Supreme Court Case Summary
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SAMPLE CASENOTES
INTENDED ONLY FOR FIRST-YEAR STUDENTS AT DUKE UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF LAW DO NOT CITE OR DISTRIBUTE
This document includes five sample casenotes that the Duke Law Journal is making available to first-year students in the spring of 2008. All five received strong scores from DLJ in the 2007 casenote competition, although the authors may not have “written-on” to the Journal. These five casenotes represent a range of approaches to last year’s case. The Journal cannot speak to how these casenotes were scored by any other law journal. WARNING: These casenotes may contain errors. They have not been checked for conformity to the Bluebook, and DLJ does not vouch for the formatting of the citations. …show more content…
OREGON DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE AND THE CLASS-OF-ONE THEORY OF EQUAL PROTECTION I. INTRODUCTION In 2000, a short, per curiam Supreme Court decision accepted the “class-of-one” theory of equal protection,1 permitting an individual in a non-suspect class to claim violations of the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause.2 While the class-of-one theory articulated in Village of Willowbrook v. Olech,3 with its focus on individual rights, is a logical offshoot of equal protection jurisprudence,4 the precise form and scope of the theory was left open due to the brevity of the opinion.5 In February, 2007, the Ninth Circuit, breaking away from every other circuit to address the issue,6 determined in Engquist v. Oregon Department of Agriculture, that class-of-one equal protection does not apply in the realm of government employment.7 The Engquist majority provided three main reasons supporting its decision, each of which is flawed in a different respect. First, the Ninth Circuit misconstrued Olech by imposing a narrow interpretation of its scope.8 Second, on a theoretical level, the court determined that when the government acts in its role as “proprietor,” rather than “lawmaker,” class-of-one equal protection does not apply.9 However, the distinction between the two functions of
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SAMPLE CASENOTES
INTENDED ONLY FOR FIRST-YEAR STUDENTS AT DUKE UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF LAW DO NOT CITE OR DISTRIBUTE
This document includes five sample casenotes that the Duke Law Journal is making available to first-year students in the spring of 2008. All five received strong scores from DLJ in the 2007 casenote competition, although the authors may not have “written-on” to the Journal. These five casenotes represent a range of approaches to last year’s case. The Journal cannot speak to how these casenotes were scored by any other law journal. WARNING: These casenotes may contain errors. They have not been checked for conformity to the Bluebook, and DLJ does not vouch for the formatting of the citations. …show more content…
OREGON DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE AND THE CLASS-OF-ONE THEORY OF EQUAL PROTECTION I. INTRODUCTION In 2000, a short, per curiam Supreme Court decision accepted the “class-of-one” theory of equal protection,1 permitting an individual in a non-suspect class to claim violations of the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause.2 While the class-of-one theory articulated in Village of Willowbrook v. Olech,3 with its focus on individual rights, is a logical offshoot of equal protection jurisprudence,4 the precise form and scope of the theory was left open due to the brevity of the opinion.5 In February, 2007, the Ninth Circuit, breaking away from every other circuit to address the issue,6 determined in Engquist v. Oregon Department of Agriculture, that class-of-one equal protection does not apply in the realm of government employment.7 The Engquist majority provided three main reasons supporting its decision, each of which is flawed in a different respect. First, the Ninth Circuit misconstrued Olech by imposing a narrow interpretation of its scope.8 Second, on a theoretical level, the court determined that when the government acts in its role as “proprietor,” rather than “lawmaker,” class-of-one equal protection does not apply.9 However, the distinction between the two functions of