Opinion

Brown v. Millard County

  • 47 F. App'x 882
Court
Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit
Filed
Sep 20, 2002
Status
Published
Author
Hartz
On the bench
Anderson, Hartz, Murphy
Cited by
1 cases
Authority
More cited than 20.7%

The opinion

HARTZ, Circuit Judge,

concurring.

I concur in the result and join all of Judge Murphy’s opinion except the discussion of the equal-protection claim.

I do not agree that plaintiffs claiming a denial of equal protection “must show that they are members of a protected class and that defendants purposefully discriminated against them because of their membership in that class.” Op. at 890. In Village of Willowbrook v. Olech, 528 U.S. 562, 564 , 120 S.Ct. 1073 , 145 L.Ed.2d 1060 (2000), the Supreme Court wrote, “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 *891 similarly situated and that there is no rational basis for the difference in treatment.” Thus, plaintiffs here could prevail without showing that newcomers to a community are a “protected class.”

Nevertheless, the denial of the equal-protection claim should be affirmed. Plaintiffs waived the issue on appeal. The treatment of the issue in their briefs is perfunctory, with not one citation of authority. In addition, they have failed to refer to any evidence regarding how other “similarly situated” people were treated by the defendants. Defendant Penny was not similarly situated; if anything, his situation was the opposite of plaintiffs’.

This is a copy of a public record, reproduced as it was published. It is not legal advice, and it may not be the version a court would rely on. Check the official source before you cite it.

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