Court Opinion

ID: 9754931
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 20:18:48.747962+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:28:00.828484
License: Public Domain

*375Handler, J.,
dissenting. I dissent respectfully from the majority of our Court because I am convinced that the Sunday Closing Law, N. J. S. A. 2AH71-5.8 et seq., contravenes the equal protection clause of our State Constitution, N. J. Const. (1947), Art. I, par. 1. This law, in its classification of goods and operation as a regulatory scheme to discourage retail commercial activity on Sunday, does not rationally and reasonably promote the legislative purpose, as found in Two Guys from Harrison, Inc. v. Furman, 32 N. J. 199 (1960). That purpose was said to be to foster an atmosphere of rest and recreation so that the “vast majority of the citizens” might “find surcease from the pressures of the work week on the day generally selected by them for that purpose.” Id. at 228. The record developed in this case confirms ordinary experience. It shows that the ban of retail selling of particular goods —■ clothing, lumber, furniture, furnishings and appliances ■ — ■ in only ten of the State’s twenty-one counties has had an uneven, inconstant and miniscule effect in fostering a peaceful and recreational milieu. I do not believe, therefore, that the statute can constitutionally endure in its present form.
Two Guys from Harrison, Inc. v. Furman, supra, held that the Sunday closing statutory scheme, N. J. S. A. 2A:171-5.8 et seq., proscribing the sale on Sundays of clothing or wearing apparel, building and lumber supply materials, furniture, home, business or office furnishings and household, business or office appliances in counties which adopt its provisions by referendum, did not merely supplement but rather superceded and replaced the 1951 revision of prior Sunday closing legislation, N. J. S. A. 2A :171-1 et seq. The Court identified two possible legitimate police power objectives of the extant Sunday closing legislation: (1) relief from uninterrupted labor for seven days a week, and (2) promoting an atmosphere conducive to rest, recreation and the relief from everyday tensions. The Court rejected the first possibility, concluding that the classification of goods was not rationally and reasonably related to pro-*376Tiding uniformly for a single day of rest. It determined that there was no “reasonable basis for the differentiation in chapter 119 [IV. J. 8. A. 2A:171-5.8 et seq.~\ of the work area embraced in the sale of the items it proscribes from the work area it leaves untouched.” Two Guys from Harrison, Inc. v. Furman, supra, 32 N. J. at 219. The Court sustained the facial validity of the law as rationally related to the second possible objective of fostering an atmosphere for peace and change from everyday routine. It found this purpose to be “unanehored to the policy” of the prior law (id. at 223) and held that the evil inferred from the law and addressed by it was the “unreasonable interference with the efforts of the vast majority of the citizens to find surcease from the pressures of the work week on the day generally selected by them for that purpose.” Id. at 228.
In upholding IV. J. 8. A. 2A:171-5.8 et seq., the Court rebuffed an attack made on constitutional grounds that on its face the law contravened the principle of separation of Church and State, as embodied in the Eederal and State Constitutions, and the equal protection clauses of both constitutions. It thus reversed a judgment on the pleadings in favor of the opponents of the legislation; it also reversed a summary judgment in favor of plaintiffs to enable them to proceed to trial on the issue that the statutory classification was arbitrary and denies equal protection. Two Guys from Harrison, Inc. v. Furman, supra, 32 N. J. at 229-230. Plaintiffs here, as successors and privy to their party-predecessors in the earlier litigation, have proceeded to trial and, in my opinion, have demonstrated and proved that the statutory attempt to enhance the efforts of the vast majority of our citizens to find respite from daily pressures is a failure.
It is fundamental that all police power legislation must conform to the State constitutional requirement of equal protection of the laws. This basic guarantee, secured by IV. J. Const. (1947), Art. I, par. 1, is independent from that of the Federal Constitution. Taxpayers Ass’n of Wey-*377mouth Twp. v. Weymouth Twp., 71 N. J. 249 (1976), cert. den. 430 U. S. 977, 97 S. Ct. 1672, 52 L. Ed. 2d 373 (1977); Borough of Collingswood v. Ringgold, 66 N. J. 350 (1975), appeal dismissed 426 U. S. 901, 96 S. Ct. 2220, 48 L. Ed. 2d 286 (1976); Robinson v. Cahill, 62 N. J. 473, cert. den. 414 U. S. 976, 94 S. Ct. 292, 38 L. Ed. 2d 219 (1973). Moreover, federal equal protection constitutional concerns are not necessary or even highly relevant to a disposition of this case. Concededly, our federal counterparts have been most indulgent of state Sunday closing legislation. McGowan v. Maryland, 366 U. S. 420, 81 S. Ct. 1101, 6 L. Ed. 2d 393 (1961); Gallagher v. Crown Kosher Super Market of Massachusetts, 366 U. S. 617, 81 S. Ct. 1122, 6 L. Ed. 2d 536 (1961); Two Guys from Harrison-Allentown, Inc. v. McGinley, 366 U. S. 582, 81 S. Ct. 1135, 6 L. Ed. 2d 551 (1961); Braunfeld v. Brown, 366 U. S. 599, 81 S. Ct. 1144, 6 L. Ed. 2d 563 (1961). Impliedly, there is recognition that such legislation is distinctly a matter of unique and special local concern.
