# Village of Willowbrook v. Olech > Supreme Court of the United States · February 23, 2000 · 528 U.S. 562 URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9689161 ## Case - **Full name:** VILLAGE OF WILLOWBROOK Et Al. v. OLECH - **Court:** Supreme Court of the United States - **Decided:** February 23, 2000 - **Citations:** 528 U.S. 562; 13 Fla. L. Weekly Fed. S 105; 2000 Daily Journal DAR 1909; 2000 Colo. J. C.A.R. 897; 30 Envtl. L. Rep. (Envtl. Law Inst.) 20360; 68 U.S.L.W. 4157; 2000 Cal. Daily Op. Serv. 1359; 120 S. Ct. 1073; 145 L. Ed. 2d 1060; 2000 U.S. LEXIS 1540 - **Precedential status:** Published - **Opinion:** Concurrence by Breyer - **Judges:** Breyer - **Cited by:** 3,907 later opinions in the Frix Law Library ## Citator (automated) - **Yellow flag:** Declined to follow by Scarbrough v. Morgan County Board of Education, 470 F.3d 250 (2006). - Negative treatments: 1 - Distinguished by: 2 - Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9689161 ## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction) - holding that the plaintiff's allegations that a village "intentionally demanded a 33-foot easement as a condition of connecting [the plaintiff's] property to the municipal water supply where the Village required only a 15-foot easement from other similarly situated property ow… - holding that a class-of-one plaintiff sufficiently alleged that she was “intentionally treated differently from others similarly situated and that there [wa]s no rational basis for the difference in treatment” where the defendant for no apparent reason demanded far more from h… - holding that homeowner could assert equal protection claim as class of one against Defendant municipality where Defendant intentionally demanded a 33-foot easement as a condition of connecting plaintiffs property to the municipal water supply where it required only a 15-foot e… - holding that a plaintiff asserts a valid equal protection claim when he (i) is a member of a protected class and was treated differently from members of an unprotected class, or (ii) belongs to a “class of one” and was treated differently from others similarly situated without… - explaining that “[t]he purpose of the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment is to secure every person within the State’s jurisdiction against intentional and arbitrary discrimination, whether occasioned by express terms of a statute or by its improper execution t… ## Opinion text Justice Breyer, concurring in the result. The Solicitor General and the village of Willowbrook have expressed concern lest we interpret the Equal Protection Clause in this case in a way that would transform many ordinary violations of city or state law into violations of the Constitution. It might be thought that a rule that looks only to an intentional difference in treatment and a lack of a rational basis for that different treatment would work such a transformation. Zoning decisions, for example, will often, perhaps almost always, treat one landowner differently from another, and one might claim that, when a city’s zoning authority takes an action that fails to conform to a city zoning regulation, it lacks a “rational basis” for its action (at least if the regulation in question is reasonably clear). This case, however, does not directly raise the question whether the simple and common instance of a faulty zoning decision would violate the Equal Protection Clause. That is because the Court of Appeals found that in this case respond *566 ent had alleged an extra factor as well — a factor that the Court of Appeals called “vindictive action,” “illegitimate animus,” or “ill will.” 160 F. 3d 386, 388 (CA7 1998). And, in that respect, the court said this case resembled Esmail v. Macrane, 53 F. 3d 176 (CA7 1995), because the Esmail plaintiff had alleged that the municipality’s differential treatment “was the result not of prosecutorial discretion honestly (even if ineptly — even if arbitrarily) exercised but of an illegitimate desire to ‘get’ him.” 160 F. 3d, at 388 . In my view, the presence of that added factor in this case is sufficient to minimize any concern about transforming run-of-the-mill zoning cases into cases of constitutional right. For this reason, along with the others mentioned by the Court, I concur in the result. --- Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9689161. Public record. Not legal advice.