explaining that “bankruptcy is not the only method available to a debtor for the adjustment of his legal relationship with his creditors” because “[h]owever unrealistic the remedy may be in a particular situation, a debtor, in theory, and often in actuality, may adjust his debts by negotiated agreement with his creditors”
How later courts described this case
- explaining that “bankruptcy is not the only method available to a debtor for the adjustment of his legal relationship with his creditors” because “[h]owever unrealistic the remedy may be in a particular situation, a debtor, in theory, and often in actuality, may adjust his debts by negotiated agreement with his creditors”
- holding that plaintiffs seeking an increase in welfare payments did not have an interest that rose to the constitutional significance as that of the plaintiffs in Bod-die v. Connecticut; therefore, the filing fee did not violate the plaintiffs’ right to court access
- holding that filing fees in bankruptcy proceedings did not deprive indigents of due process or equal protection because elimination of debt was not a fundamental interest and court proceedings were not the only means of adjusting relationships with creditors
- concluding that bankruptcy filing fee had a rational basis because Congress “sought to make the system self-sustaining and paid for by those who use it rather than by tax revenues drawn from the public at large”
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
Mr. Justice Douglas and Mr. Justice Brennan,
dissenting.
While we join Mr. Justice Stewart’s dissenting opinion we do so with this explicit statement of reasons. We said in Bolling v. Share, 347 U. S. 497, 499 , when holding *458 that segregation of students in the District of Columbia violated the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment:
“The Fifth Amendment, which is applicable in the District of Columbia, does not contain an equal protection clause as does the Fourteenth Amendment which applies only to the states. But the concepts of equal protection and due process, both stemming from our American ideal of fairness, are not mutually exclusive. The 'equal protection of the laws’ is a more explicit safeguard of prohibited unfairness than 'due process of law,’ and, therefore, we do not imply that the two are always interchangeable phrases. But, as this Court has recognized, discrimination may be so unjustifiable as to be violative of due process.”
The invidious discrimination in the present case is a denial of due process because it denies equal protection within our decisions which make particularly “invidious” discrimination based on wealth or race.