Civil Rights — equal protection — class of one

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U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit

Civil

Civil Rights — equal protection — class of one

Summary judgment was properly granted to the defendants on plaintiff’s claim that he was denied equal protection when the state would not give him a license to operate a pawn shop.

“Saalwaechter argues that George Belt had ‘done things that a reasonable fact finder could find to be “worse” than what Fares Pawn was accused of,’ so that the decision to grant Deal Brothers’ application and deny Fares Pawn’s was irrational. This argument misses the point. It may be true that, as Saalwaechter reminds us, ‘[i]f a bad person is treated better than a good person, this is just as much an example of unequal treatment as when … a good person [is treated] worse than an equally good person.’ Esmail v. Macrane, 53 F.3d 176, 179 (7th Cir. 1995). But an applicant cannot fashion a triable class-of-one claim merely because he can locate another applicant accused of arguably ‘worse’ conduct. As with any comparator, the question is whether, given the red flags in each of their applications, DFI had a rational basis for licensing Deal Brothers and not licensing Fares Pawn. See Bell, 367 F.3d at 707. Clearly, it did—DFI believed Belt when he said that he acted in self-defense, and it either did not believe or found insufficient Saalwaechter’s explanation for the numerous causes for concern that surfaced in his own application. That is not a violation of the Equal Protection Clause.”

Affirmed.

13-3240 Fares Pawn, LLC, v. IDFI

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of Indiana, Young, J., Flaum, J.