Also known as: undue burden standards · undue burden · undue burden test · Casey standard
Written by attorneys — see sources below.
2 senses
A limitation on discovery obligations that excuses a party from producing electronically stored information or complying with a subpoena when the requested material is not reasonably accessible because of undue burden or cost. The responding party must demonstrate the inaccessibility. A court may still order production upon a showing of good cause while imposing conditions to mitigate expense.
A standard of review for state abortion regulations that invalidates any measure whose purpose or effect is to place a substantial obstacle in the path of a woman seeking a pre-viability abortion. Regulations that do not create such an obstacle survive even if they express respect for potential life. The standard replaces the trimester framework and balances state interests against the woman's liberty interest.
Each sense below has its own examples, sources, and questions.
A limitation on discovery obligations that excuses a party from producing electronically stored information or complying with a subpoena when the requested material is not reasonably accessible because of undue burden or cost. The responding party must demonstrate the inaccessibility. A court may still order production upon a showing of good cause while imposing conditions to mitigate expense.
Umbra Technologies received a broad request for five years of archived lab records stored on legacy servers. The company identified the servers as not reasonably accessible and moved for a protective order. The court required the requesting party to demonstrate good cause before ordering any production.
Ultimate Solutions moved for a protective order after opposing counsel noticed a deposition in a distant district. The motion included a certification of good-faith conferral. The court limited the deposition's location and allocated travel expenses to reduce the burden on the deponent.
United Bank received a subpoena demanding production of confidential customer transaction logs. Compliance would have required extensive manual review across multiple systems. The bank moved to quash on the ground that the subpoena subjected it to undue burden.
2 common questions
The party must demonstrate that the sources are not reasonably accessible because of undue burden or cost. Once that showing is made, the requesting party may still obtain the information by demonstrating good cause under Rule 26(b)(2)(C).
A court may order discovery if the requesting party shows good cause, taking into account the limitations in Rule 26(b)(2)(C). The court may also specify conditions such as cost shifting to protect the responding party.
A standard of review for state abortion regulations that invalidates any measure whose purpose or effect is to place a substantial obstacle in the path of a woman seeking a pre-viability abortion. Regulations that do not create such an obstacle survive even if they express respect for potential life. The standard replaces the trimester framework and balances state interests against the woman's liberty interest.
Umar Underwood challenged a state law requiring married women to notify their husbands before obtaining an abortion. The statute created a substantial obstacle for women in abusive relationships. The court struck down the provision under the undue burden standard.
The Pennsylvania Abortion Control Act of 1982, as amended in 1988 and 1989, established several requirements governing the performance of abortions within the Commonwealth. The Act required a woman seeking an abortion to provide informed consent after receiving specific information from a physician or counselor at least twenty-four hours before the procedure. It mandated that a minor obtain the informed consent of one parent, subject to a judicial bypass option. It further required a married woman to sign a statement confirming that she had notified her husband of her planned abortion, unless certain exceptions applied. The Act also imposed reporting obligations on facilities providing abortion services and defined a medical emergency exception to the various requirements. Before any of these provisions took effect, the petitioners brought suit in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. The petitioners were five abortion clinics and one physician representing himself as well as a class of physicians who provide abortion services. They sought declaratory and injunctive relief and challenged each provision as unconstitutional on its face. The District Court entered a preliminary injunction. After conducting a three-day bench trial, the District Court held all the provisions unconstitutional and entered a permanent injunction against their enforcement by Pennsylvania. The Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit affirmed in part and reversed in part. It adopted the District Court's factual findings and legal analysis except with respect to the spousal notification requirement. The Court of Appeals upheld the spousal notification requirement as constitutional and applied the undue burden standard in evaluating the provisions. The Supreme Court granted certiorari to consider the constitutionality of the challenged provisions of the Pennsylvania statute.
View caseUma Upadhyay sought an abortion before viability. State law mandated a physician test for viability even when the physician believed the fetus was not viable. The requirement imposed a substantial obstacle and was invalidated.
