Equal Protection Challenges to Automobiles Guest Statutes
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Authors
Dorpel, Diane S. Vanden
Issue Date
1975
Volume
8
Issue
Type
Journal Article
Language
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Alternative Title
Abstract
FIRST PARAGRAPH(S)|In the months since the California Supreme Court announced the demise of that state's automobile guest statute in the momentous decision of Brown v. Merlo, eight other state courts have had to decide the fate of their respective guest statutes as the result of constitutional challenges based on the equal protection clause of the fourteenth amendment. The Nebraska Supreme Court in the recent case of Hale v. Taylor heard equal protection arguments against Nebraska's guest statute, but the court declined to rule on the issue because the constitutional challenge had not been properly raised in the pleadings. If the Nebraska Unicameral does not reconsider its guest statute at Section 39-6,191, the Nebraska Supreme Court will most certainly be confronted again with the statute's constitutionality.|Equal protection challenges arise out of alleged deviations from the mandate of the fourteenth amendment which forbids states from denying "any person . . . the equal protection of the laws." In order to achieve some legislative purpose, statutes sometimes create different classifications of persons. When these classifications are discriminatory or not reasonably related to achieving the statute's purpose, they are susceptible to challenge. This article will examine the status of Nebraska's guest statute in light of recent decisions in other jurisdictions that have considered the merits of an equal protection attack on such legislation. It will discuss the varying classifications attributable to guest statutes and the appropriate equal protection test for these classifications, the commonly recited purposes of the guest statute, and the reasonableness of the relationship between these purposes and the classifications created...
Description
Citation
8 Creighton L. Rev. 432 (1974-1975)
Publisher
Creighton University School of Law