not indispensably necessary for the disposition of the case”). However, because this Court’s resolution of the statute’s constitutionality is indispensably necessary for the disposition of this case, we proceed with our analysis of the LHMA’s constitutionality. Rhode Island’s Equal Protection Clause, article 1, section 2, of the Rhode Island Constitution, forms the basis of plaintiffs’ primary claim. Like the corresponding federal guarantee in the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, the Equal Protection Clause of the Rhode Island Constitution provides, in relevant part, that no person shall be “denied equal protection of the laws.” R.I. Const, art. 1, sec. 2; see also Rhode Island Insurers’ Insolvency Fund v. Leviton Manufacturing Co., 716 A.2d 730, 734 (R.I.1998) (<HOLDING>). Nevertheless, this protection “does not
holding that state and federal equal protection guarantees provide similar protections holding that the state law violated equal protection principles holding that a similar hawaii statute violates equal protection holding transfer rule did not violate federal equal protection holding that doctrine does not violate equal protection