Employers Beware: What You Need To Know

Government Tramples Individual’s Rights in Indiana

In Armour v. City of Indianapolis, (No. 11-161 6-4-12) the Supreme Court again decided to ignore the Constitution and side with the government on very unsteady ground. At issue was whether the City had to pay back to certain homeowners money it had collected for a sewer assessment that it was later able to obtain funding for (through bonds). While the plaintiffs in this case paid the entire assessment (some $9,000 up front), the other homeowners who elected to pay the assessment over time had the amounts remaining due forgiven. While this would seem to violate the Equal Protection Clause with the government favoring one group of citizens over another, the court disagreed. Because the right at issue was economic rather than a “fundamental” right, the court applied the “rational basis” test. In other words, did the City have a rational basis to make the distinction between the homeowners who paid the assessment up front and the homeowners who chose to pay it over time.

The City’s “rational basis” was that it was inconvenient to issue the refunds.
To his credit, Chief Justice Roberts indicated in his dissent that: “The Equal Protection Clause does not provide that no state shall ‘deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws, unless it’s too much of a bother.’” Only Scalia and Alito joined the dissent, leaving this the current law of the land as stated by a majority of 6. Your economic rights can be trampled on by government. One can only dream of the time when the American public wakes up and starts electing libertarian officials to dismantle the non-working nonsensical unconstitutional parts of our government and demand that the Constitution be followed in a logical consistent way and that the rights given to individuals in the Constitution are resuscitated.

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