Court Opinion

ID: 9458602
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 20:56:38.894446+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:35:49.510703
License: Public Domain

WILKEY, Circuit Judge, with whom Circuit Judges McGOWAN and LEV-ENTHAL
concur.
Judge Wright’s opinion is infused throughout with broad constitutional discussions and assumptions, with which not all members of the majority are in complete accord. Therefore, it seems desirable to set forth separately the more limited rationale on which several members of the court do in fact agree.
The doctrine of judicial restraint, that cautions a court to avoid decision of constitutional questions when not necessary for disposition of a controversy, applies also, we think, to serious reliance on an application of constitutional principles. This is particularly true when the constitutional principles, although they may be sound, are certainly not either controlled by direct precedent or entirely free from doubt.
There is also an interrelated statutory doctrine, that statutes should be construed to avoid serious constitutional problems. In the case at bar we believe that the relevant statutes not only make a more limited statutory rationale available for decision, but such statutory rationale is entirely convincing as a sound course. Specifically, even if we assume —and we do not purport to say — that this action would have to fail if grounded on broad constitutional arguments alone, we are convinced that these statutory provisions entitle plaintiffs to relief that was erroneously withheld by the District Court.
In many respects this opinion not only reaches the same conclusion as to disposition, but also uses the same materials, as the opinion authored by Judge Wright. But the approach is significantly different. This opinion begins with an analysis of the functions of the D.C. Recorder of Deeds. The point is not that the D.C. provisions are unique or unusual. On the conti'ary, the functions of the D.C. Recorder of Deeds are, generally speaking, similar to the functions of that kind of official in the various states.
What is gained from a detailed examination of his functions is a perspective that clarifies the scope of the Fair Housing Act, as it applies to the Recorder’s functions. That approach also shows why the appellees’ arguments based on various practical and technical difficul*644ties are without substance. Our central position is that the Fair Housing Act of 1968, which prohibits the publishing of notices or statements with respect to the sale of dwellings indicating any discrimination based on race, color or national origin, read as it must be in the pertinent statutory and decisional context, does apply to the functions of the Recorder of Deeds.
I. The Recorder’s Office Under the District of Columbia Statutes
To begin at the beginning, the statutes and actual practice demonstrate that the primary function of the Recorder is not to preserve records but to provide public notice of them. After a deed is filed for recordation, it is returned to the current owner of the property, who, we may assume, ordinarily retains it in whatever manner he is accustomed to preserve his important papers or valuable possessions. If the Recorder were merely a “conservator,” he could accomplish this purpose by providing vaults in which the original deed could be pigeonholed, with access limited to the Recorder’s office and the owner of the property, the mortgagee, or other claiming an interest therein. But the Recorder does not pigeonhole the deed. He spreads it upon folio volumes in the public record for all the world to examine and see.

A. Recording required to give notice.

The purpose of this, and that this function is the primary role of the Recorder, is implicit in the age-old common law of real property with regard to bona fide third purchasers, codified in 45 D.C.Code § 501:
Any deed conveying real property in the District . . . as to creditors and subsequent bona fide purchasers and mortgagees without notice of such deed, and others interested in said property, it shall only take effect from the time of its delivery to the Recorder of Deeds for record.
The same section of the statute provides that, as between the parties and as to all other persons except those listed above, the deed takes effect from the date of delivery. Thus, while the unrecorded deed passes title,1 the recording of the deed has definite legal consequences, inasmuch as it is statutorily required to protect the grantee’s title against creditors, subsequent bona fide purchasers and mortgagees without notice of the deed, and others interested in the property.
Furthermore, not only must owners of real property record their deeds or else risk losing title to those listed in the statute, subsequent purchasers of the property must examine the records or else risk not obtaining proper title. Recourse to the Recorder’s office is required both before and after delivery of a deed, first to obtain information as to title, and last to give notice to all others of the transfer of title to protect the new owner’s interest. It is obviously the duty to provide public notice and to make copies of deeds available on demand, not the mere safe-deposit-vault preservation of the deeds, which is the most important function of the Recorder.
B. Recording prohibited where instrument not executed and acknowledged agreeably to law.
That the Recorder is not just a passive repository, like the safe deposit box at a bank, is shown by the second relevant D.C. statute, 45 D.C.Code § 503, which forbids the Recorder to accept “for record or record any instrument which shall not be executed and acknowledged agreeably to law . . . . ” It is not indubitably clear what the words “not be executed and acknowledged agreeably to law” mean. The more limited interpretation is that if there is an apparent irregularity in the mode of execution or acknowledgment of the deed (i. e., the correct number of signatures, witnesses, seals, etc.), the Re*645corder is required to reject it, and that this is as far as he should go in his examination. This could be accomplished without reading any part of the deed except the acknowledgment, not necessarily even the descriptions of the parties or the property.
