; 1974 Md. Laws, Chap. 870. There were several issues [8] before the Court in Burning Tree I: whether the roles of the State and the Department under Section 19(e) of Article 81 in conjunction with the Club's participation in the open space program, amounted to state action, [9] Burning Tree I, 305 Md. at 85, 501 A.2d at 833; whether the primary purpose clause violated the ERA; and whether the primary purpose clause was severable from the statute's overall prohibition against discrimination. [10] Id. at 80, 501 A.2d at 830-31. The Court issued three separate opinions. Id. at 56, 501 A.2d at 818 (Chief Judge Murphy, joined by Judges Smith and Orth); id. at 85, 501 A.2d at 833 (Judge Rodowsky, concurring); id. at 88, 501 A.2d at 835 (Judge Eldridge, joined by Judges Cole and Bloom). Chief Judge Murphy, joined by Judges Charles E. Orth, Jr. and Marvin H. Smith, took the position that the involvement of the State and the Department in the open space program did not constitute state action. Id. at 64-65, 501 A.2d at 822-23. In Chief Judge Murphy's opinion, Section 19(e)(4)(i) was facially neutral, id. at 71, 501 A.2d at 826, and the State bore no responsibility for the Club's discrimination, because the State did not initiate the Club's discriminatory membership policy, the State did not cause the Club to implement those policies through coercion or inducement, and the statutory purpose [11] bore no relationship to sex discrimination. Id. at 75-76, 501 A.2d at 828-29. Judge Lawrence F. Rodowsky agreed only to the extent that the actions of the Attorney General and the Department in certifying compliance with the terms of Section 19(e)(4)(i), did not, in his view, become state action as a result of the Club's participation in the open space program, id. at 85-86, 501 A.2d at 833-34, although he maintained that the statute itself constituted state action, because the statute drew sex-based distinctions on its face. Id. at 85-86, 501 A.2d at 833-34. Judge John C. Eldridge, joined by Judges Harry A. Cole and Theodore G. Bloom, totally disagree[d] with Chief Judge Murphy's view that the statute and its administration by the State were gender neutral, id. at 91, 501 A.2d at 836; furthermore, Judge Eldridge believed there clearly [was] state action, id. at 91, 501 A.2d at 836, because Section 19(e)(4)(i) drew a distinction between sex-based discrimination and other forms of discrimination, and because the administrative mechanism set up by the statute clearly involve[d] the State in the discrimination by the Club. Id. at 91-93, 501 A.2d at 836-37. A majority of the Court, consisting of Judge Rodowsky, id. at 88, 501 A.2d at 834-35, and Judges Eldridge, Cole and Bloom, id. at 91, 501 A.2d at 836, held that the primary purpose clause on its face violated the ERA. Because Judge Rodowsky disagreed with Judge Eldridge about severability, id. at 91 & n. 5, 501 A.2d at 836 & n. 5, a different majority consisting of Chief Judge Murphy, and Judges Orth and Smith, id. at 84, 501 A.2d at 832-33, agreed with Judge Rodowsky, id. at 85, 501 A.2d at 833, holding that the primary purpose clause was not severable from Section 19(e)(4)(i), thereby invalidating the entire anti-discrimination provision (and rendering the periodic discrimination clause moot). On the ERA issue, Chief Judge Murphy, writing for himself and two other judges, concluded that the primary purpose clause did not implicate the ERA and therefore, was not subject to strict scrutiny, because the clause benefitted and burdened both sexes equally, id. at 71, 501 A.2d at 826, and because the ERA was essentially limited in its scope to unequal treatment imposed by law as between the sexes. Id. at 65, 501 A.2d at 823 (emphasis added). According to Chief Judge Murphy, enactment and administration of Section 19(e)(4) constituted action by the State, id. at 70, 501 A.2d at 826; nevertheless, the statute [did] not apportion or distribute benefits or burdens unequally among the sexes, but rather [made] the tax benefit equally available to all single sex country clubs agreeing to participate in the State's open space program. Id. at 71, 501 A.2d at 826. Furthermore, [t]he only burden [was] that imposed on the public treasury as a result of the preferential tax assessment afforded to qualifying country clubs, a burden born equally by all Maryland citizens, men and women alike. Id. Likewise, the public benefits which accrue[d] from the preservation of open spaces [were] shared equally by each sex. Id. Although acknowledging that separate but equal facilities for men and women may be subject to strict scrutiny because of inherent inequality of treatment for one sex or the other in the separation process itself, id. at 79, 501 A.2d at 830, Chief Judge Murphy determined that heightened scrutiny was not implicated under the facts of Burning Tree I because the primary purpose clause was permissive, not mandatory. [12] Id. Judge Eldridge, writing for himself and two other judges, rejected the Chief Judge's gender neutral analysis, warning that Chief Judge Murphy's opinion seems to embrace a type of `separate but equal' doctrine for purposes of the E.R.A. Id. at 91, 501 A.2d at 836. Judge Eldridge stated that