## Facts

- Montana set big-game hunting license fees that sharply favored residents over nonresidents.
- Residents could buy relatively inexpensive licenses for a single animal, including elk.
- Nonresidents had to purchase a significantly more expensive “combination” license covering multiple species and fishing, even if they sought only to hunt one elk.
- The nonresident fees were at least about 7.5 times higher than resident fees, and in some years substantially more.
- A Montana outfitter and four Minnesota hunters sued state wildlife officials seeking declaratory and injunctive relief.
- Plaintiffs alleged the scheme violated the Privileges and Immunities Clause (Art. IV, § 2) and the Equal Protection Clause (Fourteenth Amendment).
- A three-judge federal district court upheld the scheme, and the case was appealed directly to the U.S. Supreme Court.

## Issues

1. Whether charging nonresidents substantially higher fees and requiring a combination license for elk hunting violates the Privileges and Immunities Clause of Article IV.
2. Whether the resident/nonresident fee differential and combination-license requirement violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court affirmed, 6–3.
- Recreational big-game hunting by nonresidents was not a privilege protected by the Privileges and Immunities Clause.
- Applying deferential review under equal protection, the Court held Montana’s differential fees and combination-license requirement were not irrational.
- The Court accepted Montana’s conservation and regulatory justifications, including protecting a finite elk population and accounting for residents’ contributions to wildlife management through taxation and ongoing regulation.

## Legal Principles

- Article IV’s Privileges and Immunities Clause requires equal treatment of nonresidents only as to rights that are fundamental to national unity and interstate citizenship.
- Recreational access to state natural resources, such as sport hunting, is not a fundamental privilege protected by the Privileges and Immunities Clause.
- When a law distinguishes between residents and nonresidents but does not burden a fundamental right or target a suspect class, equal protection review asks whether the classification is rationally related to a legitimate state interest.
- A state may use differential pricing and related licensing conditions to conserve and manage finite wildlife resources, so long as the means are not irrational in light of conservation, administrative, and enforcement interests.

## Conclusion

The Court upheld Montana’s higher nonresident elk-hunting fees and combination-license requirement, holding that recreational hunting is outside the core protections of Article IV’s Privileges and Immunities Clause and that the scheme was a rational method of conserving and regulating a finite wildlife resource under equal protection.


Baldwin v. Fish & Game Comm'n of Mont., 436 U.S. 371 (1978)