Baker v. Nelson
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Baker v. Nelson, 291 Minn. 310 (Minn. 1971), was a case in which the Minnesota Supreme Court ruled that Minnesota law limited marriage to opposite-sex couples, and that this limitation did not violate the United States Constitution. The plaintiffs appealed, and the United States Supreme Court, 409 U.S. 810 (1972), dismissed the appeal "for want of [a] substantial federal question".
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[edit] Facts
On May 18, 1971, two University of Minnesota gay student activists, Richard John Baker and James Michael McConnell, applied to Gerald R. Nelson, the clerk of Minnesota's Hennepin County District Court in Minneapolis, for a marriage license. Nelson denied the request on the sole ground that the two were of the same sex. Baker and McConnell then sued Nelson, contending that Minnesota law permitted same-sex marriages, and arguing against Nelson's interpretation that it did not violate their rights under the Ninth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution. The trial court ruled Nelson was not required to issue Baker and McConnell a marriage license, and specifically directed that they not be issued a license. On appeal, the Minnesota Supreme Court affirmed the trial court's ruling, and specifically ruled that Minnesota's limiting of marriage to opposite-sex unions "does not offend the First, Eighth, Ninth, or Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution".
Later that year, the couple applied for and were awarded a marriage license by the Blue Earth County Commissoner in Mankato, Minnesota. Because of the Minnesota Supreme Court decision, the license was deemed invalid. The couple still claims it is valid to this day, and attempted to file a joint tax return in 2004. After the IRS rejected the joint return, McConnell filed an action in Federal District Court, seeking a federal income tax refund in the amount of $793.28 and a declaration that he is “a full citizen who is lawfully married and, by that fact, entitled to be treated the same as every other married Minnesotan, similarly situated.” McConnell's action was rejected by the Court. http://www.lawprofessorblogs.com/taxprof/linkdocs/2005-1056-1.pdf
[edit] Opinion of the court
The Minnesota Supreme Court ruled that the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in Loving v. Virginia, 388 U.S. 1 (1967)—in which the Court ruled that a statute probiting interracial marriages was unconstitutional—was not applicable to the Baker case. The Minnesota Supreme Court acknowledged the Fourteenth Amendment prohibits some state restrictions upon the right to marry, but that "in commonsense and in a constitutional sense, there is a clear distinction between a marital restriction based merely upon race and one based upon the fundamental difference in sex".
[edit] Review by the United States Supreme Court
Upon losing their case before the Minnesota Supreme Court, Baker and McConnell appealed to the United States Supreme Court. The United States Supreme Court dismissed the case "for want of a substantial federal question."
Unlike a denial of certiorari, a dismissal for want of a substantial federal question constitutes a decision on the merits of the case, and as such, is binding precedent on all lower Federal Courts.
"[U]ntil the Supreme Court should instruct otherwise, inferior federal courts had best adhere to the view that the Court has branded a question as unsubstantial". Hicks v. Miranda, 422 U.S. 332, 344 (1975) "[D]ismissals for want of a substantial federal question without doubt reject the specific challenges presented in the statement of jurisdiction." Mandel v. Bradley, 432 U.S. 173, 176 (1977). Lower Federal Courts are expressly prohibited from ruling in a way inconsistant with binding precedent. "[Summary Decisions] prevent lower courts from coming to opposite conclusions on the precise issues presented and necessarily decided by those actions." Mandel v. Bradley, 432 U.S. 173, 176 (1977)
This is explicit not only in the holdings of the United States Supreme Court, but also the holdings of other Circuit Courts. [L]ower courts are bound by summary decision by this Court until such time as the Court informs [them] that [they] are not. Doe v. Hodgson, 478 F.2d 537, 539 (2nd Cir. 1973)
Baker is binding precedent and until overruled by the United States Supreme Court, it remains that way. As such, Baker establishes that a State's decision regarding same-sex marriage does not offend the United States Constitution.
[edit] Subsequent history
[edit] Lockyer v. San Francisco
In 2004, Justice Kennard of the California Supreme Court noted the precedential value of Baker in her Concurring and Dissenting opinion in Lockyer v. San Francisco:
"[I]ndeed, there is a decision of the United States Supreme Court, binding on all other courts and public officials, that a state law restricting marriage to opposite-sex couples does not violate the federal Constitution’s guarantees of equal protection and due process of law. After the Minnesota Supreme Court held that Minnesota laws preventing marriages between persons of the same sex did not violate the equal protection or due process clauses of the United States Constitution (Baker v. Nelson (Minn. 1971) 191 N.W.2d 185), the decision was appealed to the United States Supreme Court, as federal law then permitted (see 28 U.S.C. former § 1257(2), 62 Stat. 929 as amended by 84 Stat. 590). The high court later dismissed that appeal “for want of substantial federal question.” (Baker v. Nelson (1972) 409 U.S. 810.) As the United States Supreme Court has explained, a dismissal on the ground that an appeal presents no substantial federal question is a decision on the merits of the case, establishing that the lower court’s decision on the issues of federal law was correct. (Mandel v. Bradley (1977) 432 U.S. 173, 176; Hicks v. Miranda (1975) 422 U.S. 332, 344.) Summary decisions of this kind “prevent lower courts from coming to opposite conclusions on the precise issues presented and necessarily decided by those actions.” (Mandel v. Bradley, supra, at p. 176.) Thus, the high court’s summary decision in Baker v. Nelson, supra, 409 U.S. 810, prevents lower courts and public officials from coming to the conclusion that a state law barring marriage between persons of the same sex violates the equal protection or due process guarantees of the United States Constitution.
