Barrows v. Jackson

BARROWS ET AL. v. JACKSON.

Certiorari to the District Court of Appeal of California, Second Appellate District.

No. 517. Argued April 28–29, 1953 — Decided June 15, 1953.

112 Cal. App. 2d 534, 247 P. 2d 99, affirmed.

Opinion of the Court by Mr. Justice Minton. Mr. Chief Justice Vinson dissenting. Mr. Justice Reed and Mr. Justice Jackson took no part in the consideration or decision of the case.

J. Wallace McKnight argued the cause for petitioners. Loren Miller argued the cause for respondent.

Briefs of amici curiae urging reversal were filed by John W. Preston for Affiliated Neighbors et al.; and Walter H. Pollmann, Gerald L. Seegers and Paul M. Gerwitz, Jr., for O'Fallon Park Protective Association et al. Briefs of amici curiae urging affirmance were filed by A. L. Wirin for the American Civil Liberties Union (Southern California Branch); by Fred Okrand for the Greater Los Angeles C. I. O. Council, Saburo Kido for the Japanese American Citizens' League, and David Ziskind for the Los Angeles Urban League et al.; by Phineas Indritz for the American Veterans Committee, Inc.; by Arnold Forster, Harry Graham Balter, Mr. Ziskind and Theodore Leskes for the American Jewish Committee et al.; and by Irving Kane, Lewis H. Weinstein, Will Maslow, Leo Pfeffer and Joseph B. Robison for the National Community Relations Advisory Council.

The report occupies pages 249 through 270 of volume 346 of the United States Reports. The opinion of the Court is printed at pages 251 through 260, and the dissenting opinion of Mr. Chief Justice Vinson at pages 260 through 270.

[346 U.S. 249] “The enforcement of a covenant forbidding use and occupancy of real estate by non-Caucasians, by an action at law in a state court to recover damages from a co-covenantor for a breach of the covenant, is barred by the Fourteenth Amendment of the Federal Constitution. Pp. 251-260.”

[346 U.S. 249] “(a) The action of a state court in thus sanctioning a racial restrictive covenant would constitute state action within the prohibition of the Fourteenth Amendment. P. 254.”

[346 U.S. 249] “(b) State action in allowing damages for breach of a covenant not to permit non-Caucasians to use and occupy their property would deprive such non-Caucasians, unidentified but identifiable, of equal protection of the laws in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment. P. 254.”

[346 U.S. 249] “(c) The principle that a person cannot challenge the constitutionality of a statute unless he shows that he himself is injured by its operation has no application to the instant case, in which respondent has been sued for damages totaling $11,600, and in which a judgment against respondent would constitute a direct pocketbook injury to her. Pp. 254-256.”

[346 U.S. 249] “(d) Under the peculiar circumstances of this case, the reasons which underlie the rule denying standing to raise another's constitutional rights, which is only a rule of practice, are outweighed by the need to protect the fundamental rights which would be denied by permitting the damages action to be maintained. P. 257.”

[346 U.S. 249] “(e) The principle that the right to equal protection of the laws is a ‘personal’ right, guaranteed to the individual rather than to groups or classes, is not here violated, since it is not non-Caucasians as a group whose rights are asserted by the defendant in the damages action, but the rights of particular non-Caucasian would-be users of restricted land. Pp. 259-260.”

[346 U.S. 249] “(f) The provision of Art. I, § 10 of the Federal Constitution, that ‘No State shall . . . pass any . . . Law impairing the Obligation of Contracts,’ is not violated by the refusal of a state court [346 U.S. 250] to enforce a racial restrictive covenant, since that provision is directed against legislative action only, not against the judgments of courts. P. 260.”

[346 U.S. 250] “(g) The plaintiffs in an action for damages for breach of a racial restrictive covenant are not denied due process and equal protection of the laws by the state court's refusal to enforce the covenant, since the Constitution confers upon no individual the right to demand action by the State which would result in the denial of equal protection of the laws to others. P. 260.”

[346 U.S. 251] “This Court held in Shelley v. Kraemer, 334 U. S. 1, that racial restrictive covenants could not be enforced in equity against Negro purchasers because such enforcement would constitute state action denying equal protection of the laws to the Negroes, in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Federal Constitution. The question we now have is: Can such a restrictive covenant be enforced at law by a suit for damages against a co-covenantor who allegedly broke the covenant?”

[346 U.S. 254] “To compel respondent to respond in damages would be for the State to punish her for her failure to perform her covenant to continue to discriminate against non-Caucasians in the use of her property. The result of that sanction by the State would be to encourage the use of restrictive covenants. To that extent, the State would act to put its sanction behind the covenants. If the State may thus punish respondent for her failure to carry out her covenant, she is coerced to continue to use her property in a discriminatory manner, which in essence is the purpose of the covenant. Thus, it becomes not respondent's voluntary choice but the State's choice that she observe her covenant or suffer damages. The action of a state court at law to sanction the validity of the restrictive covenant here involved would constitute state action as surely as it was state action to enforce such covenants in equity, as in Shelley, supra.”

[346 U.S. 254] “If a state court awards damages for breach of a restrictive covenant, a prospective seller of restricted land will either refuse to sell to non-Caucasians or else will require non-Caucasians to pay a higher price to meet the damages which the seller may incur. Solely because of their race, non-Caucasians will be unable to purchase, own, and enjoy property on the same terms as Caucasians. Denial of this right by state action deprives such non-Caucasians, unidentified but identifiable, of equal protection of the laws in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment.”

