Baldwin v. Montana Fish and Game Commission

Appellant
Lester Baldwin, et al.
Appellee
Fish and Game Commission of Montana
Appellant's Claim
That Montana's state game regulations violated Article IV, Section 2 of the U.S. Constitution and the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
Chief Lawyer for Appellant
James H. Goetz
Chief Lawyer for Appellee
Paul A. Lenzini
Justices for the Court
Harry A. Blackmun (writing for the Court), Warren E. Burger, Lewis F. Powell,Jr., William H. Rehnquist, John Paul Stevens, Potter Stewart
Justices Dissenting
William J. Brennan, Jr., Thurgood Marshall, Byron R. White
Place
Washington, D.C.
Date of Decision
23 May 1978
Decision
Montana's state fish and game laws were constitutional, and the appellant wasnot entitled to any relief from them.
Significance
The ability of states to regulate hunting, fishing, and environmental protection was upheld, even if such regulation discriminated against nonresidents ofthe state in question.
The state of Montana has long been renowned for its hunting and fishing, andmaintains a thriving industry based on the outfitting and guiding of huntingand fishing parties. In the early 1970s, Lester Baldwin, a resident of Montana, was a state-licensed hunting guide specializing in the pursuit of elk. Themajority of Baldwin's clients were from other states and traveled to Montanafor the express purpose of elk hunting. In 1975, Montana's hunting regulations that required state residents pay $4 for an elk-hunting license, while nonresidents were required to purchase a combination hunting license, entitlingthem to shoot two deer and one elk, for $151.
Four of Baldwin's clients, who traveled from Minnesota to Montana each year to hunt elk, balked at the discrepancy between license fees for residents andnonresidents and, along with Baldwin, filed suit against the state in the U.S. District Court for the District of Montana. The plaintiffs sought relief from Montana licensing requirements, claiming that the state game laws violatedtheir rights as set forth in Article IV, Section 2 of the U.S. Constitutionand reiterated in the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The district court ruled against Baldwin, et al., and the group appealed theircase to the U.S. Supreme Court, which heard arguments on 5 October 1977.
Attorneys for the appellants argued that Montana's game laws, by discriminating against nonresidents in their fee structures, violated Article IV, Section2 of the Constitution, which states in part that "citizens of each state shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of citizens in the several states," as well as the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, which states in part that "no state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States."
The respondents countered that Montana residents already paid for game conservation and regulation programs through their state taxes, and that the stateitself, by emphasizing wildlife conservation, had sacrificed economic development for the benefit of all and was due compensation from residents of more economically developed and environmentally degraded areas. Finally, the appellees presented evidence that nonresident hunters, by virtue of their general lack of experience, were a more difficult enforcement problem for state game wardens than resident hunters.
On 23 May 1978, the Court upheld the decision of the district court. In rejecting the appellants' claim that the Montana game laws violated Article IV, Section 2 of the Constitution, the Court noted that this passage had "been interpreted to prevent a state from imposing unreasonable burdens on citizens ofother states in pursuit of their common callings within the state," and thatthe game laws as they existed posed no threat to the right to hunt elk. The Court also found that the state game laws did not violate the Equal ProtectionClause of the Fourteenth Amendment, since the laws' primary intent was the maintenance and improvement of the hunting conditions that drew the appellantsto Montana in the first place. Chief Justice Burger, in a concurring opinion, noted that the right of states to regulate and preserve wildlife for the common good had long been recognized in U.S. law.
Justices Brennan, Marshall, and White dissented, noting that states should only be allowed to discriminate against nonresidents if "the presence or activity of nonresidents was the source or cause of the problem or effect with which the state sought to deal." They added that, "the discrimination practiced against nonresidents bore a substantial relation to the problem they presented." They did not feel that the presence of nonresident hunters had caused anyextraordinary elk conservation problems for Montana.
Baldwin v. Montana Fish and Game Commission confirmed the ability of states to regulate hunting and fishing and environmental quality within theirborders, even if such regulation is applied unequally to state residents andnonresidents. Environmental and wildlife management legislation was judged tobe both a substantial state regulatory interest and a means of preserving finite resources for the public good, and as such, is beyond the purview of theEqual Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
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