Frontiero v. Richardson

Congress passed a law granting members of the armed services with dependents an increased housing allowance, as well as medical and dental benefits for their dependents. Under the law, a serviceman was permitted to claim his wife as a dependent, regardless of whether the wife was actually dependent on the serviceman for support. In contrast, a servicewoman was permitted to claim her husband as a dependent only upon showing that her husband was actually dependent on her for more than half of his support. Sharron Frontiero (plaintiff), a member of the United States Air Force, tried to claim her husband, Joseph Frontiero (plaintiff), as a dependent. Frontiero’s application was denied because she did not make the required showing of dependence. The Frontieros brought suit in federal district court against Secretary of Defense Elliot Richardson and others (defendants). The Frontieros alleged that the law violated the procedural and substantive requirements of the Fifth Amendment’s Due Process Clause by imposing additional procedural burdens on female servicemembers and denying them access to benefits available to male servicemembers. A majority of a three-judge district-court panel upheld the law, concluding that Congress might have believed the policy was economical and efficient because husbands often had financially dependent wives while wives rarely had financially dependent husbands. The Frontieros appealed directly to the United States Supreme Court.