Goesart vs. Cleary, 335 U.S. 464

Goesart vs. Cleary, 335 U.S. 464

Keywords: Female Bartenders not allowed to own or be licensed, unless their husband or male relative owns the bar

Justice Felix Frankfurter

PETITIONER Goesaert et al.                        RESPONDENT Cleary et al.

DOCKET NO. 49                                                DECIDED BY Vinson Court (1946-1949)
CITATION 335 US 464 (1948)            ARGUED Nov 19, 1948                        DECIDED Dec 20, 1948

Facts:

A Michigan statute required that all bartenders hold licenses in cities with populations greater than 50,000, but the statute also stated that a woman could not be issued a license unless she was "the wife or daughter of the male owner" of a liquor establishment. Two female bartenders challenged the law, requesting an injunction against its enforcement, on the ground that it violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. A three-judge panel of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan rejected the bartenders' claim.

Issue: WON the Michigan statute, in denying female bartenders access to licenses, violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment?

Held: NO.

Ratio: In a 6-3 opinion authored by Justice Felix Frankfurter, the Court concluded that the Constitution "does not preclude the States from drawing a sharp line between the sexes" or "to reflect sociological insight, or shifting social standards, any more than it requires them to keep abreast of the latest scientific standards." The Court found that the Michigan legislature, in enacting the statute, could have determined that allowing women to bartend could "give rise to moral and social problems against which it may devise preventive measures." The Court, Justice Frankfurter concludes, is in no position to "cross-examine either actually or argumentatively the mind of Michigan legislators.”

While Michigan may deny to all women opportunities for bartending, Michigan cannot play favorities among women without rhyme or reasons. The Constitution in enjoining the equal protection of the laws upon States precludes irrational discrimination as between persons or groups of persons in the incidence of a law. But the Constitution does not requ re situations 'which are different in fact or opinion to be treated in law as though they were the same.' Tigner v. State of Texas, 310 U.S. 141, 147 , 882, 130 A.L.R. 1321. Since bartending by women may, in the allowable legislative judgment, give rise to moral and social problems against which it may devise preventive measures, the legislature need not go to the full length of prohibition if it believes that as to a defined group of females other factors are operating which either eliminate or reduce the moral and social problems otherwise calling for prohibition. Michigan evidently believes that the oversight assured through ownership of a bar by a barmaid's husband or father minimizes hazards that may confront a barmaid without such protecting oversight. This Court is certainly not in a position to gainsay such belief by the Michigan legislature. If it is entertainable, as we think it is, Michigan has not violated its duty to afford equal protection of its laws. We cannot cross-examine either actually or argumentatively the mind of Michigan legis- [335 U.S. 464 , 467]   lators nor question their motives. Since the line they have drawn is not without a basis in reason, we cannot give ear to the suggestion that the real impulse behind this legislation was an unchivalrous desire of male bartenders to try to monopolize the calling.

It would be an idle parade of familiar learning to review the multitudinous cases in which the constitutional assurance of the equal protection of the laws has been applied. The generalties on thi subject are not in dispute; their application turns peculiarly on the particular circumstances of a case. Thus, it would be a sterile inquiry to consider whether this case is nearer to the nepotic pilotage law of Louisiana, sustained in Kotch v. River Port Pilot Commissioners, 330 U.S 552, than it is to the Oklahoma sterilization law, which fell in Skinner v. State of Oklahoma ex rel. Williamson, 316 U.S. 535 . Suffice it to say that 'A statute is not invalid under the Constitution because it might have gone farther than it did, or because it may not succeed in bringing about the result that it tends to produce.' Roschen v. Ward, 279 U.S. 337, 339 .

Nor is it unconstitutional for Michigan to withdraw from women the occupation of bartending because it allows women to serve as waitresses where liquor is dispensed. The District Court has sufficiently indicated the reasons that may have influenced the legislature in allowing women to be waitresses in a liquor establishment over which a man's ownership provides control. Nothing need be added to what was said below as to the other grounds on which the Michigan law was assailed.

Ruling: Judgment affirmed.

NOTE: DISSENTING - Mr. Justice RUTLEDGE, with whom Mr. Justice DOUGLAS and Mr. Justice MURPHY join, dissenting.

While the equal protection clause does not require a legislature to achieve 'abstract symmetry'1 or to classify [335 U.S. 464 , 468]   with 'mathematical nicety,'2 that clause does require lawmarkers to refrain from invidious distinctions of the sort drawn by the statute challenged in this case. 3 

The statute arbitrarily discriminates between male and female owners of liquor establishments. A male owner, although he himself is always absent from his bar, may employ his wife and daughter as barmaids. A female owner may neither work as a barmaid hereself nor employ her daughter in that position, even if a man is always present in the establishment to keep order. This inevitable result of the classification belies the assumption that the statute was motivated by a legislative solicitude for the moral and physicial well-being of women who, but for the law, would be employed as barmaids. Since there could be no other conceivable justification for such discrimination against women owners of liquor establishments, the statute should be held invalid as a denial of equal protection.