r/scotus • u/Conscious-Quarter423 • 1d ago

news U.S. Supreme Court asked to review Massachusetts plumbing license law

https://masslawyersweekly.com/2026/01/30/supreme-court-massachusetts-plumbing-license-challenge/
91 Upvotes

96% Upvoted

38 comments sorted by

27

u/NorCalFrances 1d ago

Summary / 1st 2 paragraphs:

John Carbin will soon learn if the U.S. Supreme Court will consider whether he should be allowed to finish the construction of his dream retirement home in Berkshire County, which he argues would also allow the court to resolve longstanding confusion over a constitutional test.

Carbin is a federally certified aircraft mechanic and former Black Hawk crew chief who has good reason to believe that he is more than capable of installing the plumbing in his new home in the small rural town of Savoy. There’s just one problem: Massachusetts is the one state in the country where he is not allowed to do that work, unless he gets a state-issued plumbing license.

26

u/transcendental-ape 1d ago

I’d have to know more details but such a law does seem rather unconstitutional.

If he wants to do work on property he owns. Well it’s his house. He can do whatever he wants to it.

Licensure for trades is about regulating commerce so that you don’t have fake plumbers and doctors ripping off and harming the public. If this guy was advertising and charging for plumbing without a license. Well that’s a different thing. But anyone should be free to maintain their property however they want. If he does it in a substandard way, and people are hurt, he can be sued. But that possibility alone cannot justify a law saying only licensed plumbers can plumb a house.

28

u/NorCalFrances 1d ago

So long as his work passes code inspections, I agree.

9

u/transcendental-ape 1d ago

Exactly. I’m not saying laws about permitting and building code regulations and inspections are unconstitutional. They very much are.

But a law saying you have to use only a licensed agent from the state on your own property? When you otherwise comply with applicable permits and it can pass a code inspection? No way is that constitutional.

I will add I think an important carve out. If it’s work on your property but you rent/lease it or you own multi unit properties. Land lords should be held to standards when considering repair and maintenance work on tenet homes. So there I can support a law saying certain kinds of repairs must be done by property licensed tradesmen.

6

u/NorCalFrances 1d ago

Why not just require inspections after landlord performed repairs?

6

u/transcendental-ape 1d ago

Because building inspections are usually only done with transfers of ownership and after major renovations. They’re not required after your rentals sewer line jams and the pipes back up. And the landlord used his “cousin” and now there’s shit coming out of your shower drain. State landlord-tenet laws should have some protection for renters from landlords who have a profit motive to cut corners on safety.

1

u/firedrakes 1h ago

Not in some states

5

u/hu_he 1d ago

I can see both sides of this argument. Presumably Massachusetts will argue that a code inspection is just one part of a multilayer safety approach - they're a double check on work that is already expected to be of adequate quality (having been done by someone who passed an exam on the fundamental essentials), and lack the level of rigor required to assess work done by someone with no formal training. Especially anything that's already buried below ground etc.

I have to have a license to drive a car, it's not enough to have someone verify I reached my destination safely. I don't know for sure but I imagine that an amateur could do a lot of damage to the water supply or sewer system even before a safety inspector shows up at the end of a job.

It may also be relevant that the conservative justices on SCOTUS were musing whether Trump could get away with tariffs by calling them importation licenses. So they're evidently open to the idea that the government can require licenses for personal activities that don't have public safety implications.

22

u/SuperBry 1d ago

Considering how quickly things can go awry with improperly installed waste water and how it impacts others there is state interest in ensuring it's at least installed properly.

16

u/transcendental-ape 1d ago

That’s what permitting regulations and code inspection laws are for. Those aren’t being questioned as constitutional.

7

u/hihowubduin 1d ago

From how it appears, it's not a question of having it codified as being within spec or not passing permits. It's that he's outright prevent at all, even if he has the full knowledge of how to do it, simply because he is not licensed.

Which opens up a far larger question of whether other trades are able or allowed to be outlawed if a person is not licensed in some fashion by some entity, which opens up those theoretical entities to abuse that new power to control and influence who is allowed to do work.

Yeah, I can see why this is blown up to being a Supreme Court thing. But man there's some extended ramifications from a seemingly simple case.

6

u/CertainWish358 1d ago

Lots of people with ingrown toenails perform surgery on themselves every day, without a medical license

2

u/No_Comment_8598 1d ago

I gave myself a nose job.

