Equal protection classification
Definitions from Case Law · United States Supreme Court
Definitions from Case Law
From 220 U.S. 61 - Lindsley v. Natural Carbonic Gas Co. · 1911Most cited · 3,312 citing opinions
The rules by which this contention must be tested, as is shown by repeated decisions of this court, are these: 1. The equal-protection clause of the 14th Amendment does not take from the state the power to classify in the adoption of police laws, but admits of the exercise of a wide scope of discretion in that regard, and avoids what is done only when it is without any reasonable basis, and therefore is purely arbitrary.
2.
A classification having some reasonable basis does not offend against that clause merely because it is not made with mathematical nicety, or because in practice it results in some inequality.
3.
When the classification in such a law is called in question, if any state of facts reasonably can be conceived that would sustain it, the existence of that state of facts at the time the law was enacted must be assumed.
4.
One who assails the classification in such a law must carry the burden of showing that it does not rest upon any reasonable basis, but is essentially arbitrary.
How the Supreme Court has restated “Equal protection classification”
Each Supreme Court definition of “Equal protection classification,” sized by how often later courts cited it. “Change” is measured by wording overlap with earlier definitions — a rough signal, not a semantic judgment.
How often courts cite the cases defining “Equal protection classification”
Court decisions citing the 3 opinions that defined “Equal protection classification” — 3,597 in all, by decade. Counts are citations to the defining cases as a whole, not verified uses of the term. The dip in the most recent years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the latest years.
All 3 definitions, chronological · 1911–1937
The equal protection of the laws requires laws of like application to all similarly situated; but in selecting some classes and leaving out others the legislature, while it keeps within this principle, is, and may be, allowed wide discretion.
the classification 'must be reasonable, not arbitrary, and must rest upon some ground of difference having a fair and substantial relation to the object of the legislation, so that all persons similarly circumstanced shall be treated alike.' That is to say, mere difference is not enough; the attempted classification 'must always rest upon some difference which bears a reasonable and just relation to the act in respect to which the classification is proposed, and can never be made arbitrarily and without any such basis.