Opinion ID: 1516505
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: privileges or immunities

Text: The first of the three provisions, the privileges or immunities clause, directs: [N]o state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States. Any attack against the legislation by a publicly traded corporation on the ground that the legislation violates this clause would surely fail. The Supreme Court has always held that corporations are not citizens within the meaning of the clause and thus are not entitled to any protections it affords citizens of the United States. See, e.g., Grosjean v. American Press Co., 297 U.S. 233, 244, 56 S.Ct. 444, 447, 80 L.Ed. 660, 665-66 (1936); Orient Insurance Co. v. Daggs, 172 U.S. 557, 561, 19 S.Ct. 281, 282, 43 L.Ed. 552, 554 (1899). Although privileges or immunities challenges made by individuals are rare, [3] such a challenge against this legislation must also fail. The clause only protects those interests arising out of the essential nature of national government and granted or secured by the Constitution, Madden v. Kentucky, 309 U.S. 83, 92 n. 21, 60 S.Ct. 406, 410 n. 21, 84 L.Ed. 590, 595 n. 21 (1940), and being treated by a publicly traded health-care facility in the State of Rhode Island is hardly such an interest.