regardless of whether the sexes are benefitted or burdened equally, any statute that implicates gender classifications on its face must be subject to strict scrutiny, id. at 99, 501 A.2d at 840, and explained the scope of the ERA: While it is true that many of our prior cases have involved government action directly imposing a burden or conferring a benefit entirely upon either males or females, we have never held that the E.R.A. is narrowly limited to such situations. On the contrary, we have viewed the E.R.A. more broadly, in accordance with its language and purpose. Id. at 95, 501 A.2d at 838 (emphasis added). He then looked to our jurisprudence in Rand, in which we stated that the language of the ERA was `unambiguous' and `can only mean that sex is not a factor', id. at 95, 501 A.2d at 838, quoting Rand, 280 Md. at 512, 374 A.2d at 903 (emphasis added), and also in Maryland State Board of Barber Examiners v. Kuhn, 270 Md. 496, 312 A.2d 216 (1973), in which the Court took the position that under the E.R.A. classifications based on sex were `suspect classifications' subject to `stricter scrutiny.' Burning Tree I, 305 Md. at 95, 501 A.2d at 838, quoting Kuhn, 270 Md. at 506-07, 312 A.2d at 222. In a concurring opinion, Judge Rodowsky agreed with Judge Eldridge that the primary purpose clause on its face violated the ERA, which represented the holding of the case. Id. at 85, 501 A.2d at 833. Indeed, in Judge Rodowsky's view, not only was the primary purpose clause constitutionally infirm, but the periodic discrimination provision failed for exactly the same reasons. Id. at 86-87, 501 A.2d at 834. Judges Eldridge and Rodowsky differed on the severability issue; Judge Rodowsky agreed with the Chief Judge that the primary purpose clause was nonseverable, and hence, the entire anti-discrimination provision was void. Id. at 85, 501 A.2d at 833. A principal point of contention in Burning Tree I was the particular level of application of the disputed anti-discrimination provision. The Chief Judge regarded Section 19(e)(4)(i) as neutral, because in principle an all-female club could operate as a mirror-image of Burning Tree and enjoy the state tax benefit, so that the universe of consideration was the set of all eligible country clubs. Id. at 71, 501 A.2d at 826. According to this view, all country clubs were situated equally with respect to the open space program; all-female clubs and all-male clubs were free to discriminate equally, and hence, there was no ERA violation. The fact that a single all-male club just happened to be the only eligible entity under Section 19(e)(4)(i) was, in this view, an irrelevant coincidence. A majority of the Court, however, held that the universe of consideration was each particular participating club. Judge Rodowsky stated this proposition explicitly: It is not an answer to the subject argument of the appellees to say that at the elevated level of the statewide open space program established by § 19(e) the program is neutral with respect to sex, in the sense that an all female or an all male country club is eligible to participate. The ostensible prohibition against sex discrimination applies to each individual country club participating in the open space program. The universe of consideration for the particular problem created by this antidiscrimination law is any participating country club, in and of itself. Id. at 87, 501 A.2d at 834 (emphasis added), and Judge Eldridge agreed, because he directly refuted the position of the Chief Judge. Id. at 95, 501 A.2d at 838 ([T]he three apparently do not view the express sanctioning of single sex clubs as imposing a burden upon the excluded sex, as long as the governmental action in theory equally sanctions discrimination by single sex facilities against persons of the other sex.). Ironically, the positions set out by Judges Eldridge and Rodowsky find support in an article by Barbara A. Brown, Thomas I. Emerson, Gail Falk & Ann E. Freedman, The Equal Rights Amendment: A Constitutional Basis for Equal Rights for Women, 80 Yale L.J. 871, 889-93 (1971), cited at several points as support in the minority opinion of Chief Judge Murphy. Burning Tree I, 305 Md. at 64 & n. 3, 70, 79, 501 A.2d at 822 & n. 3, 825, 830. The Brown article defines why the separate but equal theory implicit in the Chief Judge's opinion ultimately subverts the meaning and purpose of the ERA. Because the basic principle of the ERA is that sex is not a permissible factor in determining the legal rights of women and men, it follows that the treatment of any person [13] under the law may not be based on the circumstance of a particular person's sex. Brown, supra at 889 (emphasis added). Accord Burning Tree I, 305 Md. at 64, 71, 501 A.2d at 822, 825; Rand, 280 Md. at 512, 374 A.2d at 903. To summarize, in Burning Tree I a majority of this Court applied strict scrutiny to invalidate an ostensibly neutral statute that drew sex-based classifications. The analysis focused on the individual level to determine whether the State had granted a benefit or imposed a burden on the basis of sex. Four Judges of this Court rejected the separate but equal approach suggested in Chief Judge Murphy's minority opinion.