Kahn v. Shevin

416 U.S. 351, 94 S. Ct. 1734, 40 L. Ed. 2d 189, 1974 U.S. LEXIS 129

• Court: Supreme Court of the United States
• Decided: April 24, 1974
• Docket: 73-78
• Status: Published

Opinions

Mr. Justice Douglas

delivered the opinion of the Court.

Since at least 1885, Florida has provided for some form of property tax exemption for widows.¹ The current law granting all widows an annual $500 exemption, Fla. Stat.

§ 196.202 (Supp. 1974-1975), has been essentially unchanged since 1941.² Appellant Kahn is a widower who livés in Florida and applied for the exemption to the Dade County Tax Assessor’s Office. It was denied be-: cause the statute offers no analogous benefit for widowers.-Kahn then sought a declaratory judgment in the Circuit Court for Dade County, Florida, and that court held the statute violative of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment because the classification “widow” was based upon gender. The Florida Supreme Court reversed, finding the classification valid because it has a “ ‘fair and substantial relation to the object of the legislation,’ ” ³ that object being the reduction of “the disparity between the economic capabilities of a man and a woman.” Kahn appealed here, 28 U. S. C. § 1257 (2), and we noted probable jurisdiction, 414 U. S. 973. We affirm.

There can be no dispute that the financial difficulties confronting the lone woman in Florida or in any other State exceed those facing the .man. Whether from overt discrimination or from the socialization process of a male-dominated culture, the job market is inhospitable to the woman seeking any but the lowest paid jobs.⁴ There are, of course, efforts under way to remedy this situation. On the federal level, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits covered employers and labor unions from' discrimination on the basis of sex, 78 Stat. 253, 42 U. S. C. §§ 2000e-2 (a), (c), as does the Equal Pay Act of 1963, 77 Stat. 56, 29 U. S. C. § 206 (d). But firmly entrenched practices are resistant to such pressures, and, indeed, data compiled by the Women’s Bureau of the United States Department of Labor show that in 1972 a woman working full time had a median income which was only 57.9% of the median for males — a figure actually six points lower than had been achieved in 1955.⁵ Other .data point in the same direction.⁶ The disparity is likely to be exacerbated for the widow. While the widower can usually continue in the occupation which preceded, his spouse’s death, in many cases the widow will find herself suddenly forced into a job market with which she is unfamiliar, and in which, because of her former economic dependency, she will have fewer skills to offer.⁷

There can be no doubt, therefore, that Florida’s differing treatment of widows and widowers “ ‘rest[s] upon some ground of difference having a fair and substantial relation to the object of the legislation.’ ” Reed v. Reed, 404 U. S. 71, 76, quoting Royster Guano Co. v. Virginia, 253 U. S. 412, 415.

This is not a case like Frontiero v. Richardson, 411 U. S. 677, where the Government denied its female employees both substantive and procedural benefits granted males “solely . . .■ for administrative convenience.” Id., at 690 (emphasis in original).⁸ We deal here with a state tax law reasonably designed to further the state policy of cushioning the financial impact of spousal loss upon the sex for which that loss imposes a disproportionately ..heavy burden. We have' long held that “[w]here taxation is concerned and no specific federal right, apart from equal protection, is imperiled, the States have large leeway in making classifications and drawing lines which in their judgment, produce reasonable systems of taxation.” Lehnhausen v. Lake Shore Auto Parts Co., 410 U. S. 356, 359. A state tax law is not arbitrary although it “discriminate [s] in favor of a certain class ... if the discrimination is founded upon a reasonable distinction, or. difference in state policy,” not in conflict with the Federal Constitution. Allied Stores v. Bowers, 358 U. S. 522, 528. This principle has' weathered nearly a century of Supreme Court adjudication,⁹ and it applies here as well. The statute before us is well within those limits.¹⁰

Affirmed.

1 Article IX, § 9, of the 1885 Florida Constitution provided that: “There shall be exempt from taxation property to the value of two hundred dollars to every widow that has a family dependent on her for support, and to every person • that has lost, a limb or been disabled in war or by misfortune.”

2 In 1941. Fla. Stat. § 192.06 (7) exempted “[p]roperty to the value of five hundred dollars to every widow That provision has survived a variety of minor changes and renumbering in substantiafiy the same form, including Fla. Stat. § 196.191 (7) (1971) under which appellant-was denied the exemption. Currently Flá. Stat. § 196.202 provides: “Property to the value of five hundred dollars. ($500) of every widow, blind- person, or totally and permanently disabled' person who is a bona fide resident of this state shall be exempt from taxation.” '

3 Quoting Reed v. Reed, 404 U. S. 71,76.

4 In 1970 while 40% of males in the work, force earned over $10,000, and 70% over $7,000, 45% of women working full time earned less than $5,000, and 73.9% earned less than $7,000. U. S. Bureau of the Census: Current Population Reports, Series P-60, No. 80.

