Court Opinion

ID: 9791253
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 02:08:13.729256+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:37:34.224414
License: Public Domain

BAKES, Chief Justice,
dissenting:
The majority opinion concludes, correctly, that the rational basis test, the most lenient of all tests for equal protection analysis, is applicable to this case. Accordingly, the appropriate formulation of that test is as stated by the United States Supreme Court in Minnesota v. Clover Leaf Creamery Co., 449 U.S. 456, 101 S.Ct. 715, 66 L.Ed.2d 659 (1981). Justice Brennan, writing for a nearly unanimous court, stated:
But States are not required to convince the courts of the correctness of their legislative judgments. Rather, “those challenging the legislative judgment must convince the court that the legislative facts on which the classification is apparently based could not reasonably be conceived to be true by the governmental decisionmaker.” ...
Although parties challenging legislation under the Equal Protection Clause may introduce evidence supporting their claim that it is irrational, [citing cases] they cannot prevail so long as “it is evident from all the considerations presented to [the legislature], and those of which we may take judicial notice, that the question is at least debatable.” Id. [U.S. v. Carolene Products Co., 304 U.S. 144], at 154, 58 S.Ct. [778] at 784 [82 L.Ed. 1234 (1938)]. Where there was evidence before the legislature reasonably supporting the classification, litigants may not procure invalidation of the legislation merely by tendering evidence in court that the legislature was mistaken.
449 U.S. at 464, 101 S.Ct. at 724. See also Johnson v. Sunshine Mining, 106 Idaho 866, 684 P.2d 268 (1984). Since the Industrial Commission is not authorized to pass on the constitutionality of statutes of the Idaho legislature, the Commission had no occasion to establish a factual record to determine upon what basis the legislature might have concluded that “agent-driver[s] *1005or commission-driver[s] engaged in distributing meat products, vegetable products, fruit products, bakery products, beverages or laundry or dry cleaning services for his principal” are more in need of protection from unemployment than are other types of independent contractors. Accordingly, appellants can mount only a facial attack on the statute, there being no factual record on which to base an equal protection claim.
The decisions of the United States Supreme Court are clear that the regulation of economic activity and the distribution of economic benefits are the types of legislation which are given the broadest discretion under an equal protection clause analysis. If there is any conceivable rational basis for the legislature taking the action which it did, then we must reject the equal protection violation claim. Minnesota v. Clover Leaf Creamery Co., 449 U.S. 456,101 S.Ct. 715, 66 L.Ed.2d 659 (1981); Johnson v. Sunshine Mining, 106 Idaho 866, 684 P.2d 268 (1984).
For all we know, the legislature had before it testimony from witnesses, or information gathered by individual legislators, that there was a high degree of unemployment in the agent-driver or commission-driver business involving food or dry cleaning products. That would certainly be a rational basis for the legislature creating the exception from the general rule of non-liability for taxation for services performed by independent contractors engaged in an independently established trade or business. That would be a rational basis for the statute and would be sufficient for the statute to withstand an equal protection challenge. Minnesota v. Clover Leaf Creamery Co., 449 U.S. 456, 101 S.Ct. 715, 66 L.Ed.2d 659 (1981).
Just ten years ago, in another Department of Employment case in which we were proven wrong, this Court also held an act of the legislature unconstitutional as a violation of the equal protection clause. In Smith v. Department of Employment, 98 Idaho 43, 557 P.2d 637 (1976), this Court had held that a different exception to the Department of Employment statutes which provided that “no person shall be deemed to be unemployed while he is attending a regularly established school excluding night school ...” (emphasis added) denied equal protection because of a lack of a rational basis for the distinction between attending classes during the day and attending classes at night. The United States Supreme Court summarily reversed our decision, stating,
It was surely rational for the Idaho Legislature to conclude that daytime employment is far more plentiful than nighttime work and, consequently, that attending school during daytime hours imposes a greater restriction upon obtaining full-time employment than does attending school at night.
Idaho Department of Employment v. Smith, 434 U.S. 100, 101, 98 S.Ct. 327, 328, 54 L.Ed.2d 324 (1977).
Today’s case could well be paraphrased in the language of the Smith case. “It was surely rational for the Idaho legislature to conclude that” agent-drivers engaged in distributing food products were far more susceptible to unemployment than other agent-drivers, and therefore were in need of greater protection, and the state unemployment fund in need of contributions from the principals who employ those agent-drivers. Such a determination by the legislature, even if it were incorrect, an issue which we don’t have before us because we have no factual record, nevertheless would be a rational basis for the legislature to make its determination “if the question is at least debatable.” Minnesota v. Clover Leaf Creamery Co., 449 U.S. at 464, 101 S.Ct. at 724. Accordingly, I.C. § 72-1316(d)(2) easily survives any facial constitutional attack for denial of equal protection.
Accordingly, I would affirm the decision of the Industrial Commission.