Baldwin v. Montana Fish and Game Commission

The ability of states to regulate hunting, fishing, and environmental protection was upheld, even if such regulation discriminated against nonresidents of the state in question.

The state of Montana has long been renowned for its hunting and fishing, and maintains a thriving industry based on the outfitting and guiding of hunting and fishing parties. In the early 1970s, Lester Baldwin, a resident of Montana, was a state-licensed hunting guide specializing in the pursuit of elk. The majority of Baldwin's clients were from other states and traveled to Montana for 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, entitling them 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 and nonresidents 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 violated their rights as set forth in Article IV, Section 2 of the U.S. Constitution and reiterated in the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The district court ruled against Baldwin, et al., and the group appealed their case 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, Section 2 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 state itself, 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 of other states in pursuit of their common callings within the state," and that the 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 Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, since the laws' primary intent was the maintenance and improvement of the hunting conditions that drew the appellants to 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 any extraordinary 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 their borders, even if such regulation is applied unequally to state residents and nonresidents. Environmental and wildlife management legislation was judged to be 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 the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.