The cases cited under this statute have not given such a limited interpretation, however. In Dancy v. Clark it was held that the Recorder “. . . is by the law required to receive and file . . . such instuments as have been duly executed, and which purport on their face to be of the nature of the instruments entitled to be filed or recorded.”2 At the very least this means that the Recorder is to give the deeds a cursory reading to determine whether they “purport on their face” to be the kind of document “entitled to be filed.” Dancy itself sustains this broader interpretation of the Recorder’s duties, for there our court held that “even if a paper on its face appears to have been regularly executed so as to entitle it to record . yet the court will not, by writ of mandamus, coerce his action if it appears upon consideration of the contents of the paper that it is invalid under the law, . . . ” 3 In Dancy the invalidity under the law was an improper specification of corporate purposes, an invalidity which appears to be much more difficult of definition and detection than a racially restrictive covenant.
According to the allegations of the plaintiffs, the present practice of the Recorder is to refuse instruments that are not in English, that contain obscenities, or that do not identify the parties. Since these allegations of plaintiffs are uncontradicted, and this case comes on appeal from the District Court’s grant of defendant’s motion to dismiss for failure to state a cause of action, plaintiffs’ allegations as to the Recorder’s current practice must be accepted. Thus the Recorder does screen all deeds submitted to him to insure that they are agreeable to law.
It would be difficult to deny that, if the Recorder can define and detect obscenity, he can define and detect virtually any other illegality, including easily a racially discriminatory covenant.
C. Inclusion of racially restrictive covenant prohibited.
The third relevant statute is Article 45, § 3(b), of the Police Regulations of the District of Columbia (1967), which makes it illegal to include a racially restrictive covenant “in the terms or conditions of a transfer of an interest in real property.”4 This appears to be a definite determination that a deed (an instrument used in the transfer of property) is not executed agreeably to law if it contains such a racially restrictive covenant.
Under the plain language of § 503 and Article 45, § 3(b), of the Police Regulations, the Recorder’s duties require him to reject deeds which contain restrictive covenants. He has an affirmative obligation to insure that deeds are executed “agreeably to law.” Far from being a mere receptacle or storage box for preservation purposes, the Recorder has duties requiring his exercise of some legal judgment at the time he receives a deed (or rejects it), and further important duties requiring his placing the deed of record in a manner that will give notice to all making inquiry relating thereto.
D. The Recorder’s actions — Pragmatic considerations.
Having seen something of the statutory framework in which the Recorder’s office operates, let us examine some practical considerations bearing on what *646the Recorder now does and what the appellants claim he should do in regard to rejecting the filing of deeds containing racially restrictive covenants.
1. It may well be that “determining whether a covenant in a deed is a racially restrictive covenant demands a legal judgment,” as the original panel opinion states, but it does not necessarily follow that “the clerical staff of the Recorder certainly does not have the knowledge, capacity or acumen to perform the tasks asked of them by appellants.” The Recorder is today making a legal judgment on the validity of the acknowledgment, a legal question whose answer has frequently involved vast sums.5 The Recorder is making a further legal judgment on the presence of obscenity, which requires a reading of the deed, as well as an examination of the description of the parties, and an ascertainment that the deed is in English. Furthermore, the Recorder has rejected deeds for other reasons of legal invalidity, and been sustained in so doing, as in Dancy v. Clark, supra.
2. The burden on the Recorder in performing these tasks and the effort he would have to make in examining for racially restrictive covenants is not as great as has been argued. A substantial percentage of the deeds recorded are the so-called “short-form,” “Law Reporter,” or “D.C.Code” deeds, the standardized form deed found at 45 D.C. Code § 301. These form deeds contain no racially restrictive covenants, and immediate identification of the deed as a form deed obviates the necessity of detailed examination.
Furthermore, as Judge Wright’s opinion points out (Op., p. 642, fn. 14), at oral argument it was conceded that the major title companies are responsible for 95% of the deeds presented for rec-ordation, and these .same companies have agreed with the Justice Department not to report racially restrictive covenants in their title policies. (The implications of this re the 1968 Act are discussed more fully, infra.) Whether this means the title companies cause the dropping out of racial covenants in all or a substantial portion of this 95% of all deeds recorded is unclear in the record at this stage. What does undeniably appear true however, is that, given the use of D.C.Code form deeds and the position of the major title companies, a search for racial covenants would be required in only a small percentage of deeds offered for recordation.
3. We are not dealing here with the Recorder in a completely passive, receptive role. He has an “affirmative obligation to act” or not act, depending on what he finds in the deed. His action has specific legal consequences for the grantee and possibly for numerous other parties, because the validity of the deed among them hinges upon the action taken by the Recorder. 45 D.C.Code § 501, supra.
4. Even if a determination in favor of the plaintiffs, granting a declaratory judgment and an injunction defining the Recorder’s actions, would place an additional administrative burden on him, that is no valid objection if in truth and in fact the petitioned action is called for by the law.
E. Decisions holding the Recorder is not obligated to record certain deeds.
Neither our own research nor that of the parties has uncovered a case in the same position as the one at bar, i. e., parties seeking a blanket prohibition against the Recorder of Deeds’ recording a certain deed or type deed. Usually the situation arises in the reverse, i. e., the Recorder of Deeds has exercised his non-neutral legal judgment as to whether a document is subject to recording or not, has rejected it, and has been upheld by the courts.
The only case in this jurisdiction is Dancy v. Clark, supra, in which our court *647refused to grant mandamus to compel the Recorder to file a certificate of incorporation where there was an improper specification of corporate purposes. Our court thus upheld the “nonneutral” act of the Recorder in refusing to accept an invalid document.
Similarly, in Youngblood v. United States6 the Sixth Circuit held that the Wayne County Registrar of Deeds was justified in refusing to record a federal tax lien which did not comply with the statutory direction to include a description of the property covered by the lien. In re Finkelstein involved a more difficult legal judgment, in that the New York court held that an assignment for wages given as security for payment of a debt was given in a manner which violated a New York statute, and therefore the County Clerk was correct in his exercise of legal judgment and refusal to file the assignment.7
Various decisions in which the submitted document is similar to or an abridgment of a document, which under the statute would be entitled to recordation, have held that the abridgment or similar document is not entitled to recordation because it does not fall squarely within the statute. The Maryland court in 1966 held a shortened version of a longer writing (lease agreement) was not entitled to recordation even though the original document would have been.8 Likewise, in 1969 Wisconsin held the Registrar of Deeds was correct in refusing to accept for filing a lease of personal property, although he would have been required to accept a conditional sales contract or chattel mortgage.9 In Ohio an accepted “offer to purchase” was held not to be equivalent to an “executory installment contract” for the sale of land, and thus the court granted mandamus to compel the County Recorder to expunge and cancel the “offer to purchase” from his records.10
With the Recorder in the opposite position, cases have arisen in several jurisdictions where the Recorder has erroneously filed a document and in subsequent litigation the court has held that, because the document under the recordation or other statute was no.t entitled to be filed, the recordation would not constitute constructive notice to subsequent purchasers of the property from the original grantor, and thus the recordation was without legal effect.11
Taken together, these cases show that Recorders in various states exercise their legal judgment in accepting or refusing documents tendered for recordation, and that in making such legal judgments they have been upheld by the courts. Or, if in error, their action has been corrected, as in the Ohio case where an erroneous legal judgment by the County Recorder was reversed, in that he was required to expunge from his records a document he never should have recorded in the first place.
Logically, it would seem that in any of these cases, if an interested party had sought a prohibition against the Recorder filing the document which was not entitled to be filed, the court would have granted such a prohibition. In the case at bar we have documents which are objected to because the racially restrictive clause is void and of no legal effect, its enforcement is prohibited, the Recorder’s placing such a deed clause of record would give legal notice to no one; therefore, on the rationale of the above cases, the Recorder should be prohibited from filing it in the first place.
*648This would seem unquestionably true if an individual action were brought to prohibit the filing of any individual deed with a racially restrictive covenant. What is asked for in the case at bar is a blanket prohibition in advance against accepting such deeds for recordation. While a different question, the difference appears, not in the legal principle involved, but possibly in the practicalities of the functioning of the Recorder’s office. For the purposes of the motion to dismiss in this case the facts are established that the Recorder does now reject deeds not executed agreeably to law, and that requiring him to reject deeds containing racially restrictive covenants would be consistent with his present administrative practice.