In constitutional parlance, a statutory classification devised as a means for achieving a legislative end must be rational in that, at the very least, it must have a logical nexus with the police power objective which it is designed to promote. There is, of course, a presumption that the legislature envisaged a valid classification and, indeed, “[distinctions will be presumed to rest upon a rational basis if there be any conceivable state of facts which would afford reasonable support for them.” WHYY, Inc. v. Glassboro, 50 N.J. 6, 13 (1967), rev’d on other grds. 393 U. S. 117, 89 S. Ct. 286, 21 L. Ed. 2d 242 (1968).
The majority of this Court is satisfied that there is a “conceivable” factual basis for the statutory distinction. It pointedly criticizes the trial court for adopting an erroneous standard for adjudging the constitutional validity of the statute. The trial court, according to the majority, failed “to establish that the classification in the Sunday Closing Law, in the sense of contrast bewteen articles permitted *378and articles forbidden to be sold, was devoid of any rational relationship to its validated purposes on any conceivable basis the Legislature might have entertained therefor.” Ante at 358. In effect, the majority says that the considerable body of evidence marshalled before the trial court (which, I submit, was thoroughly digested and assimilated by that court into well-founded factual determinations and legal conclusions) failed to dispel facts showing that “the classification bore 'some relation’ to the legislative objective of relief from interference with Sunday rest and relaxation * * Ante at 358.
In applying the traditional test of constitutional validity of statutory classifications on equal protection grounds, the majority has not stressed that the rational basis, which is the predicate of validity, imports reasonableness as well as the absence of irrationality or illogicality. I must iterate that the avowed purpose of the Sunday Closing Law is to repress “unreasonable interference” with the opportunities of the “vast majority of the citizens” to seek respite on Sunday as a break from the “pressures of the work week”, Two Guys from Harrison, Inc. v. Furman, supra, 32 N. J. at 228. The Court there necessarily had to consider the problem hypothetically. It assumed, therefore, “as the facts may reasonably be”, that the particular items statutorily proscribed for sale on Sunday had been found by the Legislature to be the ones primarily “provocative of the problem” and that extirpating these goods from the commercial scene “will remove the undue interference with the opportunity of the [vast majority of] citizens for relief from the stress of everyday pursuits.” Id. at 228-229.
That hypothesis is no longer tenable. As demonstrated convincingly by the record, which is confirmed by actual experience, the statutory scheme, with its classification of goods removed from sale, is inefficacious in achieving the purpose of the law to afford in a meaningful way Sunday respite for a substantial segment of the people. The trial court found on substantial and competent evidence “that the *379ban on the sale of the five proscribed categories of goods both fails to advance the opportunity of the general public for recreation, diversion and leisure on Sunday, and, moreover, affirmatively impedes and interferes with that opportunity.” Vornado, Inc. v. Hyland, 148 N. J. Buyer. 343, 352 (Law Div. 1977).
The majority’s rejoinder on this crucial facet of the case is inadequate. Its treatment of the considerable evidence adduced below is somewhat captious; it is unresponsive to the point that the ban on the Sunday sales of the five categories of goods has not had a meaningful effect upon reducing “hustle and bustle” for a substantial portion of the population or that conversely removing that ban would not measurably change the Sunday scene for a large majority of people. It is no answer merely to assert that it was not shown that the prohibition of the Sunday sales of the designated class of goods was not “effective to reduce interference with the ambiance of Sunday as a day of rest and relaxation * * ante at 359; or that there is “inescapable logic that for every would-be Sunday venturer on the highways whose only purpose is to purchase or shop for one or more of the proscribed items the effect of the law is highly likely to eliminate that trip.” Ante at 360. The evidence and findings of the trial court do show, contrary to the majority’s view, “the irrationality of a legislative supposition that enough * * * [commercial] trips are obviated by the Sunday Closing Law as to substantially further the assumed legislative objective * * Id.
The legislative objective, to repeat, was to fashion for a “vast majority” of our citizens freedom from unreasonable and undue interference with their ability to find a break from the weekday routine. It is no longer permissible to conceive by stretching one’s imagination, that there are facts to support rationally and reasonably this legislative hope. In light of a made record and ordinary experience, the constitutional issue cannot any longer be relegated to the *380realm of supposition or hypothesis. The assumption of a reasonable and rational basis for this legislative approach for securing respite on Sundays has been dispelled and I would declare the law unconstitutional.
