The Court of Appeals of Tennessee, located in Nashville, has struck down a municipal ordinance that limited the number of customers who could visit a home-based business.
It is invalid because it discriminated based on the type business it was.
According to a report from the Institute for Justice, which fought on behalf of record producer Lij Shaw and hairstylist Pat Raynor, Nashville’s rule allowed the two only six client visits a day at their businesses.
And then the city came up with “invasive and burdensome requirements.”
However, other businesses based in homes, such as short-term rentals, home daycares, historic homes and more, were allowed to have 12 or more clients daily, “free from additional requirements.”
“This kind of arbitrary favoritism has no place under the Tennessee Constitution,” explained Paul Avelar, a lawyer for the IJ. “Lij and Pat have a constitutional right to use their homes to earn an honest living. But Nashville treats their home-based businesses worse than other, privileged, home-based businesses for no real reason.”
The lawsuit stems from the city’s 2017 attacks on the two businesses, in which it shut them down.
Then came COVD, and the city allowed them to have six client visits daily.
Now a unanimous ruling from Judges Frank Clement, Andy Bennett, and Jeffrey Usman agreed with the claims that the city had not offered good reasons for favoring some home business over others.
The ruling said, “Metro has offered no rational reason for the difference in treatment that is relevant to the purpose of the law.”
The case already has been to the state Supreme Court, which rejected a lower court’s dismissal and reinstated it for further opinions at the lower court level.
At first, the lower court claimed the limits were “constitutional because they were rationally related to the city’s interests in preserving the residential nature of neighborhoods.”
The appeals ruling noted that the city changed its code during the time period that the lawsuit was pending. But throughout the proceedings the city exempted short-term rentals, home-based daycares, historic buildings and such.
The case ended up addressing the city’s irrational decision to distinguish between different types of home-related businesses.
“Plaintiffs argued that there was no rational reason that was relevant to the purpose of the law for distinguishing between their businesses and the Exempt Businesses. In support, Plaintiffs produced evidence that their businesses had no more of an impact on the residential character of neighborhoods than the Exempt Businesses,” the ruling said.
The opinion noted the city didn’t even try to dispute that.
The city had responded to the unequal treatment concerns by stating that it did allow customer visits, but did “not explain what relevance this has to plaintiff’s equal protection claim.’
“We conclude that Plaintiffs’ businesses are similarly situated in all material respects to home-based daycares, historic-home event venues, owner-occupied STRPs, and home based businesses on property rezoned as SP districts with respect to the purpose of the law,” the appeals court said.
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Author: Bob Unruh
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