[346 U.S. 257] “This is a salutary rule, the validity of which we reaffirm. But in the instant case, we are faced with a unique situation in which it is the action of the state court which might result in a denial of constitutional rights and in which it would be difficult if not impossible for the persons whose rights are asserted to present their grievance before any court. Under the peculiar circumstances of this case, we believe the reasons which underlie our rule denying standing to raise another's rights, which is only a rule of practice, are outweighed by the need to protect the fundamental rights which would be denied by permitting the damages action to be maintained.”

[346 U.S. 258] “There is such a close relationship between the restrictive covenant here and the sanction of a state court which would punish respondent for not going forward with her covenant, and the purpose of the covenant itself, that relaxation of the rule is called for here. It sufficiently appears that mulcting in damages of respondent will be solely for the purpose of giving vitality to the restrictive covenant, that is to say, to punish respondent for not continuing to discriminate against non-Caucasians in the use of her property. This Court will not permit or require California to coerce respondent to respond in damages for failure to observe a restrictive covenant that this Court would deny California the right to enforce in equity, Shelley, supra.”

[346 U.S. 260] “It is finally contended that petitioners are denied due process and equal protection of the laws by the failure to enforce the covenant. The answer to that proposition is stated by the Court in Shelley, supra, in these words: ‘The Constitution confers upon no individual the right to demand action by the State which results in the denial of equal protection of the laws to other individuals.’ 334 U. S. 1, 22.”

[346 U.S. 260] “The judgment is Affirmed.”

[346 U.S. 260] “Mr. Justice Reed and Mr. Justice Jackson took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.”

Editorial note. The Chief Justice regarded the case as an ordinary contract action between parties to a private agreement in which no member of the excluded class was before the Court. In his view, longstanding rules of standing and of case or controversy foreclosed one covenantor from urging the constitutional rights of strangers to the record as a defence to her own breach.

Editorial note. The dissent maintained that the majority conflated the state-action question decided in Shelley — the judicial enforcement of a discriminatory decree against members of the disfavoured class — with a suit between contracting parties whose voluntary discriminatory promise the majority had itself acknowledged to be constitutionally permissible.

Editorial note. This record is a research edition, not a substitute for the official reporter. It reproduces the Reporter of Decisions apparatus in a full syllabus extract and reproduces the Court's own text in extended verbatim passages anchored to the printed pages of United States Reports on which they appear. Passages set without quotation marks are Society prose describing the Court's reasoning; every quotation mark encloses the Court's or the Reporter's words.

Editorial note. The Court-authored sections are SELECTED EXCERPTS. They present the question presented at page 251, the state-action analysis at page 254, the standing analysis at pages 257 through 258, and the disposition at page 260. The complaint recitation and the survey of state-court decisions at pages 251 through 253, and the extended discussion of standing precedent at pages 255 through 259, are summarised in the editorial apparatus rather than quoted at length.

Editorial note. Three limitations are declared. First, the numbered footnotes of both opinions are not reproduced. Second, the dissenting opinion of Mr. Chief Justice Vinson is described in editorial summary and is not reproduced. Third, obvious typographic and scanning defects in the digitised bound volume (for example the broken renderings of counsel names and running heads) have been silently corrected against the surrounding text; no substantive word has been altered, modernised, or paraphrased inside a quotation.

Editorial note. For any purpose requiring the complete official text, including the footnotes, the arguments of counsel, and the full dissenting opinion, consult the bound volume through the canonical source recorded with this authority.

Editorial note. Petitioners and respondent were owners of adjoining residential lots in Los Angeles subject to a mutual covenant that no portion of any lot would be used or occupied by any person not wholly of the white or Caucasian race. Petitioners alleged that respondent broke the covenant by conveying her lot without incorporating the restriction and by permitting non-Caucasians to occupy the premises, and they sued at law for $11,600 in damages.

Editorial note. The Superior Court of Los Angeles County sustained a demurrer to the complaint. The District Court of Appeal, Second Appellate District, affirmed, 112 Cal. App. 2d 534, 247 P. 2d 99. The Supreme Court of California denied a hearing. The Supreme Court of the United States granted certiorari, 345 U.S. 902, and affirmed.

Editorial note. A state court's award of damages for the breach of a racially restrictive covenant is itself state action within the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment; because such an award would coerce continued discrimination against non-Caucasians unidentified but identifiable, it would deny them the equal protection of the laws. In these circumstances the covenantor sued for damages may invoke the constitutional rights of the excluded persons.

Editorial note. The opinion followed Shelley in identifying judicial enforcement as state action, and reasoned that enforcement through damages is functionally indistinguishable from enforcement in equity: it converts what would otherwise be private choice into state-imposed obligation. The Court relaxed the rule against jus tertii standing because the persons whose rights would be denied could not readily present them, and because the coercion exerted upon the covenantor was in essence coercion to continue the very discrimination the excluded persons could constitutionally resist.

Editorial note. Barrows completes the Shelley line by removing the last effective legal remedy for the enforcement of racially restrictive covenants: they may not be enforced in equity, and they may not be reduced to damages at law. It also supplies a canonical example of the Court's willingness to relax prudential standing rules where the vindication of substantive constitutional rights would otherwise be practically impossible.

Editorial note. Consistently followed. Reitman v. Mulkey, 387 U.S. 369 (1967), extended the state-action reasoning to state constitutional amendments authorising private discrimination. Jones v. Alfred H. Mayer Co., 392 U.S. 409 (1968), later held that 42 U.S.C. § 1982 reaches all racial discrimination, public and private, in the sale or rental of property, supplying a statutory ground independent of the Fourteenth Amendment.

Editorial note. Read with Shelley v. Kraemer, 334 U.S. 1 (1948), and Buchanan v. Warley, 245 U.S. 60 (1917).