Law for Business 12th Edition by James Barnes,Terry Dworkin,Eric Richards

Exercise 7

Nebraska voters adopted an article to their state constitution that prohibited nonfamily farm corporations from owning and operating Nebraska farm land. MSM Farms, a Nebraska corporation with unrelated shareholders, challenged the family farm measure on the grounds that it violated the equal protection clause of the U.S. Constitution. Specifically, MSM Farms argued that the state's prohibition of nonfamily corporate farming denied it equal protection because it was not rationally related to achieving any legitimate state purpose. Does the family farm measure discriminate in violation of the equal protection clause?