Court Opinion

ID: 9456823
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 20:03:23.474383+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:35:06.843473
License: Public Domain

LEVENTHAL, Circuit Judge
(joining and concurring):
I join in Judge Danaher’s opinion, adding some observations because they help give me additional perspective for denying petitioner’s claim of constitutional right, as an indigent, to process a patent application without payment of the statutory fee.
Equal protection concepts begin with the requirement of a standard that is non-discriminatory; here the statute obviously requires one and all to pay the fee. Constitutional requirements also dictate that in some matters the weak and helpless be relieved of burdens that may be and are applied generally without constitutional hindrance.
Thus the Supreme Court has held that an indigent who is a defendant in a criminal case has the constitutional right to have the state supply him, without payment of fees, counsel and a transcript1 for which others must pay. In Harper,2 invalidating the poll tax, the Court said there is close scrutiny and careful confinement of classifications that affect “fundamental rights and liberties,” that wealth “is not germane” to voting and the right to vote is “too precious, too fundamental” to be conditioned on a fee. Harper indicates that the area of “fundamental rights” is not limited by the assumptions of the past. In Sniadach3 the Court invalidated pre-judgment wage garnishments. The Boddie case involves the right of an indigent to access to civil courts for a divorce without payment of fee.4
By no means, however, does the Constitution embody as a present requirement an egalitarian philosophy that supposes that all men can be put in exactly equal condition as to all matters involving the Government. As the learning cited by Judge Danaher indicates, a man cannot insist that his indigency establishes a constitutional right to drive a car without, e. g., paying the cost of insurance required for the protection of *1046others,5 or of safety devices and government inspection services.6
Drawing the line between what is constitutionally permitted and prohibited will be an ongoing process. I think it clear, however, that in the case of a fee required as an incident to the Government’s processing a request for an award of a monopoly of commercial value, there is no “fundamental right” that carves a constitutional exception for the indigent.7

. Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U.S. 335, 83 S.Ct. 792, 9 L.Ed.2d 799 (1963); Griffin v. Illinois, 351 U.S. 12, 76 S.Ct. 585, 100 L.Ed. 891 (1956).

. Harper v. Virginia State Bd. of Elections, 383 U.S. 663, 86 S.Ct. 1079, 16 L.Ed.2d 169 (1966).

. Sniadach v. Family Fin. Corp., 395 U.S. 337, 89 S.Ct. 1820, 23 L.Ed.2d 349 (1969).

. On appeal from Boddie v. Connecticut, 286 F.Supp. 968 (D.Conn., 3-judge court, 1968), the Supreme Court noted probable jurisdiction, 395 U.S. 974, 89 S.Ct. 2138, 23 L.Ed.2d 763 (1969).

. Ex parte Poresky, 290 U.S. 30, 54 S.Ct. 3, 78 L.Ed. 152 (1933).

. The validity of a driver’s license fee was impliedly admitted in Harper, 383 U.S. at 668, 86 S.Ct. 1079.

. It may be that even where some fees are permissible, an indigent could raise a separate constitutional question protesting an invidious and unnecessary hardship wrought by a fee requirement totally disproportionate to any justified state interest. It seems obvious that the statutory fees, less than $100 for petitioner, make only a modest payment toward the cost to the Government of processing patent applications. There is no contention before us to the contrary.