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In Amunrud v. Board of Appeals (Wash. 2006), the Washington Supreme Court upheld (6 to 3) the constitutionality of RCW 74.20A.320’s provisions for the suspension of driver and other professional licenses when a parent is six months or more in arrears of child support. 

RCW 74.20A.320 was passed pursuant to the federal Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 (PRWORA). In order to receive federal block grants, states must operate child support programs that meet certain federal requirements. This includes setting procedures for suspending driver and other professional licenses when persons fail to meet child support obligations. 

Writing for the majority, Justice Barbara Madsen maintained that the statute embodied a rational relation between the suspension of said licenses and the state’s interest in enforcing child support orders. This conclusion was premised upon the application of rational basis review, “the most relaxed form of judicial scrutiny.” Chief Justice Gerry Alexander and Justices Charles Johnson, Bobbe Bridge, Susan Owens, and Mary Fairhurst joined the majority.

Justice Madsen acknowledged that said licenses are property interests requiring due process protections. But she rejected Amunrud’s claims that he was denied a meaningful hearing and was not allowed the opportunity to show that revoking his professional taxi cab license would harm his ability to pay back child support payments. According to Justice Madsen, the statute provided for an administrative hearing to challenge the license suspension, as well as the right to appeal the suspension, and the opportunity to obtain a release from the suspension by signing a repayment agreement. In a footnote, Justice Madsen asserted that the Washington Constitution’s Due Process Clause (Article I, Section 3) provides equal, but not greater protection than the federal Due Process Clause.

Justice Madsen denied that there is a fundamental right to earn a living or pursue an occupation. To claim such, she argued, is to turn back over 100 years of Washington Supreme Court rulings and return the state to the Lochner era. Rather, Justice Madsen maintained the right to earn a living is simply a liberty interest protected by basic due process requirements. Her opinion noted that the Washington statute is not concerned with driving or professional safety, but that it satisfies rational basis scrutiny as a means of furthering the state’s compelling interest in protecting children. 

Justice Richard Sanders penned a dissenting opinion, signed by Justices James Johnson and Tom Chambers, concluding that the Washington statute bore no relation to traffic safety, and infringed upon Amunrud’s right to earn a living, ultimately failing to satisfy due process requirements. 

The right to earn a living, wrote Justice Sanders, is a fundamental right receiving constitutional protection by federal and state due process requirements. As such, Justice Sanders maintained that the Washington statute at issue should be subjected to strict scrutiny. However, he also asserted that even under a less-exacting standard the statute at issue lacked adequate justification. 

To satisfy due process, Justice Sanders insisted that a statute must satisfy a three-part test, articulated in Lawton v. Steele1 and several other Washington Supreme Court decisions. First, the law must be aimed at achieving a legitimate public purpose. Second, the law must use means reasonably necessary to achieve that purpose. Last, it must not be unduly oppressive.

Wrote Justice Sanders, the police power to regulate or revoke licenses is not unlimited, but must bear a real and substantial relation to the legitimate reason for the licensing. He noted the dissenting opinion of Justice Madsen in State v. Shawn P.,2 involving a statute revoking or denying driver licenses to minors who had been found guilty of possessing or consuming alcohol, regardless of whether they drove while possessing or consuming. Justice Madsen’s Shawn P. dissent opined that where there is no “immediate connection with operating a motor vehicle, the license revocation is arbitrary and lacks the rational relationship demanded by substantive due process.”3 Justice Sanders concluded that failure to pay child support has no rational relationship with driving safety, and is therefore void.

Finally, Justice Sanders contended that historic methods of collecting child support (garnishment, civil liability, property liens, contempt of court) and federal prosecution are less intrusive, more effective means of accomplishing the goal of the statute than taking away a debtor’s income source.

In SuperValu Holdings, Inc. v. Department of Labor & Industries (Wash. 2006), the Washington Supreme Court was faced with the issue of whether a voter initiative prevented the state government from regulating all kinds of ergonomics, or whether the initiative only repealed specific ergonomics regulations, but left the state able to regulate ergonomics through its other workplace regulatory authority.

The court held that the Department of Labor & Industries (L&I) has the power to regulate business-place ergonomics through its “general duty clause” in the Washington Industrial Safety and Health Act (RCW 49.17.060(1)), and ruled that voter Initiative 841 (passed in 2003) did not deprive L&I of such power. 

Washington voters passed Initiative 841 in 2003, repealing controversial ergonomics regulations promulgated by L&I in 2000. The Initiative, by its terms, deemed the regulations “expensive” and “unproven.” Section 2 of the Initiative provided that “[t]he state ergonomics regulations…are repealed,” and that “[t]he director shall not have the authority to adopt any new or amended rules dealing with musculoskeletal disorders” unless and to the extent required by the U.S. Congress or the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration. Section 3 of the Initiative stated that its provisions “are to be liberally construed to effectuate the intent, policies and purposes” of the Act. 

The case arose when L&I fi led for a subpoena to obtain from SuperValu Holdings, Inc. all written information on its program for preventing musculoskeletal injuries. A Pierce County trial court had refused to enforce the subpoena, essentially concluding that L&I no longer has any authority to regulate ergonomics under the terms of Initiative 841. 

Justice Tom Chambers wrote the opinion for the court on behalf of the 8-1 majority. (Justice James Johnson was recused from the case and was replaced by Judge Christine Quinn-Brintnall of Division II of the Washington Court of Appeals.) Justice Chambers concluded that “[n]othing in I-841 suggests that L&I is stripped of its general regulatory authority to address serious or deadly ergonomics-related workplace hazards by way of RCW 49.1.060(1)” (emphasis added). Instead, he wrote that the plain terms of the Initiative suggested that voters only intended to repeal specific ergonomics regulations and to prohibit L&I from adopting new ergonomics regulations that are similar to the ones repealed.

Justice Chambers also maintained that because of Initiative 841 limits L&I may only regulate ergonomics under its General Duty Clause. Thus, the agency now has a higher burden when attempting to prove a violation. He asserted that to prove a violation of the general duty clause, L&I must demonstrate that an employer failed to keep the workplace clear of (1) a hazard, which (2) was recognized, and (3) caused or was likely to cause death or serious injury.

Justice Richard Sanders wrote the dissent. He concluded that “[w]hile I-841 does not specifically mention the general duty clause, the fact that it deemed ergonomics ‘unproven’ removes L&I’s authority to investigate and enforce it as a ‘recognized’ hazard.” Justice Sanders characterized L&I’s General Duty Clause arguments as resting on the assumption that ergonomics hazards are “recognized”—a groundless assumption in light of the Initiative.

Moreover, Justice Sanders pointed out that L&I’s repealed ergonomics regulations did not identify any ergonomics hazards, but instead required employers to analyze various risk factors to ascertain any hazards. 

L&I now has a different and expanded definition of ergonomics that extends to “psychological” hazards as well as physical ones.

 

Endnotes

1 152 U.S. 133 (1894). 

2 122 Wn.2d 533 (Wash. 1993). 

3 Id. at 569.

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