This article needs additional citations for verification .(July 2009) |
Boddie v. Connecticut | |
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Argued December 8, 1969 Reargued November 17, 1970 Decided March 2, 1971 | |
Full case name | Boddie, et al. v. Connecticut, et al. |
Citations | 401 U.S. 371 ( more ) 91 S. Ct. 780; 28 L. Ed. 2d 113; 1971 U.S. LEXIS 73 |
Case history | |
Prior | 286 F. Supp. 968 (D. Conn. 1968) (reversed) |
Holding | |
Due process prohibits a state from denying, solely because of inability to pay, access to its courts to individuals who sought judicial dissolution of their marriages. | |
Court membership | |
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Case opinions | |
Majority | Harlan, joined by Burger, Stewart, Marshall, White, Blackmun |
Concurrence | Douglas |
Concurrence | Brennan |
Dissent | Black |
Laws applied | |
U.S. Const. Amend. XIV |
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Boddie v. Connecticut, 401 U.S. 371 (1971), was a case before the United States Supreme Court.
A class action was formed representing female welfare recipients residing in Connecticut and wishing divorces, but prevented from bringing divorce suits by Connecticut statutes requiring payment of court fees and costs for service of process as a condition precedent to access to the courts. There was no dispute as to their inability to pay the court fees or costs.
Plaintiffs sought a judgment declaring the statutes (requirements for payment of court fees and costs for service of process that restricted their access to the courts in an effort to bring an action for divorce) invalid as applied to the class, and an injunction requiring defendants to permit members of the class to sue for divorce without payment of any fees and costs.
A three-judge court dismissed the complaint for failure to state a claim (286 F Supp 968). It held that a State could limit access to its divorce courts by the requirement of a filing fee or other fees, even when they effectively barred appellants from commencing actions therein.
On appeal, the Supreme Court of the United States reversed. The opinion by Justice Harlan expressed the views of six members of the court.
The Supreme Court concluded that, given the basic position of the marriage relationship in this society's hierarchy of values and the concomitant state monopolization of the means for legally dissolving this relationship, due process did prohibit a state from denying, solely because of inability to pay, access to its courts to individuals who sought judicial dissolution of their marriages. Thus, the Court held that a state could not, consistent with the obligations imposed on it by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, pre-empt the right to dissolve this legal relationship without affording all citizens access to the means it had prescribed for doing so.
Justice Douglas concurred in the result on the ground that the equal protection clause rather than the due process clause was the proper basis of decision.
Justice Brennan concurred on the ground that while denying indigents access to the courts for nonpayment of a fee is a denial of due process, it is also a denial of equal protection of the laws, and no distinction can be drawn between divorce suits and other actions.
Justice Black dissented on the ground that charging practically nominal initial court costs in civil actions does not violate either the due process or equal protection clause. He asserted that nowhere in the Constitution was marriage mentioned, thus (as per the Tenth Amendment) reserving dissolution procedures as the state's prerogative.
The Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution was adopted on July 9, 1868, as one of the Reconstruction Amendments. Often considered as one of the most consequential amendments, it addresses citizenship rights and equal protection under the law and was proposed in response to issues related to former slaves following the American Civil War. The amendment was bitterly contested, particularly by the states of the defeated Confederacy, which were forced to ratify it in order to regain representation in Congress. The amendment, particularly its first section, is one of the most litigated parts of the Constitution, forming the basis for landmark Supreme Court decisions such as Brown v. Board of Education (1954) regarding racial segregation, Roe v. Wade (1973) regarding abortion, Bush v. Gore (2000) regarding the 2000 presidential election, and Obergefell v. Hodges (2015) regarding same-sex marriage. The amendment limits the actions of all state and local officials, and also those acting on behalf of such officials.
Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479 (1965), was a landmark decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in which the Court ruled that the Constitution of the United States protects the liberty of married couples to buy and use contraceptives without government restriction. The case involved a Connecticut "Comstock law" that prohibited any person from using "any drug, medicinal article or instrument for the purpose of preventing conception". The court held that the statute was unconstitutional, and that "the clear effect of [the Connecticut law ...] is to deny disadvantaged citizens ... access to medical assistance and up-to-date information in respect to proper methods of birth control." By a vote of 7–2, the Supreme Court invalidated the law on the grounds that it violated the "right to marital privacy", establishing the basis for the right to privacy with respect to intimate practices. This and other cases view the right to privacy as a right to "protect[ion] from governmental intrusion".
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In United States constitutional law, substantive due process is a principle allowing courts to protect certain fundamental rights from government interference, even if procedural protections are present or the rights are unenumerated elsewhere in the US Constitution. Courts have identified the basis for such protection from the due process clauses of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution, which prohibit the federal and state governments, respectively, from depriving any person of "life, liberty, or property, without due process of law". Substantive due process demarcates the line between the acts that courts hold to be subject to government regulation or legislation and the acts that courts place beyond the reach of governmental interference. Whether the Fifth or Fourteenth Amendments were intended to serve that function continues to be a matter of scholarly as well as judicial discussion and dissent.
In United States constitutional law, a Due Process Clause is found in both the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution, which prohibits arbitrary deprivation of "life, liberty, or property" by the government except as authorized by law.
The Equal Protection Clause is part of the first section of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. The clause, which took effect in 1868, provides "nor shall any State ... deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws". It mandates that individuals in similar situations be treated equally by the law.
Incorporation, in United States law, is the doctrine by which portions of the Bill of Rights have been made applicable to the states. When the Bill of Rights was ratified, the courts held that its protections extended only to the actions of the federal government and that the Bill of Rights did not place limitations on the authority of the state and local governments. However, the post-Civil War era, beginning in 1865 with the Thirteenth Amendment, which declared the abolition of slavery, gave rise to the incorporation of other Amendments, applying more rights to the states and people over time. Gradually, various portions of the Bill of Rights have been held to be applicable to the state and local governments by incorporation through the Fourteenth Amendment in 1868 and the Fifteenth Amendment in 1870.
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Baldwin v. Fish & Game Commission of Montana, 436 U.S. 371 (1978), was a United States Supreme Court case that affirmed the right of the state of Montana to charge higher fees for out-of-state elk hunters.
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