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SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
VILLAGE OF WILLOWBROOK, ET AL.,
PETITIONERS
v. GRACE OLECH
No. 98-1288
528 U.S. 562
February 23, 2000, Decided
PER CURIAM.
Respondent Grace Olech and her late husband Thaddeus
asked petitioner Village of Willowbrook to connect their property to the
municipal water supply. The Village at first conditioned the connection on the
Olechs granting the Village a 33-foot easement. The Olechs objected, claiming
that the Village only required a 15-foot easement from other property owners
seeking access to the water supply. After a 3-month delay, the Village relented
and agreed to provide water service with only a 15-foot easement.
Olech sued
the Village claiming that the Village's demand of an additional 18-foot
easement violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
Olech asserted that the 33-foot easement demand was "irrational and wholly
arbitrary"; that the Village's demand was actually motivated by ill will
resulting from the Olechs' previous filing of an unrelated, successful lawsuit
against the Village; and that the Village acted either with the intent to
deprive Olech of her rights or in reckless disregard of her rights. App. 10,
12.
The District
Court dismissed the lawsuit pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure
12(b)(6) for failure to state a cognizable claim under the Equal Protection
Clause. Relying on Circuit precedent, the Court of Appeals for the Seventh
[*564] Circuit reversed, holding that a plaintiff can allege an equal
protection violation by asserting that state action was motivated solely by a
"'spiteful effort to "get" him for reasons wholly unrelated to
any legitimate state objective.'" 160 F.3d 386, 387 (CA7 1998) (quoting
Esmail v. Macrane, 53 F.3d 176, 180 (CA7 1995)). It determined that Olech's
complaint sufficiently alleged such a claim.
160 F.3d at 388. We
granted certiorari to determine whether the Equal Protection Clause gives rise
to a cause of action on behalf of a "class of one" where the
plaintiff did not allege membership in a class or group. *
* We note that the complaint in
this case could be read to allege a class of five. In addition to Grace and
Thaddeus Olech, their neighbors Rodney and Phyllis Zimmer and Howard Brinkman
requested to be connected to the municipal water supply, and the Village
initially demanded the 33-foot easement from all of them. The Zimmers and Mr.
Brinkman were also involved in the previous, successful lawsuit against the
Village, which allegedly created the ill will motivating the excessive easement
demand. Whether the complaint alleges a class of one or of five is of no
consequence because we conclude that the number of individuals in a class is immaterial for equal protection
analysis.
Our cases have recognized
successful equal protection claims brought by a "class of one," where
the plaintiff alleges that she has been intentionally treated differently from
others similarly situated and that there is no rational basis for the
difference in treatment. See Sioux City Bridge Co. v. Dakota County, 260
U.S. 441, 67 L. Ed. 340, 43 S. Ct. 190 (1923); Allegheny Pittsburgh Coal Co. v.
Commission of Webster Cty., 488 U.S. 336, 102 L. Ed. 2d 688, 109 S. Ct. 633
(1989). In so doing, we
have explained that "'the purpose of the equal protection clause of the
Fourteenth Amendment is to secure every person within the State's jurisdiction
against intentional and arbitrary discrimination, whether occasioned by express
terms of a statute or by its improper execution through duly constituted
agents.'" Sioux City Bridge Co., supra, at 445 (quoting Sunday Lake
Iron Co. v. Township of Wakefield, 247 U.S. 350, 352, 62 L. Ed. 1154, 38 S. Ct.
495 (1918)). [*565]
That reasoning
is applicable to this case. Olech's complaint can fairly be construed as alleging
that the Village intentionally demanded a 33-foot easement as a condition of
connecting her property to the municipal water supply where the Village
required only a 15-foot easement from other similarly situated property owners.
See Conley v. Gibson, 355 U.S. 41, 45-46, 2 L. Ed. 2d 80, 78 S. Ct. 99 (1957). The complaint also alleged that
the Village's demand was "irrational and wholly arbitrary" and that
the Village ultimately connected her property after receiving a clearly
adequate 15-foot easement. These allegations,
quite apart from the Village's subjective motivation, are sufficient to
state a claim for relief under traditional equal protection analysis. We
therefore affirm the judgment of the Court of Appeals, but do not reach the
alternative theory of "subjective ill will" relied on by that court.
It is so
ordered.
CONCURBY: BREYER
CONCUR: JUSTICE BREYER, concurring in the result.
The
Solicitor General and the village of Willowbrook have expressed concern lest we
interpret the Equal Protection Clause in this case in a way that would
transform many ordinary violations of city or state law into violations of the
Constitution. It might be thought that a rule that looks only to an intentional
difference in treatment and a lack of a rational basis for that different
treatment would work such a transformation. Zoning decisions, for example, will
often, perhaps almost always, treat one landowner differently from another, and
one might claim that, when a city's zoning authority takes an action that fails
to conform to a city zoning regulation, it lacks a "rational basis"
for its action (at least if the regulation in question is reasonably clear).
This case,
however, does not directly raise the question whether the simple and common instance
of a faulty zoning decision would violate the Equal Protection Clause. That is
because the Court of Appeals found that in this case respondent [*566] had
alleged an extra factor as well -- a factor that the Court of Appeals called "vindictive action,"
"illegitimate animus," or "ill will." 160 F.3d 386, 388
(CA7 1998). And, in that respect, the court said this case resembled Esmail v.
Macrane, 53 F.3d 176 (CA7 1995), because the Esmail plaintiff had alleged that
the municipality's differential treatment "was the result not of
prosecutorial discretion honestly (even if ineptly -- even if arbitrarily)
exercised but of an illegitimate desire to 'get' him." 160 F.3d at 388.
In my view,
the presence of that added factor in this case is sufficient to minimize any
concern about transforming run-of-the-mill zoning cases into cases of
constitutional right. For this reason, along with the others mentioned by the
Court, I concur in the result.
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