The binding force of a summary decision on the merits continues until the high court instructs otherwise. (Hicks v. Miranda, supra, 422 U.S. at p. 344.)That court may release lower courts from the binding effect of one of its decisions on the merits either by expressly overruling that decision or through “ ‘doctrinal developments’ ” that are necessarily incompatible with that decision. (Id. at p. 344.) The United States Supreme Court has not expressly overruled Baker v. Nelson, supra, 409 U.S. 810, nor do any of its later decisions contain doctrinal developments that are necessarily incompatible with that decision... Until the United States Supreme Court says otherwise, which it has not yet done, Baker v. Nelson defines federal constitutional law on the question whether a state may deny same-sex couples the right to marry." Lockyer V San Francisco (Kennard, J. Concurring and Dissenting)
[edit] Wilson v. Ake
Baker was cited as precedent in the January 19, 2005 case of Wilson v. Ake, argued before James S. Moody, Jr., of the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida, Tampa Division. In that case, two Florida women, married the previous summer in Massachusetts, sued Florida and the federal government, arguing that Florida's refusal to recognize their marriage, and the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), were violations of their rights under the United States Constitution. The district court dismissed the case, ruling that the U.S. Supreme Court's Summary disposition in Baker was binding on the district court—which meant that the District Court was required to uphold DOMA and the Florida marriage statute as constitutional.
[edit] In re Kandu
By contrast with Wilson, The Bankruptcy Court for the District of Washington in In re Kandu, 315 B.R. 123, 138 (Bankr. D. Wash. 2004), ruled that because summary decisions such as that of the Supreme Court in Baker are to be narrowly construed and limited to the facts, it did not apply to a challenge to DOMA. The court instead believed Baker to only have precedential value when a same-sex couple challenged a state's decision not to issue a marriage license under its own state law. It is of note however, that a bankruptcy Court is not an Article III Court, and so can not make judicial determination.
[edit] Hernandez v Robles
The intermediate appellate Court in the State of New York also noted the precedental value of Baker, and noted that it was also the controlling opinion in the State in regards to the equal protection claims on this issue.
Plaintiffs' equal protection claim is foreclosed by the Supreme Court's summary disposition in Baker v. Nelson, 409 U.S. 810, 93 S.Ct. 37, 34 L.Ed.2d 65 (1972). In Baker v. Nelson, the Minnesota Supreme Court considered a broad-based federal constitutional challenge to a statute which, as interpreted by the trial court and the state supreme court, did not permit the issuance of marriage licenses to same-sex couples. 191 N.W.2d 185, 186 (1971). In that case, plaintiffs argued, inter alia, that the reservation of marriage to opposite-sex couples discriminated against them in violation of the Equal Protection Clause. Id. at 186 (noting plaintiffs' argument that "restricting marriage to only couples of the opposite sex is irrational and invidiously discriminatory"). The Minnesota Supreme Court rejected this argument along with plaintiffs' other claims. Id. at 187. Plaintiffs appealed to the Supreme Court, raising the same federal constitutional claims. The Supreme Court dismissed their appeal for want of a substantial federal question. Baker v. Nelson, 409 U.S. 810. Under well-established precedent, the dismissal of the appeal in Baker for want of a substantial federal question constitutes a holding that the challenge was considered by the Court and was rejected as insubstantial. See Hicks v. Miranda, 422 U.S. 332, 343-45, 95 S.Ct. 2281, 2289, 45 L.Ed.2d 223, 235 (1975). The dismissal of the appeal is an adjudication on the merits of the federal constitutional claims raised, including due process and equal protection, which lower courts are bound to follow... Id. The summary disposition in Baker v. Nelson controls the disposition of the state equal protection claim brought herein. Hernandez v Robles 2005 NY Slip Op 09436 (Catterson, J., concurring).
[edit] Hernandez v Robles
Upon appeal to the New York Court of Appeals (The Supreme Court in NY State), the State Supreme Court also recognized the controlling nature of Baker, as to the Federal Constitution.
Four years after Loving, the Minnesota Supreme Court upheld Minnesota's marriage laws in the face of a challenge brought by same-sex couples (Baker v Nelson, 291 Minn 310 [1971], app dismissed 409 US 810 [1972]). The Court rejected the argument that the Federal Due Process Clause encompassed a right to marry that extended to same-sex couples, noting that in Loving and its other privacy cases the U.S. Supreme Court had recognized that "[t]he institution of marriage as a union of man and woman, uniquely involving the procreation and rearing of children within a family, is as old as the book of Genesis" (id. at 312). The U.S. Supreme Court summarily dismissed the appeal "for want of a substantial federal question" (409 US 810 [1972]). Under Supreme Court decisional law, as far as lower courts are concerned, "summary dismissals are . . . to be taken as rulings on the merits . . . in the sense that they rejected the specific challenges presented in the statement of jurisdiction and left undisturbed the judgment appealed from" (Washington v Confed. Bands & Tribes of Yakim Indian Nation, 439 US 463, 477 n 20 [internal quotation marks and citation omitted] [1979]) and "lower courts are bound by summary decisions . . . until such time as the [Supreme] Court informs them that they are not" (Hicks v Miranda, 422 US 332, 344-345 [1975] [internal quotation marks and citations omitted]). Thus, with respect to the Federal Due Process Clause, we must presume that Loving did not expand the fundamental right to marry in the manner suggested by plaintiffs in the cases before us.
