# Seegers v. Parker

> Supreme Court of Louisiana · October 26, 1970 · 256 La. 1039

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9691875

## Case

- **Full name:** Sidney A. SEEGERS Et Al. v. Mary Evelyn PARKER, Treasurer of the State of Louisiana, and William J. Dodd, Superintendent of Education for the State of Louisiana
- **Court:** Supreme Court of Louisiana
- **Decided:** October 26, 1970
- **Citations:** 256 La. 1039; 241 So. 2d 213
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** Dissent by Hamlin
- **Judges:** Hamlin, Summers, Tate
- **Cited by:** 10 later opinions in the Frix Law Library

## Citator (automated)

- No negative treatment found by the automated citator. That is not the same as a confirmation that the case is good law; read the citing cases.
- Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9691875

## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction)

- holding decisions of federal courts interpreting federal statutes are highly persuasive in interpreting state statutes patterned after those federal statutes

## Opinion text

HAMLIN, Justice
(dissenting) :
I respectfully dissent from the majority opinion.
Simply stated, as I see the situation under consideration, Act 223 of 1970, is an act providing for the purchase by the State of Louisiana of secular educational services from teachers employed by non-public schools.
There is nothing in the Constitution of Louisiana for the year 1921 that prohibits the enactment of such a statute or the purchase of such services.
This is not a statute respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; it does not give preference to or make any discrimination against any church, sect, or creed of religion, or any form of religious faith or worship.
It is not to aid any church, sect or denomination of religion; it is not to aid any priest, preacher, minister or teacher of religion.
It does not provide for an appropriation of public funds to any private or sectarian school. It merely provides for a contract to purchase educational services, such contract to be entered into with the teacher individually.
As I interpret McCulloch v. Maryland, 4 Wheaton 316 , 4 L.Ed. 579 (1819), where a law is not prohibited by the Constitution and is really calculated to affect any of the objects entrusted to the government (the education of its children, as this one is), it is constitutional.
I respectfully dissent.

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Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9691875. Public record. Not legal advice.