A legitimate interest is a legal standard by which the court may determine that one party has a tangible stake in the question to be decided. Mostly, this will refer to a situation where one party wants to impinge upon a right of another. The court will consider whether the impinging party has a legitimate interest to be furthered by the limitation of the right in question. Often, this standard is used in the interpretation of the enforceability of a contract, but it may also be used in a constitutional context when a government creates a law that limits the rights of certain citizens.
In contract law, a court will often question when deciding the enforceability of a contract whether one party has a legitimate interest that would be advanced through the prevention of another party’s actions that would typically be his or her right. This standard will come into play most often if the right is one that is beneficial to society at large. For example, an agreement between an employer and its employee may state that the employee is prohibited from working in a similar industry in a specified geographic area and time after ending his or her employment with the company. The typical standard for the enforcement of such a non-compete agreement is whether the company has a legitimate interest in preventing the employee from finding work according to those terms.
Legitimate interest may also be used in a constitutional context when a government makes a law that limits the rights of its citizens. A common standard of review in constitutional law is the rational basis test. This test asks whether the law that has impinged upon the citizens’ rights is rationally related to a legitimate state interest. It is a relatively easy standard to meet because the government needs only to show that they have a reason behind the law that is logically related to its enforcement.
Conversely, when a law limits a more fundamental right, such as the right to marry, the government may have to meet a much stricter standard. One common strict standard of review mandates that the government have a compelling interest that is directly furthered by the enforcement of the law. This standard, which is often employed in reviewing laws that discriminate based on race or another suspect classification, goes well beyond the requirement for a simple legitimate interest and is rarely met.