Also known as: minimum rationality tests · rational basis test · rational basis review · rational basis scrutiny
Written by attorneys — see sources below.
A standard of judicial review under which a law or classification is upheld if it bears a rational relationship to a legitimate governmental interest. Courts applying this test defer heavily to legislative judgments and uphold measures that are underinclusive or overinclusive so long as any conceivable legitimate purpose supports the classification.
Marcus Mitchell, a 51-year-old police officer, challenges a state statute requiring retirement at age 50. The state defends the rule as advancing public safety by ensuring a physically capable force. The court upholds the statute because the age limit is rationally related to that legitimate objective even though Mitchell remains fit.
Mohan Malhotra, a skilled worker from a majority-Muslim country, sues after an executive order bars entry from several such nations. The order cites national security risks to infrastructure projects. The court sustains the order because it states a legitimate security purpose and is rationally connected to that goal.
Monarch Pharmaceuticals, an out-of-state insurer, challenges a state tax that favors domestic companies. The legislature claims the differential promotes local economic development. The court invalidates the tax because the distinction lacks any rational relationship to a legitimate governmental interest.
Since 1955 Alabama has maintained a domestic preference tax statute that taxes the gross premiums received by insurance companies on policies issued in the State. Foreign life insurance companies pay a tax at a rate of three percent, and foreign companies selling other types of insurance pay at a rate of four percent. All domestic insurance companies pay at a rate of only one percent. The statute permits domestic insurers to exclude from taxable premium income all premiums received from policies issued in other States in which they are not licensed. Foreign insurers may reduce but never eliminate the tax differential by investing prescribed percentages of their worldwide assets in specified Alabama assets and securities. Appellants are a group of insurance companies incorporated outside Alabama. Metropolitan Life Insurance Co. represents the life insurance claimants, and Prudential Property and Casualty Co. represents the nonlife claimants. In 1981 appellants filed claims with the Alabama Department of Insurance seeking refunds of taxes paid for the tax years 1977 through 1980. They contended that the domestic preference tax statute as applied to them violated the Equal Protection Clause. The Commissioner of Insurance denied all claims on July 8, 1981. Appellants appealed to the Circuit Court for Montgomery County. The court consolidated the appeals and selected two lead cases. On cross-motions for summary judgment the court ruled on May 17, 1982 that the statute was constitutional. After the Court of Civil Appeals affirmed the finding of legitimate state purposes but remanded for an evidentiary hearing on rational relationship, appellants waived their right to an evidentiary hearing. The Alabama Supreme Court ultimately entered judgment for the State and intervenors. The Supreme Court of the United States noted probable jurisdiction in 1984. It consolidated the cases and heard argument on October 31, 1984.
View caseMaria Morales, a state judge over the statutory retirement age, contests a constitutional provision mandating retirement at 70. The state asserts the rule preserves judicial vigor and public confidence. The court sustains the provision because the age cutoff is rationally related to those legitimate objectives.
Missouri state judges Ellis Gregory, Jr., and Anthony P. Nugent, Jr., were appointed to their positions by the Governor under the state's Non-Partisan Court Plan. Gregory served as an associate circuit judge for the Twenty-first Judicial Circuit, while Nugent sat on the Missouri Court of Appeals for the Western District. Both judges, along with two others, became subject to a mandatory retirement requirement upon reaching age seventy under Article V, Section 26 of the Missouri Constitution. They had each been retained in office through retention elections in which they ran unopposed. In 1990, the judges filed a lawsuit against Governor John D. Ashcroft in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri. The complaint alleged that the mandatory retirement provision violated the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 and the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The Governor responded with a motion to dismiss the action. The district court granted the motion and dismissed the complaint. On appeal, the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit affirmed the district court's decision in a 1990 ruling reported at 898 F. 2d 598. The Supreme Court of the United States granted certiorari in the case later that year. The Age Discrimination in Employment Act had been amended in 1974 to include states and their political subdivisions as employers. The Act's definition of employee contained exclusions for elected officials, their personal staff, appointees on the policymaking level, and immediate advisers.
View caseMelissa Mills sues her assailant under a federal statute creating a civil remedy for gender-motivated violence. Congress relied on the Commerce Clause and Section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment. The court invalidates the remedy because gender classifications receive only rational basis review and Congress identified no pattern of irrational state discrimination.
