13.2.3 Equal Protection
13.2.3 Equal Protection
Exemption statutes’ distinctions among different types of creditors, and among debtors in different circumstances, have generally been upheld against equal protection challenges.32 The Supreme Court has adopted a balancing test for equal protection claims. If the statutes involve a suspect classification—such as race, gender, or national origin, or a fundamental right, such as the right to vote, or freedom of speech or religion—then it will be subject to strict (or at least intermediate level) scrutiny; if it does not, then it need only have a rational relationship to a proper legislative purpose.33 No court has held that creditors are a suspect class or that there is a fundamental right to a specific collection method.34 Courts have generally recognized exemption statutes as rational means to achieve proper legislative purposes.35 Equal protection issues in the criminal justice debt context are discussed in §§ 11.2.3, 11.4.6, and 11.6.1.2, supra.
Footnotes
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32 Navellier v. Florida, 672 Fed. Appx. 925 (11th Cir. 2016) (applying highly deferential rational relationship standard to conclude that Florida’s half-acre limit on urban homestead is “a reasonable way to balance protection of home against allowing valid claims to be satisfied”); In re Ward, 595 B.R. 127, 142–144 (Bankr. E.D.N.Y. 2018); St. Ann’s Hosp. v. Arnold, 672 N.E.2d 743 (Ohio Ct. App. 1996) (greater restrictions on garnishment for health care debts reasonable in light of public policy of encouraging people to seek needed medical care); Wooster Cmty. Hosp. v. Anderson, 670 N.E.2d 563 (Ohio Ct. App. 1996) (greater protection of health care debtors was reasonable because of life or death necessity of health care and the extra burdens imposed by paying back a debt while also suffering health problems); In re Davis, 681 N.W.2d 452 (S.D. 2004) (increased homestead exemption for persons age seventy or over not arbitrary, nor denial of equal protection, but unlimited exemption violated state constitutional requirement that exemptions be reasonable). See also In re Patterson, 216 B.R. 413 (C.D. Ill. 1998) (exception of wages from wildcard exemption does not violate state constitution’s prohibition of special laws); Accounts Mgmt., Inc. v. Williams, 484 N.W.2d 297 (S.D. 1992) (state wage garnishment exemption does not violate privileges and immunities clause of state constitution by favoring wage earners over others); § 13.2.4, infra (constitutionality of bifurcated exemption schemes). But see Credit Bureau of E. Idaho, Inc. v. Lecheminant, 235 P.3d 1188 (Idaho 2010) (statute making wife’s property exempt from execution against husband, but not vice versa, denies equal protection); Cmty. Physical Therapy v. Wayt, 639 N.E.2d 515 (Ohio Ct. App. 1994) (statute placing greater restrictions on garnishment for health care debts was unconstitutional because it had no rational relationship to any governmental purpose). But cf. James v. Strange, 407 U.S. 128, 92 S. Ct. 2027, 32 L. Ed. 2d 600 (1972) (statute that allows state to recover costs of appointing counsel for indigent criminal defendants and denies them exemptions available to other civil judgment debtors denies them equal protection).
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33 Cent. State Univ. v. Am. Ass’n of Univ. Professors, Cent. State Univ. Chapter, 526 U.S. 124, 127, 119 S. Ct. 1162, 143 L. Ed. 2d 227 (1999); Vacco v. Quill, 521 U.S. 793, 799, 117 S. Ct. 2293, 138 L. Ed. 2d 834 (1997).
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34 See Sharp v. Park ’N Fly of Tex., 969 S.W.2d 572 (Tex. App. 1998) (“in examining classifications of economic or property interests, the court employs a rational basis test”); In re Honeycutt, 908 P.2d 976 (Wyo. 1995) (construing state constitution; using rational relationship standard to uphold statute denying exemption to privately funded individual retirement account but exempting employer-sponsored plans).