## Facts

- Oklahoma enacted a 1953 statute restricting non-licensed persons from fitting lenses and from duplicating or replacing lenses in frames without a prescription from a licensed optometrist or ophthalmologist.
- The law effectively required prescriptions for most eyeglass making, repairing, or refitting, while exempting sellers of ready-to-wear glasses.
- The statute also prohibited solicitation of the sale of frames, mountings, or other optical appliances.
- Lee Optical of Oklahoma, Inc. (an optician business) sought declaratory and injunctive relief against enforcement, alleging violations of the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment.
- The federal district court enjoined enforcement of portions of the statute as not reasonably related to public health and as drawing arbitrary distinctions.
- Oklahoma officials appealed directly to the U.S. Supreme Court.

## Issues

1. Whether the prescription requirement and restrictions on opticians’ lens-fitting, duplication, and replacement activities violated the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
2. Whether exempting ready-to-wear eyeglass sellers while regulating opticians violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
3. Whether the statute’s prohibition on solicitation of sales of optical appliances violated the Due Process Clause.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court reversed the district court in substantial part and upheld the challenged provisions.
- The Court held that the prescription requirement and limits on non-licensed opticians did not violate due process because the legislature could rationally view the measures as serving public health.
- The Court held that exempting ready-to-wear sellers did not violate equal protection because legislatures may regulate problems incrementally and need not address all related conduct at once.
- The Court upheld the solicitation prohibition as a permissible legislative judgment about commercial practices in eye-related services and goods.

## Legal Principles

- Economic and social regulations are reviewed under highly deferential rational-basis scrutiny.
- A law satisfies due process and equal protection if any conceivable set of facts provides a rational relationship to a legitimate state interest; courts do not weigh policy wisdom or require empirical proof.
- Under rational-basis review, a statute may be underinclusive; incremental regulation does not violate equal protection merely because similar conduct remains unregulated.
- A legislature may regulate advertising or solicitation in health-adjacent markets if it could rationally view the restriction as advancing public welfare.

## Conclusion

The Court sustained Oklahoma’s eyeglass-related regulations, reaffirming that ordinary economic legislation is constitutional so long as it is not wholly arbitrary and can be supported by any conceivable rational justification tied to a legitimate public purpose.


Williamson v. Lee Optical of Okla., Inc., 348 U.S. 483 (1955)