Attorney General of New York v. Soto-Lopez
476 U.S. 898, 1986 U.S. LEXIS 59, 90 L. Ed. 2d 899 (1986)
Premium Feature
Subscribe to Lexplug to listen to the Case Podcast.
Rule of Law:
A state law that conditions the availability of a significant civil service employment preference on a veteran having been a resident of the state at the time of entry into military service violates the Equal Protection Clause and the constitutionally protected right to migrate.
Facts:
- New York's Constitution and Civil Service Law grant a civil service employment preference, in the form of bonus points on examinations, to honorably discharged resident veterans who served during wartime.
- To be eligible for the preference, a veteran must have been a resident of New York at the time they entered military service.
- Eduardo Soto-Lopez and Eliezer Baez-Hernandez are U.S. Army veterans and long-time residents of New York.
- Both Soto-Lopez and Baez-Hernandez met all eligibility requirements for the preference except that they were residents of Puerto Rico, not New York, when they joined the military.
- Both men passed New York City civil service examinations but were denied the veterans' preference points by the New York City Civil Service Commission due to their non-residence in New York at the time of their military entry.
Procedural Posture:
- Eduardo Soto-Lopez and Eliezer Baez-Hernandez sued the New York City Civil Service Commission in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, alleging the residency requirement was unconstitutional.
- The Attorney General of New York intervened as a defendant.
- The District Court dismissed the complaint, ruling it was bound by the Supreme Court's prior summary affirmance in August v. Bronstein.
- Soto-Lopez and Baez-Hernandez, as appellants, appealed the dismissal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.
- The Court of Appeals reversed the District Court, holding that the residency requirement violated the Equal Protection Clause and the right to travel.
- The Attorney General of New York, as appellant, appealed the Second Circuit's decision to the Supreme Court of the United States.
Premium Content
Subscribe to Lexplug to view the complete brief
You're viewing a preview with Rule of Law, Facts, and Procedural Posture
Issue:
Does a state law that grants civil service employment preferences only to resident veterans who were also residents of the state at the time they entered military service violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and the constitutionally protected right to migrate?
Opinions:
Plurality - Justice Brennan
Yes. The New York law violates the Equal Protection Clause and the right to migrate because it penalizes the exercise of that right without a compelling state justification. Freedom of interstate migration is a fundamental right, and state laws that classify residents based on the timing of their migration and penalize its exercise are subject to heightened scrutiny. Denying a significant and permanent benefit like a civil service preference, which can determine whether one gets a job, constitutes such a penalty. New York’s asserted interests—encouraging enlistment, compensating veterans, inducing veterans to return, and hiring valuable public servants—are not sufficiently compelling to justify the discriminatory classification. The state could achieve all its objectives through the less drastic means of granting the preference to all qualified resident veterans, regardless of their residence at the time of military entry.
Concurrence - Chief Justice Burger
Yes. The New York law is unconstitutional under the Equal Protection Clause because it fails even rational-basis scrutiny, making it unnecessary to address the right to migrate or apply heightened scrutiny. Following the precedent in Hooper v. Bernalillo County Assessor, the law's classification is irrational. The state's justifications—such as encouraging enlistment or rewarding past service—are not rationally served by a scheme that rewards only those who were residents at a fixed past date. Once new residents establish bona fide residency, the state may not discriminate against them in the retroactive apportionment of an economic benefit.
Concurrence - Justice White
Yes. The judgment should be affirmed because the New York statute denies equal protection of the laws as its classification is irrational. The right to travel is not sufficiently implicated to require heightened scrutiny, but the law fails the rational-basis test.
Dissenting - Justice O'Connor
No. New York's veterans' preference scheme is constitutional. The law does not penalize the right to travel in a way that triggers heightened scrutiny, as public employment is not a fundamental right or an essential governmental service. Under rational-basis review, the law is permissible because rewarding citizens for past contributions is a legitimate state purpose. New York has a rational interest in expressing gratitude specifically to those veterans who personified the state's contribution to the nation's war efforts by serving while they were New York residents.
Dissenting - Justice Stevens
No. The law is constitutional and this case is distinguishable from prior precedent like Hooper. The favored class here is drawn more narrowly than in Hooper, and granting a special privilege to a small minority is less constitutionally objectionable than imposing a burden. As a classification becomes narrower, the logical basis for finding it unconstitutional weakens, and the court should not be bound to extend flawed reasoning to every successive case.
Analysis:
This case solidifies the principle that states cannot create fixed, permanent distinctions among bona fide residents based on the timing of their residency. The plurality's holding strengthens the right to migrate by applying heightened scrutiny to laws that penalize this right, even when the benefit denied is not a fundamental right or a basic necessity. However, the fractured nature of the opinions—with two justices concurring on narrower, rational-basis grounds—demonstrates the Court's continuing division over the appropriate analytical framework for durational or fixed-point residency cases. This signals that future challenges to similar laws might be resolved under either a heightened scrutiny/right-to-travel analysis or a more deferential rational-basis equal protection analysis.
