Commonwealth of Pennsylvania v. Brown

270 F. Supp. 782, 1967 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 10656
CourtDistrict Court, E.D. Pennsylvania
DecidedJuly 5, 1967
Docket39404
StatusPublished
Cited by24 cases

This text of 270 F. Supp. 782 (Commonwealth of Pennsylvania v. Brown) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, E.D. Pennsylvania primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Commonwealth of Pennsylvania v. Brown, 270 F. Supp. 782, 1967 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 10656 (E.D. Pa. 1967).

Opinion

OPINION

JOSEPH S. LORD, III, District Judge.

This action 1 arises out of a claim by seven Negro male orphans, 2 the City of Philadelphia, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, and the Attorney General of Pennsylvania that the continued exclusion of non-white applicants to Girard College by the defendant Trustees is constitutionally impermissible under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. We earlier determined that this Court has jurisdiction. This ruling was in no way disturbed by the Court of Appeals.

We now hold that the plaintiffs have sustained their burden of proving unconstitutional State action and that, accordingly, the relief requested must be granted.

*785 Plaintiffs’ primary contention 3 centers on the appointment by the Orphans’ Court in 1957 of substitute trustees to administer Girard College. The constitutional question which is presented is both substantial and troublesome. The facts themselves are not in dispute. Stephen Girard appointed the City of Philadelphia to be trustee of the College established under the terms of his will. The trusteeship eventually passed to the Board of Directors of City Trusts, an agency of the City. In 1957, the United States Supreme Court held that thr trusteeship constituted governmental discrimination barred by the Fourteenth Amendment. Com. of Pennsylvania v. Board of Directors of City Trusts, 353 U.S. 230, 77 S.Ct. 806, 1 L.Ed.2d 792 (1957). The Supreme Court did not, however, order the admission of the Negro plaintiffs in that case to the College. Instead, it remanded “for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.”

In supposed conformity to that mandate, the Orphans’ Court of Philadelphia County removed the Board of Directors of City Trusts as trustee and appointed private persons, styled “Trustees of the Estate of Stephen Girard.” The sole function of these substitute trustees was and is to administer Girard College, and they have continued in force the discriminatory policies prescribed by the will. The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania held that the Orphans’ Court had acted properly, both in light of the U. S. Supreme Court’s mandate and State law. Girard College Trusteeship, 391 Pa. 434, 138 A.2d 844 (1958), appeal dismissed and cert. denied sub nom. Com. of Pennsylvania v. Board of Directors of City Trusts, 357 U.S. 570, 78 S.Ct. 1383, 2 L.Ed.2d 1546 (1958). Since the only way the testator’s will, as interpreted by the State courts, could be effectuated was by the appointment of non-public trustees, the Orphans Court action was obviously the only remaining alternative to the admission of non-white applicants to the College.

Plaintiffs rely on the Supreme Court’s recent decision in Evans v. Newton, 382 U.S. 296, 86 S.Ct. 486, 15 L.Ed.2d 373 (1966). That decision is controlling in this case, and we believe that its proper application requires that we sustain plaintiffs’ claims for relief. In Evans, the testator devised land to the City of Macon, Georgia, to be used as a park for white persons only. The City eventually decided that it could not constitutionally deny access to Negroes and it permitted the multiracial use of the facilities, even though this was clearly proscribed by the restrictive terms of the will. Thereafter, individual members of the Board of Managers of the park brought suit in the State courts, demanding the appointment of substitute “private” trustees who could administer the will as it was written. The City next resigned as trustee, and the Georgia court accepted this resignation and appointed new trustees. The Supreme Court of Georgia affirmed this action, holding that State law required the appointment of new trustees so that the restrictive purpose of the trust would not fail.

The United States Supreme Court reversed, emphasizing that, “Conduct that is formally ‘private’ may become so entwined with governmental policies or so impregnated with a governmental character as to become subject to the constitutional limitations placed upon state action. The action of a city in serving as trustee of property under a private will serving a segregated cause is an obvious example. See Com. of Pennsylvania v. Board of Directors of City Trusts, supra.” 382 U.S. at 299, 86 S.Ct. at 488. Expand *786 ing on this notion of “governmental character,” the Court cited as other examples a privately owned and managed town, Marsh v. State of Alabama, 326 U.S. 501, 66 S.Ct. 276, 90 L.Ed. 265 (1946), and the elective process, Terry v. Adams, 345 U.S. 461, 73 S.Ct. 809, 97 L.Ed. 1152 (1953). It is apparent that discrimination in these instances is per se constitutionally prohibited.

Apparently excluded from this “per se” category of quasi-public facilities are schools, for the Court was at pains to point out that, “If a testator wanted to leave a school or center for the use of one race only and in no way implicated the State in the supervision, control, or management of that facility, we assume arguendo that no constitutional difficulty would be encountered.” 382 U.S. at 300, 86 S.Ct. at 489 (Emphasis added).

Of course, Stephen Girard, like the testator in Evans, did implicate the State in the administration of Girard College: the only questions are whether the College could have been and in fact was subsequently disassociated from the organs of State control, direction, and supervision, and whether, in consequence, the school was effectively cleansed of its “governmental character.” Perhaps more to the point, the question is whether the State has purged itself of the discriminatory connection.

Plaintiffs, citing Shelley v. Kraemer, 334 U.S. 1, 68 S.Ct. 836, 92 L.Ed. 1161 (1948), contend that the appointment of substitute trustees by the Orphans’ Court was unconstitutional per se. We do not agree. In Shelley, the Supreme Court held that a State court could not enforce a racially exclusive restrictive covenant which would have impeded a sale of property by one consenting party to another consenting party. The Court did not hold, as would have been analogous to the case before us, that a prospective purchaser of property can force the owner to sell to him when the latter wishes to adhere to a restrictive covenant which purports to bar such sales. On the contrary, the Supreme Court stressed the fact that “the restrictive agreements standing alone cannot be regarded as violative of any rights guaranteed to petitioners by the Fourteenth Amendment.

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Bluebook (online)
270 F. Supp. 782, 1967 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 10656, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/commonwealth-of-pennsylvania-v-brown-paed-1967.