Braunfeld v. Brown

Braunfeld v. Brown, 366 U. S. 599 (1961), was a landmark case on the issue of religious and economic liberty decided by the United States Supreme Court. In a 6–3 decision, the Court held that a Pennsylvania blue law forbidding the sale of various retail products on Sunday was not an unconstitutional interference with religion as described in the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.

Blue laws in the United States had been passed by State legislatures, including Pennsylvania, prohibiting commerce the first day of the week, colloquially known as Sunday, which legislators referred to as "The Lord's day". Plaintiffs sought to have a 1959 Pennsylvania statute, 18 Purdon's Pa. Stat. Ann. 4699.10 (1960 Cum. Supp.) overturned as unconstitutional. A three judge panel rejected their petition. (See Abraham Braunfeld v. Thomas J. Gibbons and Victor H. Blanc, 184 F. Supp. 352 (E. D. Pa 1959)). The Court also based its opinion in part on two earlier rulings. In Two Guys from Harrison Allentown, Inc., v. McGinley, 366 U. S. 582 (1961), the Court had previously ruled that the same Pennsylvania statute was not unconstitutional, either as (i) a violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution or (ii) an impermissible establishment of religion under the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. Therefore, the only remaining issue in Braunfeld was whether the Pennsylvania statute was an unconstitutional interference in the appellant's religion. In McGowan v. Maryland, 366 U. S. 420 (1961), the Court had previously held that a similar Maryland statute was constitutional.

Abraham Braunfeld and the other appellants were Pennsylvania merchants. As Orthodox Jews, the appellants were unable to do business on Friday evening or Saturday. They objected to a Pennsylvania law forbidding them from doing business on Sunday, arguing that the law unfairly discriminated against them by effectively forcing them to remain closed for one more day than competing Christian merchants.

Justice Frankfurter wrote a concurring opinion with which Justice Harlan joined as to most points. (Justice Frankfurter published that opinion as part of McGowan v. Maryland, 366 U. S. 420 (1961), but declared his opinion applicable to Braunfeld and several other cases. McGowan, 366 U. S. at 459, fn). First, Justice Frankfurter examined the history of the First Amendment and "Sunday Statutes" in detail, and concluded that the Sunday statutes had a long history and substantial non religious purpose. McGowan, 366 U. S. at 460–511. On that basis, Justice Frankfurter rejected most of the appellants' claims. McGowan, 366 U. S. at 511–42. However, Justice Frankfurter, writing solely for himself and not for Justice Harlan, did dissent on one point. Based on the procedural history of Braunfeld, Justice Frankfurter argued that appellants' claim that the law was irrational and arbitrary should not have been dismissed for failure to state a claim, but should have been permitted to proceed to an evidentiary stage. McGowan, 366 U. S. at 542–43.

Like Justice Frankfurter, Justice Douglas also published his Braunfeld dissent as part of the earlier McGowan decision, at 366 US 561–82. In that opinion, Justice Douglas argued that the "Sunday Laws" could not be separated from their religious roots, and that the imposition of those laws on persons of other religions violated both the Establishment Clause and the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution