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Revere v. Canulette5/15/1998
aving a representative make a personal appearance at the office of the public records custodian to inspect and copy the records he seeks.
Plaintiff also argues that La.R.S. 44:31.1 is a violation of the equal protection and due process clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.
The Equal Protection Clause allows the States considerable leeway to enact legislation that may appear to affect similarly situated people differently. Legislatures are ordinarily assumed to have acted constitutionally. Under traditional equal protection principles, distinctions need only be drawn in such a manner as to bear some rational relationship to a legitimate state end. Classifications are set aside only if they are based solely on reasons totally unrelated to the pursuit of the State's goals and only if no grounds can be conceived to justify them. [The Supreme Court] ha departed from traditional equal protection principles only when the challenged statute places burdens upon "suspect classes" of persons or on a constitutional right that is deemed to be "fundamental."
Clements v. Fashing, 457 U.S. 957, 962-63, 102 S.Ct. 2836, 2843, 73 L.Ed.2d 508 (1982) (citations omitted).
With respect to the due process clause, the United States Supreme Court has stated that "the judiciary may not sit as a superlegislature to Judge the wisdom or desirability of legislative policy determinations made in areas that neither affect fundamental rights nor proceed along suspect lines." City of New Orleans v. Dukes, 427 U.S. 297, 303, 96 S.Ct. 2513, 2517, 49 L.Ed.2d 511 (1976). A state is free to enact laws to protect against what are found to be injurious practices in its internal commercial and business affairs, so long as the laws do not run afoul of some specific federal constitutional prohibition, or of some valid federal law. Ferguson v. Skrupa, 372 U.S. 726, 730-31, 83 S.Ct. 1028, 1031, 10 L.Ed.2d 93 (1963). If the regulation has a rational relationship to the state's objective, the law does not violate the due process clause of the United States Constitution. Williamson v. Lee Optical, Inc., 348 U.S. 483, 491, 75 S.Ct. 461, 466, 99 L.Ed. 563 (1955); State v. Brown, 648 So.2d at 877.
Because no suspect classification, federally recognized fundamental right, or federal constitutional provision is involved, we review La.R.S. 44:31.1 under the rational basis standard. We believe the statute rests on a rational predicate. This provision furthers the state's interest in maintaining the integrity of the public records and facilitating the efficient and effective preservation of the public records. By limiting the number of requests to which the custodian of the public records must respond, particularly in those situations when the information requested is not needed by the inmate for purposes of seeking post-conviction relief, the statute seeks to ensure that an inmate receives all the information necessary to facilitate his right of access to the courts for redress of grievances, while at the same time reducing the volume of repetitive and unnecessary requests. Thus, we conclude that the denial of plaintiff's claims in 95-14940-C under La.R.S. 44:31.1 is not a violation of either the equal protection clause or due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.
ASSIGNMENT OF ERROR NUMBER TWO
On appeal, plaintiff argues that consolidation of civil docket number 94-13866-E with civil docket numbers 95-13040-D and 95-14940-C was improper because the trial court had previously rendered a final judgment in civil docket number 94-13866-E. We agree.
On September 23, 1996, plaintiff filed a pleading
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