In June 1986, the Governor of Missouri signed into law Missouri Senate Committee Substitute for House Bill No. 1596, which amended existing state law concerning unborn children and abortions. The Act consisted of 20 provisions, five of which are before the Court. The preamble contains findings that the life of each human being begins at conception and that unborn children have protectable interests in life, health, and well-being. The Act requires that prior to performing an abortion on any woman whom a physician has reason to believe is 20 or more weeks pregnant, the physician ascertain whether the fetus is viable by performing such medical examinations and tests as are necessary to make a finding of the gestational age, weight, and lung maturity of the unborn child. The Act also prohibits the use of public employees and facilities to perform or assist abortions not necessary to save the mother's life and prohibits the use of public funds, employees, or facilities for encouraging or counseling a woman to have an abortion not necessary to save her life. In July 1986, five health professionals employed by the State and two nonprofit corporations brought this class action in the United States District Court for the Western District of Missouri. The plaintiffs sought declaratory and injunctive relief on the ground that certain statutory provisions violated the First, Fourth, Ninth, and Fourteenth Amendments. The two nonprofit corporations are Reproductive Health Services, which offers family planning and gynecological services including abortion services up to 22 weeks gestational age, and Planned Parenthood of Kansas City, which provides abortion services up to 14 weeks gestational age. The individual plaintiffs are three physicians, one nurse, and a social worker, all public employees at public facilities who encourage and counsel pregnant women to have nontherapeutic abortions, with two of the physicians performing abortions. Several weeks after the complaint was filed, the District Court temporarily restrained enforcement of several provisions of the Act. Following a 3-day trial in December 1986, the District Court declared seven provisions of the Act unconstitutional and enjoined their enforcement, including the preamble, the informed consent provision, the requirement that post-16-week abortions be performed only in hospitals, the mandated tests to determine viability, and the prohibition on the use of public funds, employees, and facilities to perform or assist nontherapeutic abortions. The Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit affirmed, with one exception not relevant to this appeal. The Court of Appeals determined that Missouri's declaration that life begins at conception was an impermissible state adoption of a theory of when life begins. It held that the requirement that physicians perform viability tests was an unconstitutional legislative intrusion on a matter of medical skill and judgment. The Court of Appeals invalidated Missouri's prohibition on the use of public facilities and employees to perform or assist abortions not necessary to save the mother's life. It distinguished our decisions in Harris v. McRae, 448 U. S. 297 (1980), and Maher v. Roe, 432 U. S. 464 (1977), on the ground that there is a fundamental difference between providing direct funding to effect the abortion decision and allowing staff physicians to perform abortions at an existing publicly owned hospital. The Court of Appeals struck down the provision prohibiting the use of public funds for encouraging or counseling women to have nontherapeutic abortions, for the reason that this provision was both overly vague and inconsistent with the right to an abortion enunciated in Roe v. Wade. The Supreme Court noted probable jurisdiction to consider the constitutionality of the Missouri statute.
Uliana Ustinova and other students challenged a pilot program requiring government-issued photo identification at campus polling places. The uniform rule advanced election-integrity interests without imposing a severe burden on any identifiable group. The court upheld the requirement.
In 2005, the Indiana General Assembly enacted Senate Enrolled Act No. 483, referred to as the Voter ID Law or SEA 483. The statute requires citizens voting in person at primary and general elections to present a government-issued photo identification card. It does not apply to absentee ballots submitted by mail. There is an exception for persons living and voting in a state-licensed facility such as a nursing home. Voters who lack compliant photo identification may cast a provisional ballot. The ballot will be counted only if they execute an appropriate affidavit before the circuit court clerk within ten days following the election. A voter who is indigent or has a religious objection to being photographed may cast a provisional ballot that will be counted only if she executes an appropriate affidavit before the circuit court clerk within 10 days following the election. The state offers free photo identification to qualified voters able to establish their residence and identity. Promptly after the enactment of SEA 483 in 2005, the Indiana Democratic Party and the Marion County Democratic Central Committee filed suit in the Federal District Court for the Southern District of Indiana against the state officials responsible for its enforcement. A second suit seeking the same relief was brought on behalf of two elected officials and several nonprofit organizations representing groups of elderly, disabled, poor, and minority voters. The cases were consolidated, and the State of Indiana intervened to defend the validity of the statute. After discovery, District Judge Barker prepared a comprehensive 70-page opinion explaining her decision to grant defendants' motion for summary judgment. She found that petitioners had not introduced evidence of a single, individual Indiana resident who will be unable to vote as a result of SEA 483 or who will have his or her right to vote unduly burdened by its requirements. She rejected as utterly incredible and unreliable an expert's report that up to 989,000 registered voters in Indiana did not possess either a driver's license or other acceptable photo identification. She estimated that as of 2005, when the statute was enacted, around 43,000 Indiana residents lacked a state-issued driver's license or identification card. A divided panel of the Court of Appeals affirmed. Four judges voted to grant a petition for rehearing en banc. The Supreme Court granted certiorari.
3 common questions
The undue burden standard asks whether a regulation has the purpose or effect of placing a substantial obstacle in the path of a woman seeking a pre-viability abortion. Strict scrutiny is not applied. Instead, only regulations that create such an obstacle are invalid.
Yes. Courts apply a balancing analysis that weighs the state's interests against any actual burden on voters. Evenhanded requirements that advance weighty interests without severe burdens are upheld.
…of our dormant Commerce Clause jurisprudence has been the principle that the States may not impose regulations that place an undue burden on interstate commerce, even where those regulations do not discriminate between in-state and out-of-state businesses. See Brown-Forman Distillers Corp. v. New York State Liquor…
…the District Court agreed, and concluded that Washington's assisted-suicide ban is unconstitutional because it "places an undue burden on the exercise of [that] constitutionally protected liberty interest." The District Court also decided that the Washington statute violated the Equal Protection Clause's requirement that…
…turn to the specific provisions of the Pennsylvania statute at issue. The Court of Appeals applied what it believed to be the undue burden standard
…instance, the welfare residence requirements are alleged to be unconstitutional on two grounds: first, because they impose an undue burden upon the constitutional right of welfare applicants to travel interstate; second, because they deny to persons who have recently moved interstate and would otherwise be eligible for…
…in that it makes unlawful a range of alternative responses that would be reasonable but would fall short of imposing an "undue burden
A substantial obstacle exists when a regulation has the purpose or effect of placing a substantial obstacle in the path of a woman seeking an abortion of a nonviable fetus. Regulations that merely express respect for potential life without creating such an obstacle are permissible.