1. Massachusetts Bd. of Retirement v. Murgia, (1976)
2. Facts: Mass. had a law that provided for mandatory retirement of police officers upon reaching age 50. The stated purpose was the protection of the public by assuring that police officers are physically fit.
3. Procedural Posture: Unknown.
4. Issue: Whether classification of police officers by age is a violation of the equal protection clause.
5. Holding: No.
6. Majority Reasoning: Age is not a suspect classification for police officers, and so strict scrutiny is not triggered. Thus, the more relaxed rational basis test will be applied. Classification by age is not perfect in deciding who is physically fit to be a police officer, but perfection is not required. Age bears a rational relationship to fitness, and so the law is valid. The fact that the state does not use individual testing instead of an across-the-board mandatory retirement does not make the law irrational, only imperfect.
7. Dissent Reasoning: [Marshall] felt that the two-tier approach was too rigid because it forced the court to choose rational relationship test too often when the cases did not arise to the level of strict scrutiny. A sliding scale approach would be better, which focuses on the relative interests of the persons being discriminated against, and the legislature’s purpose.
8. Notes: In Vance v. Bradley, the court was deferential to the legislature in upholding mandatory retirement of Foreign Service personnel at age 60. Even though the classification was both under-inclusive and over-inclusive, the court stated that the burden was on the challenger to show that the legislative facts on which the classification is based could not reasonably be believed to be true by the legislature.
