Court Opinion

ID: 9447250
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 22:29:52.141688+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:30:57.619642
License: Public Domain

PER CURIAM.
This class action seeking admission of Negro children to the Dallas public schools on a nonracial basis was commenced in July 1955. Its history may be traced through many reported opinions on various stages and phases of the litigation, e. g. Bell v. Rippy, D.C.N.D. Tex.1955, 133 F.Supp. 811; Brown v. Rippy, 5 Cir., 1956, 233 F.2d 796; certiorari denied Oct. 22, 1956, 352 U.S. 878, 77 S.Ct. 99, 1 L.Ed.2d 79; Bell v. Rippy, D.C.N.D.Tex.1956, 146 F.Supp. 485; Borders v. Rippy, 5 Cir., 1957, 247 F.2d 268; Rippy v. Borders, 5 Cir., 1957, 250 F.2d 690; see also Dallas Independent School District v. Edgar, 5 Cir., 1958, 255 F.2d 455.
The present phase begins with the entry by the District Court on April 16th, 1958, of a final judgment in part as follows:
“It is, Therefore, the Order, Judgment and Decree of the Court that the Defendant Independent School District of Dallas, its Board of Education, a Corporation, and its agents, its servants, its employees, their successors in office and those in concert with them, who shall receive notice of this order, be, and the same are hereby, restrained and enjoined from requiring and permitting segregation of the races in any school under their supervision, from and after such time as may be necessary to make arrangements for admission of children to such schools on a racially non-diseriminatory basis with all deliberate speed, as required by the decision of the Supreme Court in Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka, 349 U.S. 294 [75 S.Ct. 753, 99 L.Ed. 1083], and retaining jurisdiction of the cause for such further hearings and proceedings and the entry of such orders and judgments as may be necessary or appropriate to require compliance with such judgment.”
On May 20, 1959, about thirteen months after the entry of said judgment, the plaintiffs filed their “Motion for Further Relief,” which concluded with the following prayer:
“Wherefore, plaintiffs respectfully pray the Court to enter an order directing and requiring defendants to comply forthwith with this Court’s judgment and orders issued April 16, 1958, by immediately operating all schools under their supervision in the Dallas Independent School District on a nonracial, nondiscriminatory basis; and that defendants be further directed to now permit plaintiffs and all Negro minors similarly situated to enter, matriculate and study in schools under their supervision without regard to race and color.
“Plaintiffs also pray the Court to allow them their costs and for such other and further relief, judgments and decrees as may appear equitable and just in the premises.”
The defendants replied to the motion, and prayed, “that this Honorable Court overrule and deny Plaintiffs’ said Motion.”
The hearing on the motion and answer was held on July 30, 1959, at which time counsel for the respective parties made opening statements as follows:
“Mr. Durham:
“If the Court will permit me I can state it very shortly.
“The plaintiffs filed suit some time ago, and Your Honor knows the history of it.
*852“The substance of the motion is that the Dallas Independent School District, in face of the April 16th judgment, is still being operated on a racial segregated basis, and we ask the Court to enter a decree directing the defendants to comply with that decree.
“The defendants have filed an answer to our motion, and in Allegation 10 they admit that the School District is still being operated on a racial segregated basis in the face of the April 16th judgment; therefore, on the face of the record there appears to be no substantial controversy to the main issue that the school is being operated on a racial segregated basis. We, therefore, believe that the case at that point, that a decree should be rendered on the face of the record directing the School Board to bring in a plan of desegregation within a reasonable time, which would provide for desegregation beginning September, 1960.
“This would alleviate the fear of defendants that stress reference to that being impractical to do it September, 1959, or in the middle of the term.
“Therefore, we. believe, on the face of the record, there being no substantial controversy, the plaintiff would not be required to offer any evidence on the motion.
“Mr. Strasburger:
“If your Honor please, we respectfully disagree with opposing counsel. As we view the issue today it is simply whether or not we have complied with the former order, that we move with all deliberate speed. We feel that we have moved with all deliberate speed, and will continue to do so.
“Our pleadings join issue with them, that they are not entitled to the relief they pray for today, that they are in too big a hurry, that the best interests of all the children and all the community demands that we continue as we have continued in the past and doing our dead level best to stay within the Constitution and laws, and within the rulings of the Court, not only of the United States but of the State of Texas.”
The Court proceeded to hear all of the testimony offered by the parties, and at the conclusion of the hearing delivered a long oral opinion which comprises thirteen pages of the printed record and concludes as follows:
“Prom the evidence before us, and from the statement of counsel for the plaintiffs, it is not urged before September 1960. Just what problem will be confronting you in 1960, or by the fall of 1960, the Court can hardly foresee. I can only say to you, put your house in order for integration, for it is ahead of you.
“We will not name any date, nor will we write any order, except that we have not reached the time, to which counsel for plaintiff agrees, that integration can take place this year.
“I think an appropriate order will be that the School Board be instructed to further study this question, and that some definite action be taken, perhaps toward holding this election or doing other things, sometime next spring, but we cannot say definitely whether or not it will take place at any particular time, day, month or year, we don’t know, because we don’t know what tomorrow may bring forth.”
The plaintiffs then moved “ * * * that the Court enter an order disposing of Plaintiffs’ motion and for such other and further relief as they may be entitled to in the premises.”
In response to that motion, the Court on August 4, 1959, entered its order in part as follows:
“That the prayer of the Plaintiffs for an order directing and requiring Defendants to immediately desegregate is denied; but this Court retains jurisdiction of this cause for *853such further hearings and proceedings and the entry of such orders and judgments as might be necessary or appropriate to require compliance with this Order as well as the judgment of the Appellate Courts, and this hearing is recessed for the time being to be resumed on the first Monday in April, A. D. 1960.”
On August 12th, 1959, the plaintiffs filed their notice of appeal “ * * * from the decree and final judgment entered in this action on the 4th day of August, 1959, denying Plaintiffs’ motion for further relief praying for a judgment and decree of the Court directing and requiring the Defendants to immediately desegregate the schools in the Dallas Independent School District.”
The order of August 4, 1959, refuses to modify an injunction, and this Court, under 28 U.S.C.A. § 1292(a) (1), has jurisdiction of an appeal from that order. Compare Allen v. County School Board of Prince Edward County, Va., 4 Cir., 1957, 249 F.2d 462.
The language which we have quoted from the notice of appeal simply describes the judgment or order from which the appeal is prosecuted and was obviously not intended to limit the scope of the appeal, and does not have that effect.
Upon consideration of the evidence, and of the entire record, we find no error in the order appealed from except an error of omission. The Court should have required the defendants to “make a prompt and reasonable start toward full compliance” with its original injunction order of April 16th, 1958, and to that end, it should have required the defendants to submit a plan for effectuating a transition to a racially nondiscriminatory school system in time for such plan to be considered and ruled on by the Court on the date to which the hearing was recessed, viz., the first Monday in April, 1960. See Brown v. Board of Education, 1955, 349 U.S. 294, 300, 75 S.Ct. 753, 99 L.Ed. 1083. That date being almost at hand, the order of the district court is modified so as to require the defendants to “make a prompt and reasonable start toward full compliance” with its injunction order of April 16th, 1958, and to that end, within thirty days from the date on which the present judgment of this Court of Appeals becomes final, to submit a plan for effectuating a transition to a racially nondiscriminatory school system; and further that the District Court, within thirty days after the submission of such plan, hold a full hearing upon the plan so submitted and on any objections which may be filed thereto. As so modified the judgment or order of the District Court is affirmed.
Modified and affirmed.
CAMERON, Circuit Judge, dissents.