Source: https://h2o.law.harvard.edu/collages/15851
Timestamp: 2019-04-25 14:38:13+00:00

Document:
Ollie McCLUNG, Sr., and Ollie McClung, Jr.
Archibald Cox, Sol. Gen., for appellants.
Robert McDavid Smith, Birmingham, Ala., for appellees.
This case was argued with No. 515, Heart of Atlanta Motel v. United States, decided this date, 379 U.S. 241, 85 S.Ct. 348, in which we upheld the constitutional validity of Title II of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 against an attack no hotels, motels, and like establishments. This complaint for injunctive relief against appellants attacks the constitutionality of the Act as applied to a restaurant. The case was heard by a three-judge United States District Court and an injunction was issued restraining appellants from enforcing the Act against the restaurant. 233 F.Supp. 815. On direct appeal, 28 U.S.C. §§ 1252, 1253 (1958 ed.), we noted probable jurisdiction. 379 U.S. 802, 85 S.Ct. 348. We now reverse the judgment.
ed.). But even though Rule 57 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure permits declaratory relief although another adequate remedy exists, it should not be granted where a special statutory proceeding has been provided. See Notes on Rule 57 of Advisory Committee on Rules, 28 U.S.C.App. p. 5178 (1958 ed.) Title II provides for such a statutory proceeding for the determination of rights and duties arising thereunder, §§ 204—207, and courts should, therefore, ordinarily refrain from exercising their jurisdiction in such cases.
rant had moved in interstate commerce. The restaurant has refused to serve Negroes in its dining accommodations since its original opening in 1927, and since July 2, 1964, it has been operating in violation of the Act. The court below concluded that if it were required to serve Negroes it would lose a substantial amount of business.
On the merits, the District Court held that the Act could not be applied under the Fourteenth Amendment because it was conceded that the State of Alabama was not involved in the refusal of the restaurant to serve Negroes. It was also admitted that the Thirteenth Amendment was authority neither for validating nor for invalidating the Act. As to the Commerce Clause, the court found that it was 'an express grant of power to Congress to regulate interstate commerce, which consists of the movement of persons, goods or information from one state to another'; and it found that the clause was also a grant of power 'to regulate intrastate activities, but only to the extent that action on its part is necessary or appropriate to the effective execution of its expressly granted power to regulate interstate commerce.' There must be, it said, a close and substantial relation between local activities and interstate commerce which requires control of the former in the protection of the latter. The court concluded, however, that the Congress, rather than finding facts sufficient to meet this rule, had legislated a conclusive presumption that a restaurant affects interstate commerce if it serves or offers to serve interstate travelers or if a substantial portion of the food which it serves has moved in commerce. This, the court held, it could not do because there was no demonstrable connection between food purchased in interstate commerce and sold in a restaurant and the conclusion of Congress that discrimination in the restaurant would affect that commerce.
The basic holding in Heart of Atlanta Motel, answers many of the contentions made by the appellees.1 There we outlined the overall purpose and operations plan of Title II and found it a valid exercise of the power to regulate interstate commerce insofar as it requires hotels and motels to serve transients without regard to their race or color. In this case we consider its application to restaurants which serve food a substantial portion of which has moved in commerce.
ment has contended that Congress had ample basis upon which to find that racial discrimination at restaurants which receive from out of state a substantial portion of the food served does, in fact, impose commercial burdens of national magnitude upon interstate commerce. The appellees' major argument is directed to this premise. They urge that no such basis existed. It is to that question that we now turn.
with the flow of merchandise. Id., at 18—19; also, on this point, see testimony of Senator Magnuson, 110 Cong.Rec. 7402—7403. In addition, there were many references to discriminatory situations causing wide unrest and having a depressant effect on general business conditions in the respective communities. See, e.g., Senate Commerce Committee Hearings, at 623—630, 695—700, 1384 1385.
Moreover there was an impressive array of testimony that discrimination in restaurants had a direct and highly restrictive effect upon interstate travel by Negroes. This resulted, it was said, because discriminatory practices prevent Negroes from buying prepared food served on the premises while on a trip, except in isolated and unkempt restaurants and under most unsatisfactory and often unpleasant conditions. This obviously discourages travel and obstructs interstate commerce for one can hardly travel without eating. Likewise, it was said, that discrimination deterred professional, as well as skilled, people from moving into areas where such practices occurred and thereby caused industry to be reluctant to establish there. S.Rep. No. 872, supra, at 18—19.
We believe that this testimony afforded ample basis for the conclusion that established restaurants in such areas sold less interstate goods because of the discrimination, that interstate travel was obstructed directly by it, that business in general suffered and that many new businesses refrained from establishing there as a result of it. Hence the District Court was in error in concluding that there was no connection between discrimination and the movement of interstate commerce. The court's conclusion that such a connection is outside 'common experience' flies in the face of stubborn fact.
'That appellee's own contribution to the demand for wheat may be trivial by itself is not enough to remove him from the scope of federal regulation where, as here, his contribution, taken together with that of many others similarly situated, is far from trivial.' At 127—128, 63 S.Ct. at 90.
We noted in Heart of Atlanta Motel that a number of witnesses attested to the fact that racial discrimination was not merely a state or regional problem but was one of nationwide scope. Against this background, we must conclude that while the focus of the legislation was on the individual restaurant's relation to interstate commerce, Congress appropriately considered the importance of that connection with the knowledge that the discrimination was but 'representative of many others throughout the country, the total incidence of which if left unchecked may well become far-reaching in its harm to commerce.' Polish National Alliance of U.S. v. National Labor Relations Board, 322 U.S. 643, 648, 64 S.Ct. 1196, 1199, 88 L.Ed. 1509 (1944).
'But it cannot be maintained that the exertion of federal power must await the disruption of that commerce. Congress was entitled to provide reasonable preventive measures and that was the object of the National Labor Relations Act.' At 222, 59 S.Ct. at 213.
'(t)o make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers * * *.' This grant, as we have pointed out in Heart of Atlanta Motel 'extends to those activities intrastate which so affect interstate commerce, or the exertion of the power of Congress over it, as to make regulation of them appropriate means to the attainment of a legitimate end, the effective execution of the granted power to regulate interstate commerce.' United States v. Wrightwood Dairy Co., 315 U.S. 110, 119, 62 S.Ct. 523, 526, 86 L.Ed. 726 (1942). Much is said about a restaurant business being local but 'even if appellee's activity be local and though it may not be regarded as commerce, it may still, whatever its nature, be reached by Congress if it exerts a substantial economic effect on interstate commerce * * *.' Wickard v. Filburn, supra, at 125, 63 S.Ct. at 89. The activities that are beyond the reach of Congress are 'those which are completely which a particular State, which do not affect other States, and with which it is not necessary to interfere, for the purpose of executing some of the general powers of the government.' Gibbons v. Ogden, 9 Wheat. 1, 195, 6 L.Ed. 23 (1824). This rule is as good today as it was when Chief Justice Marshall laid it down almost a century and a half ago.
meeting the criteria set out in the Act 'affect commerce.' Stated another way, they object to the omission of a provision for a case-by-case determination—judicial or administrative—that racial discrimination in a particular restaurant affects commerce.
'(S)ometimes Congress itself has said that a particular activity affects the commerce, as it did in the present Act, the Safety Appliance Act * * * and the Railway Labor Act * * *. In passing on the validity of legislation of the class last mentioned the only function of courts is to determine whether the particular activity regulated or prohibited is within the reach of the federal power.' At 120—121, 61 S.Ct. at 460.
light of the facts and testimony before them, have a rational basis for finding a chosen regulatory scheme necessary to the protection of commerce, our investigation is at an end. The only remaining question—one answered in the affirmative by the court below—is whether the particular restaurant either serves or offers to serve interstate travelers or serves food a substantial portion of which has moved in interstate commerce.
The appellees urge that Congress, in passing the Fair Labor Standards Act and the National Labor Relations Act,3 made specific findings which were embodied in those statutes. Here, of course, Congress had included no formal findings. But their absence is not fatal to the validity of the statute, see United States v. Carolene Products Co., 304 U.S. 144, 152, 58 S.Ct. 778, 783, 82 L.Ed. 1234 (1938), for the evidence presented at the hearings fully indicated the nature and effect of the burdens on commerce which Congress meant to alleviate.
Confronted as we are with the facts laid before Congress, we must conclude that it had a rational basis for finding that racial discrimination in restaurants had a direct and adverse effect on the free flow of interstate commerce. Insofar as the sections of the Act here relevant are concerned, §§ 201(b)(2) and (c), Congress prohibited discrimination only in those establishments having a close tie to interstate commerce, i.e., those, like the McClungs', serving food that has come from out of the State. We think in so doing that Congress acted well within its power to protect and foster commerce in extending the coverage of Title II only to those restaurants offering to serve interstate travelers or serving food, a substantial portion of which has moved in interstate commerce.
a factor on which the appellees place much reliance, is not, given the evidence as to the effect of such practices on other aspects of commerce, a crucial matter.
The judgment is therefore reversed.
Concurring opinions by Mr. Justice BLACK, Mr. Justice DOUGLAS and Mr. Justice GOLDBERG printed in No. 515, Heart of Atlanta Motel, Inc., v. United States, 379 U.S. 241, 85 S.Ct. 348.
1. That decision disposes of the challenges that the appellees base on the Fifth, Ninth, Tenth, and Thirteenth Amendments, and on the Civil Rights Cases, 109 U.S. 3, 3 S.Ct. 18, 27 L.Ed. 835 (1883).
Original Item: "Katzenbach v. McClung"

References: v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v.