Opinion ID: 2458228
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: the hue tax violates the equal protection clause

Text: The fourteenth amendment to the U.S. Constitution provides that no person shall be denied equal protection of the law by any state. Before a statute can be reviewed under the equal protection guarantee, a party must demonstrate that the law classifies persons in some manner. Nowak, Rotunda, & Young, Constitutional Law, p. 600 (2d ed.1983). There are three ways to establish a classification: the statute may do so on its face; a facially neutral statute may be applied unevenly to different groups by those administering it; or a facially neutral law, applied evenhandedly, in reality may constitute a device designed to impose different burdens on different classes of persons. Id. The appellants argue that the tax classifies carriers based on interstate versus intrastate commerce. Once a classification is found to exist, the equal protection analysis turns on whether the classification bears a rational relationship to a legitimate state interest. We need not reach the rational relationship test, however, because no classification exists. The appellants acknowledge that the statute is facially neutral, so the first method of classifying is not established. The other two methods concern the uneven application and the burdensome effect of a neutral statute. We have already indicated in our discussion of the commerce clause that the statute is applied to interstate and intrastate carriers alike and does not have a discriminatory effect on interstate commerce. Since interstate commerce is not singled out for disparate treatment, no classification on that basis is made, and no equal protection problem arises.