In September 1994 Christy Brzonkala enrolled as a student at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. Within thirty minutes of meeting fellow students Antonio Morrison and James Crawford, both members of the varsity football team, Brzonkala alleges that the two men assaulted and repeatedly raped her. Morrison allegedly told Brzonkala after the attack that she had better not have any diseases. He later announced in a dormitory dining room that he liked to get girls drunk and made other vulgar remarks about women. Brzonkala became severely emotionally disturbed and depressed after the incident. She sought assistance from a university psychiatrist who prescribed antidepressant medication. She stopped attending classes and withdrew from the university. In early 1995 she filed a complaint against Morrison and Crawford under the university's Sexual Assault Policy. Virginia Tech conducted a hearing under its Sexual Assault Policy and a second hearing under its Abusive Conduct Policy. The first found Morrison guilty of sexual assault and suspended him for two semesters. The second hearing again found him guilty but changed the offense description to using abusive language. University officials later set aside the punishment. In December 1995 Brzonkala sued Morrison, Crawford, and Virginia Tech in the United States District Court for the Western District of Virginia. Her complaint alleged that the attack violated 42 U.S.C. §13981, the civil remedy provision of the Violence Against Women Act of 1994, which creates a federal cause of action for compensatory and punitive damages against persons who commit crimes of violence motivated by gender. She also asserted Title IX claims against the university. The district court dismissed the Title IX claims for failure to state a claim. It also dismissed the §13981 claim on the ground that Congress lacked authority to enact the provision under either the Commerce Clause or Section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment. A divided panel of the Fourth Circuit reversed in part, but the en banc Fourth Circuit affirmed the district court's conclusion that Congress lacked constitutional authority to enact §13981. The Supreme Court granted certiorari to determine the constitutionality of the civil remedy provision.
View caseMiguel Mendoza, a student in a low-wealth district, challenges the state's property-tax-based school funding system. The system produces large disparities between districts. The court upholds the scheme because wealth is not a suspect class and the funding method is rationally related to the legitimate interest in local control of education.
In the summer of 1968 Mexican-American parents whose children attended elementary and secondary schools in the Edgewood Independent School District in San Antonio Texas brought a class action. They sued on behalf of schoolchildren throughout the state who were members of minority groups or who were poor and resided in school districts having a low property tax base. Named as defendants were the State Board of Education the Commissioner of Education the State Attorney General and the Bexar County Board of Trustees. The complaint was filed in the United States District Court for the Western District of Texas. A three-judge court was impaneled in January 1969. The Texas system of financing public education originated with the state's first constitution in 1845. It evolved through constitutional amendments permitting local school districts to levy ad valorem taxes for school buildings and maintenance. These local revenues were supplemented by distributions from the state's Permanent School Fund established in 1854 and the Available School Fund. In the late 1940s the legislature enacted the Minimum Foundation School Program. Under the program the state supplies approximately 80 percent of the cost of teacher salaries operating expenses and transportation. Each district contributes the remaining 20 percent through a Local Fund Assignment. The assignment is calculated by an economic index reflecting relative taxpaying ability. Every district also levies additional local property taxes beyond the assignment to supplement its foundation grant. For the 1967-1968 school year the Edgewood Independent School District had an average assessed property value of $5960 per pupil and a median family income of $4686. It raised $26 per pupil through local taxation at a rate of $1.05 per $100 of assessed valuation. It received $222 per pupil from the Foundation Program and obtained $108 in federal funds for a total of $356 per pupil. By comparison the Alamo Heights Independent School District had an assessed property value exceeding $49000 per pupil and a median family income of $8001. It raised $333 per pupil locally at a rate of $0.85 per $100 received $225 from the Foundation Program and $36 in federal funds for a total of $594 per pupil. Similar disparities in per-pupil expenditures existed throughout the state. They were largely attributable to differences in the amount of taxable property within each district. In December 1971 the three-judge District Court rendered judgment holding the Texas school finance system unconstitutional under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The State appealed. The Supreme Court noted probable jurisdiction in 1972 to consider the constitutional questions presented.
View caseAge is not a suspect or quasi-suspect class, so courts apply the minimum rationality test. A law survives if it is rationally related to a legitimate governmental purpose.
Supporting sources
No. Laws may be underinclusive or overinclusive and still survive. Courts uphold a classification so long as it is rationally related to any conceivable legitimate purpose.
Supporting sources
A zoning ordinance fails only if it is arbitrary or lacks any rational relationship to public health, safety, or general welfare. Courts apply deferential review and uphold comprehensive zoning schemes that reasonably advance those interests.
Supporting sources
Courts accord substantial deference to the political branches and apply at most rational basis review. An order survives if it states a legitimate national security purpose and is rationally related to that purpose.
Supporting sources
…the ground that "[t]he crafting and safeguarding of public morality . . . indisputably is a legitimate government interest under rational basis scrutiny"); Milner v. Apfel , 148 F. 3d 812, 814 (CA7 1998) (citing Bowers for the proposition that "[l]egislatures are permitted to legislate with regard to morality . . . rather than confined…