Goodpaster et al. v. City of Indianapolis

In 2012 the City of Indianapolis and Marion County expanded a local smoking ordinance to include bars and taverns. A number of bar owners sued, seeking a preliminary and a permanent injunction to prohibit the ordinance from taking effect. The bar owners claimed that the ordinance violated their rights to due process, freedom of association, and equal protection and constituted a taking under the federal and state Constitutions. The appeals court affirmed an earlier ruling upholding the local smoking ordinance. The court found that all of the bar owners claims failed. In particular, the court found that the government could have had a rational reason for adopting the law and for continuing to exclude cigar and hookah bars from the ordinance.

Goodpaster v. City of Indianapolis, 736 F.3d 1060 (7th Cir. 2013).

  • United States
  • Nov 25, 2013
  • United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit

Parties

Plaintiff

  • Chas J. Rogers
  • Patricia Rexroatt
  • Rick Cunningham
  • Rift Raft Incorporated
  • Wanda Goodpaster

Defendant

  • City of Indianapolis
  • City-County Council of the Consolidated City of Indianapolis
  • Marion County, Indiana
  • Mayor of Indianapolis, Indiana

Legislation Cited

Related Documents

Type of Litigation

Tobacco Control Topics

Substantive Issues

Type of Tobacco Product

None

"The bar owners also argue that because cigars are at least as harmful as cigarettes, permitting cigar smoking while banning cigarette smoking is arbitrary and capricious. Illogical reasons for a distinction, however, will not doom a classification supported by other rational reasons. In this case, the City could have been trying to protect public health by decreasing secondhand smoke exposure but simultaneously trying not to close all businesses where tobacco was sold or used. This was rational: while the City wants to decrease involuntary exposure to secondhand smoke, it does not want to ban smoking and tobacco use in its entirety. An effort to decrease involuntary exposure to secondhand smoke will naturally not be as concerned with bars whose business model is predicated on tobacco. Presumably, the patrons of cigar bars and hookah bars are not being involuntarily subjected to secondhand smoke because they chose to patronize bars where smoking is a necessary and essential part of the experience."