Brantley v. Kuntz

98 F. Supp. 3d 884, 2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 680, 2015 WL 75244
CourtDistrict Court, W.D. Texas
DecidedJanuary 5, 2015
DocketCase No. A-13-CA-872-SS
StatusPublished
Cited by10 cases

This text of 98 F. Supp. 3d 884 (Brantley v. Kuntz) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, W.D. Texas primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Brantley v. Kuntz, 98 F. Supp. 3d 884, 2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 680, 2015 WL 75244 (W.D. Tex. 2015).

Opinion

ORDER

SAM SPARKS, District Judge.

BE IT REMEMBERED on this day the Court reviewed the file in the above-styled cause, and specifically Defendants William H. Kuntz, Jr., Mike Arismendez, LuAnn Roberts Morgan, Fred N. Moses, Catherine Rodewald, Deborah Yurco, Ravi Shah, and Thomas F. Butler’s Motion for Summary Judgment [# 33], Plaintiffs’ Response [# 36] thereto, Defendants’ Reply [# 39] thereto, Plaintiffs Isis Brantley and Isis Ornamentations and Natural Hair Care Consultant d/b/a The Institute of Ancestral Braiding’s Motion for Summary Judgment [# 34], Defendant’s Response [# 35] thereto, and Plaintiffs’ Reply [# 40] thereto. Having considered the documents, the governing law, and the file as a whole, the Court now enters the following opinion and orders.

Background

This 42 U.S.C. § 1983 action raises a constitutional challenge to the manner in which Texas regulates the practice of African hair braiding, a method of styling “tightly textured” or “coily” hair popular with men and women of African descent. African hair braiding does not involve cutting hair, washing or conditioning hair, or treating hair with heat or chemicals; rather, it consists of “the intricate twisting, braiding, weaving, and locking of hair using a braider’s hands[.]” First Am. Compl. [# 25] ¶ 13. Plaintiffs allege the Texas statutory scheme governing licensure of schools which wish to teach African hair braiding is unconstitutional as applied and violative of the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

A. Plaintiff Isis Brantley’s Braiding Activities

Plaintiff Isis Brantley is an African hair braider who has, for the past thirty-two years, made her living braiding African hair. Brantley holds a Texas hair braiding license, may legally braid hair for compensation, and provides hair braiding services to the public through her sole proprietorship, Plaintiff Isis Ornamentations and Natural Hair Care Consultant d/b/a The Institute of Ancestral Braiding (the Institute),1 an 800-square-foot space located inside a Dallas community center. For the last twenty years, Brantley, through the Institute, has offered instruc[887]*887tion in African hair braiding to students who wish to learn to braid for a living. Because the Institute does not meet Texas’s requirements to become a licensed “barber school,” however, Brantley’s students cannot satisfy the course work requirement necessary for their individual licensure by taking Brantley’s hair braiding classes.

B. Texas’s Regulatory Scheme

African hair braiding is regulated by Texas statutes governing the practice of “barbering.” See Tex. Occ.Code § 1601.002(1)(K). The statutory definition of “barbering” includes several trades, including cutting and washing hair, skin care, and nail care. See id. § 1601.002. Brantley’s African hair braiding services fall within the portion of the definition that includes “braiding a person’s hair, trimming hair extensions only as applicable to the braiding process, and attaching commercial hair only by braiding and without the use of chemicals or adhesives.” Id. § 1601.002(1)05).

Texas requires persons who perform any type of “barbering” to be licensed as required for the type of barbering performed. See id. § 1601.251. Braiders are required to obtain the “Hair Braiding Specialty Certificate of Registration,” Texas’s hair braiding license.2 See id. § 1601.259(a) (stating persons holding the license may perform “only barbering as defined by § 1601.002(1)(K)”).3 Unlike applicants for a general barbering license, [888]*888who must complete a 1,500-hour curriculum and pass both a written and practical examination, id. § 1601.253(a)(2); 16 Tex. Admin. Code § 82.120(d), applicants for a hair braiding license need complete only a thirty-five hour curriculum and are not required to pass an examination. 16 Tex. Admin. Code §§ 82.20(b), (h); id. § 82.120(k). Hair braiding techniques are .not part-of the 1,500-hour general barbering licensure curriculum. See 16 Tex. Admin. Code § 81.120(d).

Only licensed barber schools may teach the practice of barbering as defined by the barbering statutes; thus, only classes taught in licensed barber schools count toward the thirty-five hour hair braiding curriculum requirement. See Tex. Occ. Code § 1601.001(a)(l-a). A would-be barber school must comply with a number of facility and equipment requirements in order to become licensed. See id. § 1601.353; 16 Tex. Admin. Code § 82.23. Those facility and equipment requirements include the three Plaintiffs have placed in issue: (1) a requirement the school have “at least 10 student workstations that include a chair that reclines, a back bar, and a wall mirror” (the 10-Chair Minimum); (2) a requirement the school install “a sink behind every two workstations” (the 5-Sink Minimum); and (3) a requirement the school have at least 2,000 square feet of floor space (the Square-Footage Minimum). Tex. Occ. Code §§ 1601.353(1)(A),4 (2)(A) — (B); 16 ■ Tex.Admin.Code §§ 82.23(d)(2) — (4); see also Tex. Occ.Code § 1601.352(3) (requiring compliance with § 1601.353); 16 Tex. Admin. Code § 82.23(a)(3) (same) (collectively, the Minimums). Plaintiffs aver compliance with the Mínimums will cost approximately $25,000 on top of the expense of relocating from the space the Institute has occupied for twenty years and the higher monthly costs associated with renting a space over twice the Institute’s current size.

Plaintiffs initiated this action by filing their original Complaint [# 1] on October 1, 2013. Plaintiffs challenge the constitutionality of the Mínimums as applied to them, arguing the Mínimums bear no rational relationship to any legitimate government interest. Defendants are members of the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation (TDLR), the agency charged with administration of the regulatory scheme, and the Texas Commission of Licensing and Regulation, which governs TDLR and appoints its administrative director. Tex. Occ.Code §§ 51.101, 51.201, 1603.002. All are sued in their official capacities. While Plaintiffs originally asserted claims against Defendants under the Equal Protection Clause, Privileges and Immunities Clause, and Due Process Clause, the. Court dismissed all but the substantive due process claim in its December 16, 2013 Order [# 10]. Plaintiffs thereafter filed their First Amended Complaint [# 25], and the instant cross-motions for summary judgment followed.

Analysis

I. Legal Standard

A. Summary Judgment

Summary judgment shall be rendered when the pleadings, the discovery and dis[889]*889closure materials on file, and any affidavits show that there is no genuine dispute as to any material fact and that the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(a);

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Bluebook (online)
98 F. Supp. 3d 884, 2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 680, 2015 WL 75244, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/brantley-v-kuntz-txwd-2015.