Constitutional Law

Supreme Court Limits Government Employees From Bringing Certain Employment Discrimination Lawsuits

In a 6-3 decision written by Chief Justice John Roberts, the Supreme Court in Engquist v. Oregon Dep't of Agriculture held that a discrimination lawsuit against the government for engaging in “class of one” discrimination does not apply in the employment context. A “class-of-one” claim may be brought under the Equal Protection Clause when a person is treated differently by the government for arbitrary, vindictive, and malicious reasons (i.e., where there is no rational basis), but the differential treatment is not based upon protected class status (e.g., race, sex, etc.). Justice John Paul Stevens wrote the dissent, joined by Justices David Souter and Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

The majority distinguished the Court’s 2000 decision in Village of Willowbrook v. Olech, which upheld a class-of-one challenge to state legislative and regulatory action, on the grounds that the government’s action as a lawmaker is different than its actions as an employer. Chief Justice Roberts wrote that “treating similarly situated individuals differently in the employment context is par for the course.”

The dissent asserted the Court created “a new substantive rule excepting state employees from the Fourteenth Amendment’s protection against unequal and irrational treatment at the hands of the State.” Although Justice Stevens agreed that employment decisions are inherently discretionary, he wrote “there is a clear distinction between an exercise of discretion and an arbitrary decision,” and asserted that courts applying the rational review standard “can sufficiently limit these claims to only wholly unjustified employment actions.”

Update: Commentary available here.

Full post as published by ACS Blog on June 09, 2008 (boomark / email).