Massachusetts Board of Retirement v. Murgia

Massachusetts Board of Retirement v. Murgia
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued December 10, 1975 Decided June 25, 1976
Full case name	Massachusetts Board of Retirement v. Murgia
Citations	427 U.S. 307 (more) 96 S. Ct. 2562; 49 L. Ed. 2d 520
Court membership
Chief Justice Warren E. Burger Associate Justices William J. Brennan, Jr. · Potter Stewart Byron White · Thurgood Marshall Harry Blackmun · Lewis F. Powell, Jr. William Rehnquist · John P. Stevens
Case opinions
Per curiam.
Dissent	Marshall
Stevens took no part in the consideration or decision of the case.
Laws applied
U.S. Const. amend. XIV Mass. Gen. Laws Ann. c. 32, § 26 (3) (a) (1966)

Massachusetts Board of Retirement v. Murgia, 427 U.S. 307 (1976), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held a Massachusetts law setting a mandatory retirement age of 50 for police officers was Constitutionally permissible.^[1][2]

Background

Robert Murgia was forcibly retired from his career as a Massachusetts police officer, based on that state's Gen. Laws Ann. c. 32, § 26 (3) (a), mandating retirement by the age of 50. Murgia brought suit against the state arguing that the law violated the Equal Protection Clause of the United States Constitution. The United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit eventually concluded that the law lacked a rational basis in furthering state interests, and held the statute unconstitutional. The case was appealed to the Supreme Court.

Opinion of the Court

In a per curiam opinion, the court held that rational basis was the appropriate standard for this question of equal protection, and that the age limit was rationally related to a legitimate state interest. As a result, the court held § 26 (3) (a) to be constitutional.

Justice Thurgood Marshall penned the lone dissent in the case, arguing that the Court's "two-tier" model of equal protection scrutiny was inappropriate and that this case should be judged under an intermediate level of scrutiny, although that term "intermediate scrutiny" was not used in the dissent.^[2][3]

References

1. Zirkel, Perry Alan; Richardson, Sharon Nalbone; Goldberg, Steven Selig (2001-01-01). A Digest of Supreme Court Decision Affecting Education, Fourth Edition. Phi Delta Kappa International. pp. 108–. ISBN 9780873678353. Retrieved 21 February 2013.
2. Ducat, Craig R. (2009). Constitutional Interpretation. Cengage Learning. pp. 863–. ISBN 9780495503248. Retrieved 21 February 2013.
3. Case documents at FindLaw

External links

• Case documents at FindLaw