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U.S. Court of Appeals Upholds Antiecommerce Protectionist State Law
In a recent case, Powers v. Harris, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit upheld the constitutionality of an Oklahoma statute regulating casket sales. As the statute required that, in most situations, one must be a licensed funeral director operating out of a funeral establishment in order to sell caskets, it had the effect of preventing online casket sales into Oklahoma by out of state e-tailers. Two individuals, Kim Powers and Dennis Bridges, who own a company called Memorial Concepts Online, Inc., which sells funeral merchandise over the Internet, challenged the constitutionality of the protectionist statute.
The Court of Appeals affirmed the District Court's decision upholding the constitutionality of the law. In particular, and amongst other constitutional matters, the Court of Appeals addressed the plaintiffs' argument that the statute violated the Due Process and Equal Protection clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution by stating that the Due Process and Equal Protection clauses protect distinctly different interests. The substantive component of the Due Process clause provides heightened protection against government interference with certain fundamental rights and liberties, even when the challenged regulation affects all persons equally. The essence of the Equal Protection clause is that the state must treat all those similarly situated equally and, therefore, only applies when the state treats two individuals or groups differently. In its Equal Protection analysis, the Court of Appeals used the "rational basis" test, stating that the statute needed only to be rationally related to a legitimate government interest.
However, the Court used a lower standard of the test, disagreeing with the decision in Craigmiles v. Giles, which struck a nearly identical Tennessee statute because it violated the Equal Protection and Due Process clauses. In particular, the Court disagreed with the holding in Craigmiles that protecting a discrete interest group from economic competition is not a legitimate government purpose. Rather, the Court concluded that intrastate economic protectionism is a legitimate state interest and that the Oklahoma statute is rationally related to this legitimate end. Although the Court acknowledged that the statute "may exact a needless, wasteful requirement in many cases," it deferred to the legislature, stating that it is not the position of the courts to balance the statute's advantages and disadvantages.
For a copy of the Powers decision, visit:
http://laws.lp.findlaw.com/10th/036014.html
For a copy of the Craigmiles decision, visit: