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Cleburne v. Cleburne Living Center, Inc.

1. Cleburne v. Cleburne Living Center, Inc., (1985)

2. Facts: A texas city denied a special use permit to a person who intended to build a 200-person home for the mentally retarded. A city ordinance gave the city the power to require a special use permit for homes for mentally retarded persons, but not for other classifications, such as boarding houses, sanitariums, nursing homes, etc. The city’s rationale was that the neighboring property owners did not want it, a junior high school was across the street, it was located on a 500 year flood plain, and there would be a lot of people living there.

3. Procedural Posture: The lower court struck it down under the “intermediate” level of review, stating that it did not “substantially” furhter an “important governmental interest.”

4. Issue: Whether the ordinance requiring a special use permit hearing for establishment of mentally retarded care homes violates equal protection, and under what standard.

5. Holding: Yes. Rational basis.

6. Majority Reasoning: [White] The general rule for equal protection is rational basis. The mentally retarded are not a class that require heightened scrutiny because they are 1. not a homogenous group, 2. they are specially protected in many ways by the legislature, and 3. most laws concerning the mentally retarded are likely to be beneficial and not based on prejudice. However, here the law appears to be motivated only by prejudice. The negative attitudes of the surrounding property owners are not a valid basis for discrimination. Also, there are no other distinguishing characteristics that are inherent to the retarded people that would require that they be treated differently with regard to the location of the home, or its size. Clearly, if other homes, such as those for the insane, or convalescent, are allowed in the same area, the law is not even rationally related to the city’s objectives because it is substantially underinclusive.

7. Concurrence Reasoning: [Stevens] felt that putting a name on the standard of review to be used was inappropriate because there is just a single continuum of standards. In some cases, certain characteristics are relevant, and in others, they are not. The court merely needs to ask what the purpose of the law is, and what the characteristics of the group are that justify the disparate treatment. [Marshall] felt that the standard should have been a heightened level of review, because of the tradition of discrimination, and the characteristic of mental retardation is often used as a proxy for reduced capacity. The majority should have admitted that it was using heightened scrutiny because this law would probably pass the extremely deferential rational basis standard of Lee Optical (i.e. “reform may take one step at a time” allows the city to require the special use permits for mentally retarded persons but not for other similar classes).

8. Notes: In James v. Valtierra, Justice Black’s majority opinion rejected an equal protection challenge to a California constitutional requirement that “no low rent housing project shall hereafter be developed by any state public body” without prior approval in local referendum. Even though the law had the practical effect of disadvantaging low-income persons, the law passed the rational basis standard. Marshall vigorously dissented stating that the law was on its face invidious discrimination against the poor, as suspect class which demanded exacting scrutiny.

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