Court Opinion

ID: 9686117
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 15:30:27.844029+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:18:15.170782
License: Public Domain

WAHL, Justice,
concurring specially.
' I agree that Minnesota Statute § 256B.15 (1984) would pass muster under both Minnesota and federal constitutional standards. I am concerned, however, that footnote 2 in the majority opinion perpetuates confusion and continues a “battle of footnotes” as to whether the rational basis standard under Minnesota law is identical to the federal rational basis standard. By footnote in a 1981 opinion, Wegan v. Village of Lexington, 309 N.W.2d 273, 281 n. 14 (Minn.1981), we indicated the rational basis standard under the Minnesota constitution differed from the federal standard. By footnote in 1982, in AFSCME Councils 6, 14, 65 & 96 v. Sundquist, 338 N.W.2d 560, 570 n. 12 (Minn.1983), we stated that the federal and Minnesota state standards were “coextensive.” By footnote in 1984, in McGuire v. C & L Restaurant, Inc., 346 N.W.2d 605, 613 n. 10 (Minn.1984), we again declared that the state and federal standards are different. In today’s opinion we shift our position with still another footnote. The result is that the legal community is left not knowing which statement of the relationship between the state and federal rational basis standards, if any, is to be given precedential value.
To say that the wording of the rational basis test in Minnesota case law merely represents a different way of . stating an identical federal test, in my view, distorts and minimizes significant distinctions in the manner in which Minnesota cases have applied rational basis analysis. The differences between the two tests as they have been applied are more than semantic differences.
The federal rational basis test demands: (1) a legitimate purpose for the challenged legislation; and (2) that it was reasonable for the lawmakers to believe that use of the challenged classification would promote that purpose. Western & Southern Life Insurance Co. v. State Board of Equalization, 451 U.S. 648, 668, 101 S.Ct. 2070, 2083, 68 L.Ed.2d 514 (1981). The Minnesota rational basis test requires: (1) a genuine and substantial distinction between those inside and outside the challenged class; (2) a connection between the distinctive needs of the class and the statutory remedy; and (3) a legitimate purpose for the statute at issue. Guilliams v. Commissioner of Revenue, 299 N.W.2d 138, 142 (Minn.1980).
Review under the federal test traditionally gives great deference to the lawmaker. It is not required that the challenged law be wise or provident, see, Williamson v. Lee Optical Co., 348 U.S. 483, 484-86, 75 S.Ct. 461, 462-63, 99 L.Ed. 563 (1955), nor that the evidence relied on by the lawmakers be empirically correct, Minnesota v. Clover Leaf Creamery Co., 449 U.S. 456, 463-64, 101 S.Ct. 715, 723-24, 66 L.Ed.2d 659 (1980), rehearing denied, 450 U.S. 1027, 101 S.Ct. 1735, 68 L.Ed.2d 222 (1981), nor that the objective asserted for the law in fact formed the basis of the legislative decision. United States Railroad Retire*772merit Board v. Fritz, 449 U.S. 166, 179, 101 S.Ct. 453, 461, 66 L.Ed.2d 368 (1980). A classification has been upheld “if any state of facts reasonably can be conceived that would sustain it.” Allied Stores v. Bowers, 358 U.S. 522, 528, 79 S.Ct. 437, 441, 3 L.Ed.2d 480 (1959). In other words, if the lawmakers or the reviewing court can hypothesize some conceivable relationship between the challenged classification and the legitimate state purpose behind the law, it will be hpheld. See Clover Leaf Creamery, 449 U.S. at 463-64, 101 S.Ct. at 723-24.
By contrast, while this court has not written at length explaining what is required by Minnesota rational basis analysis, our cases applying rational basis review demonstrate that ours is a more substantive review than that under the federal constitution. A commentator who has carefully examined our cases applying this analysis has shown that this court is unwilling to hypothesize a rational basis to justify a classification, as the most deferential standard of review mandates, but instead closely scrutinizes the asserted justification for a challenged classification. This commentator concludes that we have demanded a reasonable connection be shown between the actual, and not just theoretical, effect of the challenged classification and the statutory goals. Deborah McKnight, Minnesota Rational Relation Test: The Lochner Monster in the 10,000 Lakes, 10 Wm. Mitchell L.Rev. 709, 726 (1984), analyzing the cases of Wegan, supra., 309 N.W.2d 213 (Minn.1981); Nelson v. Peterson, 313 N.W.2d 580 (Minn.1981); and Thompson v. Estate of Petroff 319 N.W.2d 400 (Minn.1982).
We should recognize that a difference exists between the federal and the Minnesota rational basis analysis, and consider whether we wish to continue to articulate and apply an independent Minnesota constitutional standard of rational basis review. In my view we should.1
In the first place, we would have difficulty following the federal standard even if we wished to do so. It is unclear what level of scrutiny the federal rational basis standard actually represents. While the language of the opinions of the United States Supreme Court emphasizes that rational basis is an extremely deferential standard of review, the Court has, on occasion, invalidated legislation as irrational by analyses that depart from deference and appear to constitute much more substantive levels of review.2 Secondly, even if *773the federal standard were firmly established at this time, I would question whether we should harness interpretation of our state constitutional guarantees of equal protection to federal standards and shift the meaning of Minnesota’s constitution every time federal case law changes.3 Such a result would undermine the integrity and independence of our state constitution and degrade the special role of this court, as the highest court of a sovereign state, to respond to the needs of Minnesota citizens. This court’s increasing use of a more substantive standard of rational basis review is, in my view, a healthy trend towards realism and responsibility. By undertaking a serious and genuine judicial inquiry into the correspondence between the means to a statutory goal and the goal itself, I believe we have properly decided that our constitutional function of providing protection against arbitrary and unreasonable discrimination in our state’s laws should be governed by realistic, not strained or wholly fictional analyses. Those defending a statute should bear the burden of factually demonstrating a relation between the classification and the legislative purpose. There should be no judicial deference based on imaginable supporting facts or conceivable legislative purposes that are totally unrealistic.4 To insist on engaging in judicial review in the real world rather than in never-never land is not to impermissibly substitute our own values and policy judgments for those of the legislature but to move toward realism and protection of constitutional rights, this court’s proper function.

