Today in Supreme Court History: July 1, 1985

7/1/1985: Cleburne v. Cleburne Living Center, Inc. is decided.

Comments

[Dan Schiavetta]

Cleburne v. Cleburne Living Center, 473 U.S. 432 (decided July 1, 1985): Equal Protection violated by refusing to grant permit to build group home for intellectually disabled (rational basis review; superseded by 1988 Fair Housing Act amendment that added people with mental disabilities to list of protected persons)

Brnovich v. Democratic National Committee, 594 U.S. — (decided July 1, 2021): Voting Rights Act not violated by new laws barring ballot collection and out-of-precinct voting; neither had racially discriminatory purpose; Alito’s opinion upholds district court finding that there was no disparate impact; no evidence of any “fraud” or “intimidation” these restrictions were meant to combat and Alito assumes such a showing is unnecessary

Planned Parenthood v. Danforth, 428 U.S. 2 (decided July 1, 1976): struck down law requiring either parental or spousal consent for abortion

Bellotti v. Baird, 428 U.S. 132 (decided July 1, 1976): certifies to Massachusetts’s highest court the question of whether Massachusetts statute requiring parental consent for abortion conflicted with state law holding that some minors are capable of giving informed consent (the state court held that it did not, and the statute was struck down in Bellotti v. Baird, 1979, not on Equal Protection grounds but because it burdened the right to an abortion)

Americans for Prosperity Foundation v. Bonta, 594 U.S. — (decided July 1, 2021): striking down on Free Association grounds California law requiring charities to send to Attorney General IRS forms listing donor information; purpose is to prevent abuse of not-for-profit laws but in fact did not help in those efforts

Allen v. Illinois, 478 U.S. 364 (decided July 1, 1986): proceedings under which person is declared “sexually dangerous” (resulting in warnings to community etc.) are not “criminal” so there is no Fifth Amendment privilege; 5 – 4 decision

CBS v. FCC, 453 U.S. 367 (decided July 1, 1981): any candidate for federal office who makes it onto the ballot must be given chance to buy broadcast time (suit was brought by Carter-Mondale campaign which had been denied access)

Mississippi University for Women v. Hogan, 458 U.S. 718 (decided July 1, 1982): state school (here, a nursing school) can’t have single-sex admission policy

United States v. Winstar Corp., 518 U.S. 839 (decided July 1, 1996): statute dealing with savings and loan crisis violated Contracts Clause because it changed valuation terms for failed banks to the detriment of successor banks who had agreed to take over

School District of Grand Rapids v. Ball, 473 U.S. 373 (decided July 1, 1985): Establishment Clause violated by program putting public school teachers in religious schools to teach secular topics (overruled by Agostini v. Felton, 1997)

[F.D. Wolf]

Winstar did not implicate the Contract Clause, which only restricts the states, not the federal government. In brief, government regulators, realizing they didn’t have enough money to bail out all the failing thrifts, encouraged healthy thrifts to bail out the failing ones, telling them they could count costs paid over fair market value of assets as “goodwill” that would count towards their minimum capitalization requirements. In 1988, however, Congress passed a law disallowing the counting of this “goodwill” towards capitalization requirements. As a result, some thrifts were seized and liquidated for failing to maintain minimum capitalization. Thrifts sued the government for breach of contract.

The government interposed an “unmistakability defense”, that promises not to regulate in the future, a surrender of its sovereign powers, must be unmistakably clear. Alternatively, the government argued that, even if it breached its contract, it had the sovereign authority to do so, and that its exercise of sovereign powers could not form the basis for a breach of contract suit. The court rejected these defenses and ruled for the thrifts.

[Dan Schiavetta]

Thanks.

My (ultra-brief) summary of facts was accurate as far as it went, but the legal rationale was incorrect. Will rephrase.

[F.D. Wolf]

I certainly hope I didn't appear to be nitpicking. Your daily summaries are a service and joy to this site, and, as always, many thanks!

[Dan Schiavetta]

It was a rather large "nit".

Hardly any of these Court cases deal with my areas of the law, I'm almost always reading them for the first time, so I'm glad to have people like you point out mistakes. It makes my summaries better and you also are providing an important service.

[John F. Carr]

The Massachusetts parental consent law case was decided initially by a three judge district court. A decision from such a court can be appealed to the Supreme Court. The use of such courts has diminished, unfortunately. I would rather have controversial and important issues decided by three judges rather than one.

[Dan Schiavetta]

yes

[SMP0328]

Cleburne was not superseded by the 1988 FHA amendment; that was closer to a codification.

I assume Danforth and Bellotti are no longer good law after Dobbs. Lower federal courts likely would apply the earlier decisions to strike down a parental consent law, but then SCOTUS would overrule those decisions based on Dobbs.

[Dan Schiavetta]

Maybe "codification" is a better term.

[Dan Schiavetta]

A girl from a conservative family is very likely to hide a pregnancy from her parents and get an abortion secretly. In fact I was the trial lawyer in a widely-reported breach of confidentiality case where my client, in calling the house to check on the effects of a Rh-incompatilibity injection, accidentally spoke to the girl's mother who figured out what had happened. The result was an award of punitive damages sustained on appeal. It was a clear breach of confidentiality (a tort in any state) but I wonder how the legal situation would have been different in the days of mandated parental consent.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

“A girl from a conservative family is very likely to hide a pregnancy from her parents and get an abortion secretly.”

So the parental consent law wasn’t narrowly tailored. It should not apply to conservative families, but girls with liberal families should still be required to tell their parents.

[John F. Carr]

Five or ten years ago I read an article about precision advertising driven by internet data collection. A father called up a big company angry that they had sent pregnancy-related ads to his teenage daughter. He later had to apologize. Corporate America knew about the girls's pregnancy before her father did. After that companies made ads less obviously targeted. Towels and shoes and hair bands and baby clothes, not all baby supplies.

[John F. Carr]

I found the appellate decision in your case and I think you understated the culpability. I thought you meant the nurse didn't know who the person on the phone was. When I was a kid and phones were shared by the household a caller thought I was my father. In your case the nurse knew she was talking with a different person about an adult's medical treatment. That she called the mother instead of the daughter was not her fault. Management had sloppy procedures for recording phone numbers. My car mechanic does better. But she could have asked for a call back from the daughter instead of discussing a sensitive subject.

My current phone number used to belong to a young woman. I got a message from a woman's health practice asking for a call back. No details. It could have been about a pregnancy or abortion. It could have been a debt collection attempt. I had a dozen phone numbers listed as "some debt collector" in my contacts list because so many creditors were chasing after her. They didn't say, and they aren't supposed to say.

[Dan Schiavetta]

Requirement is not necessary because they would tell them anyway. Because they’re liberal.

(Wait — have I been punk’d here?)

[Dan Schiavetta]

Ha!

[The Margrave of Azilia]

Why would a pregnant woman need an 80s rock group? Or were you referring to a different kind of hair band?

[Dan Schiavetta]

Akk! I’ve been (almost) found out!

My memory is hazy but I remember it being my fault for not hunting down the paper given to that girl which showed the correct number to be called.

It was my first ever jury trial to verdict. And it showed how piss poor my apprenticeship had been as a trial lawyer. The first summation I ever saw was the one I gave . . . and it was in that case !