City of Cleburne v. Cleburne Living Center, Inc.

City of Cleburne v. Cleburne Living Center, Inc.
L. Ed. 2d 313
Holding
Possessing an intellectual disability is not a quasi-suspect classification calling for a heightened level of scrutiny, but nevertheless, the requirement of a special use permit for a proposed group home for people with intellectual disabilities violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment because no rational basis for the discriminatory classification could be shown, and in the absence of such justification, the classification appeared to be based on irrational prejudice against the intellectually disabled.
Court membership
Chief Justice Warren E. Burger Associate Justices William J. Brennan Jr. · Byron White Thurgood Marshall · Harry Blackmun Lewis F. Powell Jr. · William Rehnquist John P. Stevens · Sandra Day O'Connor
Case opinions
Majority	White, joined by Burger, Powell, Rehnquist, Stevens, O'Connor
Concurrence	Stevens, joined by Burger
Concur/dissent	Marshall, joined by Brennan, Blackmun
Laws applied
U.S. Const. amend. XIV

City of Cleburne v. Cleburne Living Center, Inc., 473 U.S. 432 (1985), was a

.

In 1980, Cleburne Living Center, Inc. (CLC) submitted a

rights of CLC and their potential residents.

Applying

.

In July 1980, Jan Hannah purchased a building at 201 Featherston Street, within the city limits of Cleburne, with the intent of leasing it to CLC so that they could operate it as a group home for intellectually disabled people. The home was intended to house a total of thirteen mentally disabled men and women. CLC staff would supervise the residents at all times. The house itself had four bedrooms and two baths, with another half bath to be added.

The city of Cleburne informed CLC that a special use permit would be required for a group home such as this, and so CLC submitted the permit application. The city's zoning regulations required that a special use permit, renewable annually, was required for the construction of "[hospitals] for the insane or feeble-minded, or alcoholics or drug addicts, or penal or correctional institutions" (436). The city had classified the group home as a "hospital for the feebly minded" (437). The Planning and Zoning Commission denied the request, and CLC's Hannah, Bobbie Northrop, and David Southern moved their request to the City Council.^[1]

The city of Cleburne held a public hearing on the meeting, after which they denied the special use permit to CLC on a vote of 3 to 1.

After their special use permit was denied CLC filed suit in

against the city, alleging that the zoning ordinance was invalid on its face and as applied because it discriminated against intellectually disabled people in violation of the equal protection rights of CLC and its potential residents. The Federal District Court found that if the potential residents of CLC's group home had not been intellectually disabled the permit would have been granted. However, they upheld the city's ordinance and actions as constitutional. The District Court held that intellectually disabled people were neither a suspect nor a quasi-suspect class and therefore the rational basis test should be applied. The court held that the ordinance was rationally related to the city's legitimate interest in "the legal responsibility of CLC and its residents, . . . the safety and fears of residents in the adjoining neighborhood," and the number of people to be housed in the home.

The

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Supreme Court opinion

Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment

.

Unlike most cases where the Court uses rational basis review, the Court did not accept the city's claimed interest. Some commentators have referred to this investigation into the actual reasons for passing the law as "rational basis with bite".[2]

The Court declined to grant intellectually disabled people status as a suspect or quasi-suspect class because they are a "large and diversified group" amply protected by state and federal legislatures. Therefore, any legislation that distinguishes between intellectually disabled people and others must be rationally related to a legitimate government interest in order to withstand equal protection review. This is also known as

.

Justice Marshall, dissenting in part and concurring in the result of invalidating the statute, argued that due to the history of discrimination against intellectually disabled people, the Court should employ a higher standard of scrutiny (see Equal Protection scrutiny) when examining laws that regulated those with mental disabilities.

Although the Supreme Court declined to classify those with mental disabilities as a suspect or quasi-suspect class, the decision is one of the few instances in which the Supreme Court has held government legislation to be unconstitutional when it applied a

.

See also

• List of United States Supreme Court cases, volume 473
• Department of Agriculture v. Moreno (1973)
• Romer v. Evans (1996)

• Text of City of Cleburne v. Cleburne Living Center, Inc., 473 U.S. 432 (1985) is available from: Findlaw Google Scholar Justia Library of Congress