. There is no impediment to this court explicitly adopting a stricter standard of equal protection review under our state constitution. Clover Leaf Creamery, 449 U.S. at 461, 101 S.Ct. at 722.

. The decision in the case of City of Cleburne v. Cleburne Living Center, — U.S. -, 105 S.Ct. 3249, 87 L.Ed.2d 313 (1985), for example, is only the most recent example of this phenomenon and creates substantial uncertainty about the intensity of review embodied in the federal rational basis standard. In Cleburne, the Court held that laws treating mentally retarded persons differently from other persons would be reviewed by the rational basis standard. Id. 105 S.Ct. at 3255-58. The Court then overturned as irrational the application of a municipal zoning ordinance that required a special use permit for the establishment of homes for the mentally retarded, but not for other care or multiple dwelling facilities. Id. 105 S.Ct. at 3259. The City Council had denied a special use permit to the Cleburne Living Center, who sought to establish a group home for mentally retarded men and women. In defending the zoning ordinance, the City presented numerous arguments justifying special treatment of facilities for the mentally retarded that should have satisfied the “any conceivable basis” standard of review. The Court responded to these arguments by closely scrutinizing the facts in the legislative record and by challenging the City’s reasoning. The Court in Cleburne disputed the empirical bases of the lawmakers’ judgment, questioned their objectives, and inquired into the actual, and not just the theoretical, effect of the challenged ordinance. The Court concluded the City had no rational basis for believing a group home would pose a special threat, but instead had required a special use permit out of irrational prejudice against the mentally retarded. Id. 105 S.Ct. at 3259.
The vigor of the Court’s analysis in Cleburne, as well as the result of the case, indicates the Court applied a more substantive standard of review under the guise of the traditional federal rational basis test. The existence of this unar-ticulated heightened standard was pointed out by Justice Marshall in dissent, who terms the majority’s analysis “intermediate review * * * masquerading in rational basis language.” Id. at 3265, n. 4 (Marshall, J., dissenting). A discus*773sion of the Court’s history of applying a heightened standard of review in cases where its express rationale calls for rational basis review is Comment, Rational Basis Review Under the Equal Protection Clause — A Double Standard Review — City of Cleburne, Texas v. Cleburne Living Center, 55 Miss.L.J. 329 (1986).

. Scholars disagree as to the wisdom of tying a state court’s interpretation of a state constitutional requirement of equal protection to the United States Supreme Court’s interpretation of what is required by a similar provision in the federal constitution. Compare, e.g., McKnight, supra., (favoring federal-state uniformity) and Kirby, Expansive Judicial Review of Economic Regulation Under State Constitutions: The Case for Realism, 48 Tenn.L.Rev. 241 (1981) (favoring independent, more substantive state standards).

. This "realistic" approach to rational basis review is supported by respected commentators, such as Gerald Gunther, see Forward to the Supreme Court, 1971 Term, 86 Harv.L.Rev. 1, 21 (1972), and by the supreme courts of other states, including California and Alaska. See, e.g., Isakson v. Rickey, 550 P.2d 359 (Ala.1976); Brown v. Merlo, 8 Cal.3d 855, 506 P.2d 212, 106 Cal.Rptr. 388 (1973).