5 The Women’s Bureau provides the following data:

Women’s median Median earnings earnings - as percent Year Women Men of men’s

1972..........................$5,903 $10,202 57.9 '

1971.................'......... 5,593 9,399 59.5

1970.......................... 5,323 8,966 59.4

1969.......................... 4,977 8,227 60.5

1968 .......................... 4,457 7,664 58.2

1967.......................... 4,150 7,182 57.8

1966.......................... 3,973 6,848 58.0

1965.......................... 3,823 6,375 60.0

Women's median Year Median earnings Women Men earnmgs . as percent of men's

1964. .$3,690 $6,195 59.6

1963. . 3,561 5,978 59.6

1962. . 3,446 5,794 59.5

1961. . 3,351 5,644 59.4

1960. ..3,293 5,417 60.8

1959. . 3,193 5,209 61.3

1958. . 3,102 4,927 63.0

1957. . 3,008 4,713 63.8

1956. . 2,827 4,466 63.3

1955. . 2,719 4,252 63.9

Note. — Data for 1962-72 are not strictly comparable with those for prior years, which are for wage and salary income only and do not include earnings of self-employed persons.

Source: Table prepared by Women’s Bureau, Employment Standards Administration, U. S. Department of Labor, from data published by Bureau of the Census, U. S. Department of Commerce.

6 For example, in 1972 the median income of women with four years of college was $8,736 — exactly $100 more than the median income of men who had never, even completed one year of high school. Of. those employed as managers or administrators, the women’s median income was only 53.2% ef the men’s, and in the professional and technical occupations the figure was 67.5%. Thus the disparity extends even to women occupying jobs usually thought of as well paid. Tables prepared by the Women’s Bureau, Employ.ment Standards Administration, U. S. Department of Labor.

7 It is' still the case, that in the majority of. families where both spouses are present, the woman is'not émployed. A. Ferriss, Indicators of Trends in the Status of American Women 95 (1971).

8 And in Frontiero the plurality opinion also rioted that the statutes there were “not in any sense designed to rectify the' effects of past discrimination against women. On the contrary, these statutes seize upon a group — women—who have historically suffered discrimination in employment, and rely on the effects of this past discrimination' as a justification for heaping on additional economic disadvantages.” 411 U. S., at 689 n. 22 (citations omitted).

9 See Bell’s Gap R. Co. v. Pennsylvania, 134 U. S. 232, 237; Madden v. Kentucky, 309 U. S. 83, 87-88; Lawrence v. State Tax Comm’n, 286 U. S. 276; Royster Guano Co. v. Virginia, 253 U. S. 412.

10 The dissents argue that the Florida Legislature could have drafted the statute differently, so that- its purpose would have been accomplished more precisely. But the issue, of course, is not whether the statute(could have been drafted more wisely, but whether the lines chosen by the Florida Legislature are within constitutional limitations. The dissents would use the Equal Protection Clause as a vehicle for reinstating notions of substantive due process that have been repudiated. “We have returned to the original constitutional proposition that courts do not substitute their social and economic beliefs for the judgment of legislative bodies, [which] are elected to pass laws.” Ferguson v. Skrupa, 372 U. S. 726, 730.

Gender has never been rejected as an impermissible classification in all instances. Congress has not so far drafted women into the Armed Services, 50 U. S. C. App. § 454. The famous Brandéis Brief in Muller v. Oregon, 208 U. S. 412, on which the Court specifically relied, id., at 419-420, emphasized that thé special physical structure of women has a bearing on the “conditions under which she should be permitted to toil.” Id., at 420. These instances are pertinent to the problem in the tax field which is presented by this present case. Mr. Chief Justice Hughes in speaking for the Court said:

“The States, in ,the exercise of their taxing power, as with respect to tne exertion of other powers, are subject to the requirements of. the due oro cess and the equal protection clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment, but that Amendment imposes no iron rule of equality, prohibiting the flexibility and variety that are appropriate to schemes of taxation. ... In levying such -taxes, the State is not required to resort to close distinctions or to maintain a precise, scientific uniformity with reference to composition, use or value. To hold otherwise would be to subject- the essential taxing power of the State to an intolerable supervision, hostile to the basic principles of our Government and wholly beyond the protection which the general clause of the Fourteenth Amendment was intended to assure.” Ohio Oil Co. v. Conway, 281 U. S. 146, 159.