 |
 |
to fill out a simple form to connect to Personal Injury Lawyers in your area.
|
|
|
|
|
Revere v. Canulette5/15/1998
on because of birth, age, sex, culture, physical condition, or political ideas or affiliations.
This provision provides the same protection (together with some additional protections) of the lights of individual citizens, as does the United States Constitution. This guarantee mandates that state laws affect alike all persons and interests similarly situated. State v. Brown, 94-1290 (La. 1/17/95), 648 So.2d 872, 876.
If a law classifies individuals on any basis other than those specifically enumerated in Article I, Section 3 of the Louisiana Constitution, the law will be upheld unless a member of the disadvantaged class shows the law does not suitably further any appropriate state interest. Parker v. Cappel, 500 So.2d 771, 774 (La. 1987).
The recent Louisiana Supreme Court case of Moore v. RLCC Technologies, Inc., 95-2621 (La. 2/28/96), 668 So.2d 1135, contains a detailed Discussion of the analysis to be applied in equal protection cases. In Moore, the plaintiff, the widow of a worker who was killed while working for a statutory employer, challenged the exemption of statutory employers from wrongful death suits as a violation of the equal protection clause. The Court first discussed each type of protection provided by each sentence of Article 1, Section 3 as follows:
The first three sentences in Section 3 establish different levels of review or scrutiny of the Legislature's actions. The first sentence sets forth a general rule against discrimination and empowers the courts to expand the equal protection guarantee to other types of classifications besides those expressly enumerated thereafter. The second sentence uses absolute language, permitting no discrimination with respect to race or religion. The third sentence prohibits arbitrary, capricious or unreasonable discrimination with respect to six enumerated classifications, but provides no express guidance as to the appropriate level of review. Lee Hargrave, The Louisiana State Constitution, A Reference Guide 24 (1991).
The third sentence of Section 3 was addressed in Sibley v. Board of Supervisors of La. State Univ., Agriculture and Mechanical College, 477 So.2d 1094 (La. 1985). In Sibley, this court held that a legislative classification between medical malpractice victims with slight or medium class injuries, who were entitled to full recovery of damages, and seriously injured medical malpractice victims, who were only entitled to recover a limited portion of their damages, constituted classification based on physical condition. Accordingly, this court held that when such a classification is under review, the classification itself presents a prima facie case of unconstitutionality, and the burden is on the proponents of the statute to prove that the legislative classification substantially furthers an important governmental objective.
La. Const. art. I, § 3 thus sets up a spectrum for analyzing equal protection challenges based on legislative classifications. At one extreme are laws that classify individuals based on race or religious beliefs. Such laws are repudiated completely. In the middle of the spectrum are laws that fall within the express prohibition set forth in the third sentence of La. Const. art. I, § 3, which limits the Legislature's power to classify individuals based on the six enumerated grounds. When a statutory classification is based on any of these enumerated grounds, the classification is a prima facie denial of equal protection. Because the ordinary presumption that statutes are constitutional no longer applies, there is a reversal of the ordinary placement of the burden of proof on the party asserting unconstitutionality. The burden is shifted to the proponent of the
Page 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Louisiana Personal Injury Attorneys
Personal Injury Lawyers
|
| |
to fill out a simple form to connect to Personal Injury Lawyers in your area.
|
|