To be added to this primary thesis is another point. It ought not to be disregarded by our Court that the Sunday closing legislation does impact upon areas of personal privacy and freedom. It is true that laws of this character have been regarded as dealing with the “public health, safety, morals and welfare.” Two Guys from Harrison, Inc. v. Furman, supra, 32 N. J. at 226. The statute, however, is two-dimensional in its purpose and application. Though directed toward the conventional governmental police power concerns of the “public health and welfare”, id. at 216, the statute trenches upon areas ordinarily reserved for individual autonomy, i. e., what people should be free to do with themselves on Sunday. In this vein, it matters not that the regulatory scheme is permissive as well as restrictive. As noted in People v. Abrahams, 40 N. Y. 2d 277, 284, 386 N. Y. S. 2d 661, 665, 353 N. E. 2d 574, 578 (Ct. App. 1976), “[t]o provide a day of rest it is necessary in modern society both to permit and to prohibit.” As similarly and aptly put in Two Guys from Harrison, Inc. v. Furman, supra, 32 N. J. at 223, the statute “denounces but a part of the commercial scene and leaves untouched the right of the individual to follow recreational and other pursuits.” The focus of the statute is Sunday activity. Twenty or so years ago, when the current law was enacted, the speeialness of Sunday as a day reserved for the expression and fulfillment of individuality was keenly felt.
* • * Today Sunday is many things to’ many people. It is a day upon which the vast majority of citizens seek respite from the pressures and demands of ordinary routines. To some, it is a day for religious devotion alone. To others, whether or not members of faiths commanding religious observance, it is a secular holiday, a day for play, hobbies, recreation or relaxation. To still others, it is a combination of all of these. It is a day for family and friendly *381reunions. Most people want Sunday for themselves to do as they feel , they should, each to prepare himself in his own way to meet the demands of Monday morning.
[Two Guys from Samson, Ine. v. Furman, supra, 32 N. J. at 216],
To this it may be added that Sunday is a day for shopping for a great many people and for those who are so minded this activity, depending upon individual circumstances, is necessitous, convenient, diversionary and recreational, at bottom reflecting the myriad personal wishes and subjective choices of individuals.
An exercise of the statutory police powers, which blankets so pervasively the privacy and autonomy of individuals, must be approached critically; its effectiveness as a social tool must be ' assessed with realism. Sorbe of the reasons were sensed in a Sunday closing law case, Shag-Way Dep’t. Stores, Inc. v. Omaha, 179 Neb. 707, 712, 140 N. W. 2d 28, 31-32 (Sup. Ct. 1966):
The difficulties of classification under modern; .conditions lead us more in the direction of individual persuasion and private conscience as the proper solution of the complex problem. And it might well be said that it is not the province of the state and its subdivisions in the exercise of its police power to .invade the realm of private conscience except where it is incidental to the proper exercise of the police power.
Accord, Rutledge v. Gaylord’s Inc., 233 Ga. 694, 699-701, 213 S. E. 2d 626, 630-631 (Sup. Ct. 1975) (Gunter, J., concurring) .
I would not, therefore, be content to rest this case solely upon the grudging constitutional test of whether one can divine any conceivable state of facts which rationally supports the legislative scheme. This is the bind of case where the rigid bounds of constitutional appraisal should be loosened just because it is so difficult to unravel the weave of interests caught by the legislation. I would invoke the precepts articulated by Chief Justice Weintraub in Robinson v. Cahill, supra, 62 N. J. at 491-492:
*382* * * Mechanical approaches to the delicate problem of judicial intervention under either the equal protection or the due process clauses may only divert a court from the meritorious issue or delay consideration of it. Ultimately, a court must weigh the nature of the restraint or the denial against the apparent public justification, and decide whether the State action is arbitrary. In that process, if the circumstances sensibly so require, the court may call upon the State to demonstrate the existence of a sufficient public need for the restraint or the denial, See, for example, Jones v. Falcey, 48 N. J. 25, 39-40 (1966) ; Independent, Electricians and Electrical Contractors’ Association v. New Jersey Board of Examiners of Electrical Contractors, 48 N. J. 413, 423-427 (1967) ; Jackman v. Bodine, 55 N. J. 371, 382-383 (1970).
I have little hesitancy in concluding that the nature of the restraint embraced in the Sunday closing law is not matched by an adequate governmental justification or counterpoised by a sufficient public need.
Eor these reasons, I dissent. Justice Pashman joins in this dissent.
Sullivan and Clifford, JJ., concurring in the result.
For reversal and remandment — Chief Justice Hughes, Justices Sullivan, Clifford and Schreiber and Judge CONFOBD — 5.
For affirmance — Justices Pashman and Handler — 2.