Terk v. Gordon

Background

A Texas resident sued New Mexico under the Privileges and Immunities Clause (a constitutional rule about treating people from other states fairly) and the Fourteenth Amendment, challenging state laws that require hunting licenses. The state law set higher license fees for nonresidents than for residents and also had rules about how licenses for certain rare game were allocated. A three-judge federal district court upheld the higher fees but struck down the allocation rules for rare species. The Texas resident appealed only the fee ruling. The state officials named in the case did not ask the Supreme Court to review the allocation decision.

Reasoning

The main question was whether New Mexico’s higher fees for nonresidents violated the constitutional protections the plaintiff relied on. The Supreme Court said the fee issue was controlled by a recent decision in Baldwin v. Montana Fish & Game Commission, and therefore the lower court’s decision upholding the higher fees should be affirmed. The Court affirmed the district court’s judgment on the fee point and expressly declined to take up the separate allocation issue because it was not appealed to them.

Real world impact

As a result, New Mexico’s higher hunting license fees for nonresidents remain lawful under the Court’s ruling. The earlier district court finding that the allocation rules for rare-game licenses were unconstitutional was not reviewed by the Supreme Court and therefore stands without comment from this Court. This decision follows the Court’s recent guidance in a related case and does not change that unreviewed allocation ruling.