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With Malice Toward One: Malice And The Substantive Law In "Class Of One" Equal Protection Claims In The Wake Of Village Of Willowbrook V. Olech, Shaun M. Gehan

Maine Law Review

It may be time to relearn the fundamentals of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. According to the Supreme Court, in a brief and unassuming per curiam opinion in Village of Willowbrook v. Olech, violations of equal protection do not of necessity rely on class-based discriminations. Federal, state, and local governments can violate the equal protection rights of an individual qua individual; a so-called “class of one.” The ramifications of this decision are just now becoming clear, and it has already led to some surprising results in areas of statutory law thought to be well settled. The only …