Board of Public Instruction of Duval County, Florida v. Daly N. Braxton and Sharon Braxton, Minors, by Sadie Braxton, Their Mother Andnext Friend

326 F.2d 616
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit
DecidedFebruary 20, 1964
Docket20294
StatusPublished
Cited by62 cases

This text of 326 F.2d 616 (Board of Public Instruction of Duval County, Florida v. Daly N. Braxton and Sharon Braxton, Minors, by Sadie Braxton, Their Mother Andnext Friend) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Board of Public Instruction of Duval County, Florida v. Daly N. Braxton and Sharon Braxton, Minors, by Sadie Braxton, Their Mother Andnext Friend, 326 F.2d 616 (5th Cir. 1964).

Opinions

TUTTLE, Chief Judge.

This is an appeal by the Board of Education from an order of the trial court requiring a start in the desegregation of the public school system of Duval County, Florida, of which the city of Jacksonville is the county seat. The basis of the appeal is that by including a prohibition against approving budgets, making available funds, and otherwise providing the physical facilities to “maintain or support a school system operated on a racially segregated basis” and by prohibiting “the assignment of teachers, principals, and other supervising or supporting personnel to schools on the basis of the race and color of the” said persons or the race and color of the pupils attending the respective schools, the trial court went too far. This, it is asserted, results both because there was a lack of a finding of facts warranting these two injunctive orders and also because there is nothing in the decided school desegregation cases that warrants such broad orders of injunction.

In point of fact, relatively little was required to be done by the Board of Education immediately by the trial court’s injunctive order.1 It outlined under paragraphs A, B, C, D, and E certain prohibited acts. Under paragraph F, it prohibited applying the criteria of the Florida Pupil Assignment Law other than uniformly and without racial discrimination. The order made only the requirements of paragraph F applicable immediately, but it then required that the defendants “on or before October 30, 1962, submit to the Court for its consideration a detailed and comprehensive plan for putting subparagraphs A, B, C, [618]*618D and E of paragraph 3 above into effect throughout the Duval County public school system.”

Appellants, recognizing as they do, the binding authority of Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, 347 U.S. 483, 74 S.Ct. 686, 98 L.Ed. 873; 349 U.S. 294, 75 S.Ct. 753, 99 L.Ed. 1083, and the many decisions of this Court interpreting and giving effect to that landmark decision, do not contest that part of the trial court’s order that is included in the first' lettered paragraphs, A, B and C. Nor do they complain of paragraph F, which requires them to apply the criteria of the Florida Pupil Assignment ‘Law non-racially. They do complain of being required to submit a plan which includes the requirements under paragraphs D and E. The principal attack is made on that provision which prohibits the assigning of teachers, principals and other supervising or supporting personnel to schools on the basis of race.

We are faced in limine with the question whether we have before us an appealable order. While neither party raises the issue, since both apparently •desire to have this Court’s ruling on the question at issue, absence of an appeal-able order denies this Court of jurisdiction and must be noticed by the Court itself. It is plain that much of the order of the trial court is deferred in point of time. To this extent it may be said that the litigants may have an opportunity to prevail upon the Court prior to the actual effectuation of these parts of the order to request that they may be modified. To that extent they may be considered to be interlocutory orders. However, it was much the same kind of an order that came before this Court in Orleans Parish School Board v. Bush, 5 Cir., 242 F.2d 156 2 Although the Orleans Parish order required immediate acceptance of the principle of non-segregated schools, it is obvious that the order allowed the Board time to put it into effect. Clearly implying that arrangements should be started at once, the trial court nevertheless fixed the date after which there were to be no further distinctions based on race at “such time as may be necessary to make arrangements for admission of children to such schools on a racially nondiscriminatory basis with all deliberate speed as required by the decision of the Supreme Court in Brown v. Board of Education.” Nevertheless, in that appeal and also in a subsequent one in which the validity of the order was attacked by reason of the failure of the successful plaintiffs to post the bond required in the original order, this Court has not considered the order one that is not appealable by reason of not being an injunctive order. Of course, neither the order in the Bush case nor the one before us here is a final order in the sense that nothing further is left to be done by the trial court. It is appealable, therefore, if at all, only under the provisions of 28 U.S.C.A. § 1292(a) (1). That section gives Courts of Appeal jurisdiction over “[ijnterlocutory orders of the district courts * * * granting, continuing, modifying, refusing or dissolving injunctions * * It thus becomes necessary for us to determine whether the order of the trial court is one which “grants an injunction.”

In light of our treatment of the order in the Bush case, it seems that there would be little question but that the order here appealed from falls within the language of 28 U.S.C.A. § 1292(a) (1), were it not for a well considered case [619]*619decided by the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, Taylor v. Board of Education, etc., 2 Cir., 288 F.2d 600. In that case, involving an order relating to the school system for the City of New Rochelle, New York,3 that court, one judge dissenting, raised the issue of appealability on its own motion and decided that Judge Kaufman’s order in the trial court ordering the submission of a plan did not amount to mandatory injunction.

Of course, it should be made plain here that paragraph F of the order before us did require immediate application of the Florida Pupil Assignment Law. If the appellant, Board, had appealed from the effect of this part of the order there would be no doubt about the appealability. It has not, however, appealed from this provision of the order, thus leaving as the basis for its appeal only subparagraph (c) of paragraph 4, which requires them “on or before October 30, 1962, to submit to the court for its consideration a detailed and comprehensive plan for putting subparagraphs A, B, C, D and E of paragraph 3 above into effect throughout the Duval County public school system.”

The clear difference between the order before us and that in the New Rochelle case is that the trial court did expressly include in its order the following language in paragraph 3:

“The defendants, The Board of Public Instruction of Duval County, Florida * * * are, with respect to the public school system of Duval County, Florida, enjoined and restrained permanently from allowing, permitting or committing all, or any of the following:”

Then follow the lettered paragraphs which are quoted in Footnote 1 above.

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Related

Johnson v. Gambrinus Company
116 F.3d 1052 (Fifth Circuit, 1997)
Reinhold Didie, Hakan Bennhagen v. Ashley Howes, Jr.
988 F.2d 1097 (Eleventh Circuit, 1993)
United States v. The State Of Alabama
828 F.2d 1532 (Eleventh Circuit, 1987)
United States v. Alabama
828 F.2d 1532 (Eleventh Circuit, 1987)
Spates v. Manson
619 F.2d 204 (Second Circuit, 1980)
Hoots v. Pennsylvania
587 F.2d 1340 (Third Circuit, 1978)
Hoots v. Commonwealth Of Pennsylvania
587 F.2d 1340 (Third Circuit, 1978)
Frederick L. v. Thomas
557 F.2d 373 (Third Circuit, 1977)
Evans v. Buchanan
555 F.2d 373 (Third Circuit, 1977)
Hart v. Community School Board
497 F.2d 1027 (Second Circuit, 1974)
United States v. Eric Hall
472 F.2d 261 (Fifth Circuit, 1973)
Mims v. Duval County School Board
329 F. Supp. 123 (M.D. Florida, 1971)
Eastman Kodak Company v. Fotomat Corporation
441 F.2d 1079 (Fifth Circuit, 1971)
Stamicarbon, N v. V. Escambia Chemical Corporation
430 F.2d 920 (Fifth Circuit, 1970)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
326 F.2d 616, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/board-of-public-instruction-of-duval-county-florida-v-daly-n-braxton-and-ca5-1964.