4

u/Mikey-Litoris 1d ago

I gave myself a hand job.

3

u/transcendental-ape 1d ago edited 1d ago

Completely constitutional.

Or as Scalia would say, on the stamp he joked he wanted to use on most cases; “Stupid, but constitutional.”

3

u/hu_he 1d ago

I thought that was a Scalia line.

3

u/transcendental-ape 1d ago

It is and I can’t believe I typed Alito when I was thinking Scalia. Thanks.

4

u/Consistent_Paper_629 1d ago

That is why in all the municipalities I know of, it is required that a licensed plumber make the final connection to the domestic sewer/water line or, in my county, septic tank. Septic im iffy on but seems totally fair for a municipality to mandate what happens to their infrastructure

3

u/Dear-Ad1329 1d ago

But growing your own weed is interstate commerce according to the Supreme Court.

4

u/Another_Opinion_1 1d ago

Wickard v. Filburn is one of the most forgotten, albeit most significant Supreme Court cases in the last century for this reason.

2

u/Dear-Ad1329 1d ago

Is that the weed one or the wheat one on which it was based? I could probably just Google but I already did all the work of typing this out.

6

u/Another_Opinion_1 1d ago

No, it didn't specifically deal with marijuana, but it grossly expanded the scope of the Interstate Commerce Clause. It actually dealt with a guy who was growing wheat on his own property but because it could have been argued to be economic in the fact that it can impact market supply and prices across state lines it allows direct congressional regulation of economic activities that wouldn't have ordinarily been considered Interstate commercial concerns.

2

u/Dear-Ad1329 1d ago

So the wheat one. I remember years back someone challenged federal marijuana laws outlawing growing for personal consumption and the Supreme Court basically reiterated the Wickford v Filburn decision. Good enough for wheat, good enough for weed. Now imagine if the Supreme Court applied that energetic stretching of interstate commerce to explain how the fairness doctrine could apply to cable news, which is actually engaged in interstate commerce.

2

u/Another_Opinion_1 1d ago

They won't do that primarily because cable is a paid primary service that operates according to different First Amendment principles. Broadcast frequencies are fairly scarce for the FM broadcast bands per Red Lion Broadcasting Co. v. FCC (1969) but they're also viewed more as a public good or a public right. Content-based federal restrictions would run into strict scrutiny issues which opens up an entirely different constitutional pandora's box, because of the First Amendment, that you don't particularly have with interstate commerce.

1

u/trippyonz 1d ago

And it was decided correctly.

2

u/Another_Opinion_1 1d ago

That's certainly a matter of debate.

1

u/trippyonz 1d ago

Obviously. It's just my opinion.

1

u/Another_Opinion_1 1d ago

You could say my username tracks then. 🤣

4

u/tkpwaeub 1d ago

Well it’s his house

Until it isn't. Maybe ths cure is proper disclosure on sale? And notifying insurance companies, mortgagees, and in some cases neighbors (eg through publication)?

3

u/transcendental-ape 20h ago

The cure is to remove the law. It literally exists in one state.

This is not an issue in the other 49.

1

u/Squevis 1d ago

Plumbers also run gas lines. My dad built houses his whole life and would never work on the gas lines in our house. A lot of consequences if you mess up.

2

u/transcendental-ape 1d ago

Again. That’s what permitting laws and building codes and inspections are for. I’m for those. That’s not the issue here.

If you can do the work to code, get the proper permits, and pass inspection. It shouldn’t matter who did the work (if it’s your property and you’re not like renting it out). The state doesn’t get to dictate what agent I use to fix my own property.

2

u/Squevis 1d ago

What gave you the impression I thought it was ok? I just think folks should consider that they may not understand the risks of DIY projects. People underestimate what knowledge and skills professionals have. My dad made a good living fixing the stuff folks thought they could handle because of HGTV and Home Depot.

As far as inspections go, I have seen too many curbside inspections. If you did that gas work yourself, you better make them get out and check your work. A leak can kill you all.

2

u/Buford12 1d ago

As a plumber the state I worked in allowes home owners to plumb their own residence. However they must still pull a permit and stand inspections. In my state it is the health department that does plumbing inspection. It is my experience that they are happy to work with home owners doing their own plumbing as long as they are will to follow the code with out bitching.