This assumes that deeds containing racially restrictive covenants are not executed agreeably to law. Since Shelley v. Kraemer,12 such clauses have been legal nullities, but this in itself may not be thought to justify court action regulating the Recorder’s conduct. We have noted the District of Columbia Police Regulation, Art. 45, § 4(b), which plainly states, “[I]t shall be a violation because of the race, color, religion or national origin of any individual . . . [to] [i]nclude in the terms or conditions of a transfer of an interest in real property any clause, condition or restriction.” This alone would serve to prohibit the Recorder from accepting deeds in violation of this Regulation — they could not have been “executed agreeably to law”- — but there is also a prohibition of greater force and dignity to which we now turn.
11. Title VIII of the Fair Housing Act of 1968 (42 U.S.C. § 3604(c))
A. The face of the statute.
After having analyzed the statutes applying specifically to the District of Columbia, and the practice of the Recorder’s Office here and in other jurisdictions, the decisive factor in the disposition of the case at bar becomes Title VIII of the Fair Housing Act of 1968,13 which makes it unlawful
[t]o make, print, or publish, or cause to be made, printed, or published any notice, statement, or advertisement, with respect to the sale or rental of a dwelling that indicates any preference, limitation, or discrimination based on race, color, religion, or national origin, or intention to make any such preference, limitation, or discrimination.
The words emphasized in the statute quoted are the words whose interpretation determines the decision we make here.
1. We could say that the Recorder prints notices of the sale of real property in that he causes the deeds to be photographed and bound into books. But, more importantly, the Recorder publishes such notices or statements with respect to the sale of dwellings. As defined by Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary,14 the word “publish” is used to “make public, to make known to people in general; . . . to divulge, promulgate or proclaim . . . . ” Black’s Law Dictionary defines “publication” to include “to exhibit, display, disclose or reveal.”15 This is precisely what the Recorder does with a deed; his is the office in which the deed is made publicly known; he divulges or promulgates it; to one taking the trouble to come to the Recorder’s office, the deed is announced or proclaimed, exhibited, displayed, disclosed or revealed. As pointed out above, under 45 D.C.Code § 501 the deed is not effective as to creditors, mortgagees, innocent purchasers without notice, or to other interested parties until it is filed for recordation in the Recorder’s office.
Whether the action of the Recorder be viewed as necessary before or after the sale is immaterial, because the statute *649itself does not refer to the publishing of notices before or after a sale of a dwelling. We are all familiar with notices which are published after the event, such as the notices put on the financial pages of newspapers in regard to the declaration of a dividend or the consummation of a large financial transaction sponsored by certain listed investment houses.
We might compare a newspaper carrying legal notices. If a newspaper should carry the text of a deed with a racially restrictive covenant, could anyone argue that the newspaper did not publish this notice? The Recorder’s role in regard to real estate deeds is similar to the newspaper’s role with regard to the publication of legal notices. The newspaper is physically carried to the reader, whereas the reader must physically transport himself to the Recorder’s office to read the deed, unless, as is frequently done, he has a title company make an abstract of every deed in his chain of title from the records in the Recorder’s office. The purpose and effect of recording the deed in the Recorder’s office, or putting a legal notice in a newspaper column, is the same; both give notice to the world, both are published.
2. Turning to the words notice, statement, or advertisement, unless the words notice and statement are to be treated as surplusage, they must be interpreted to mean that the Fair Housing Act prohibits other types of communications besides advertisements. “Advertisements” carries the connotation of a communication to induce one to enter into a commercial transaction, while the word “notice” carries the connotation of a communication for a legal purpose. As we have seen above, the legal purpose of recording the deed is not to pass title between the grantor and the grantee — this is by statute effective on delivery of the deed— the legal purpose is to give notice to innocent purchasers, mortgagees, and other interested parties.
3. “With respect to the sale or rental of a dwelling” necessarily involves a deed and its recordation. A deed properly recorded is the only type legal instrument which can consummate the sale of a dwelling. While it may be strictly correct to say the Recorder himself does not do any selling or renting, he is involved in the commercial real estate market, both before and after a sale. Two indispensable ingredients of any real estate transaction are a visit to the Recorder’s office to check the title before the sale, and a visit to the Recorder’s office to file the deed for record after the sale.
We have referred to the role of title insurance companies, the usual link between the official records of the Recorder and the buyer and seller in a real estate transaction. Highly significant for the interpretation we make here of the Fair Housing Act (§ 3604(c)) applicability to the Recorder is the similar applicability to the title companies previously asserted by the Department of Justice. By letter of 26 November 1969 to eighteen major title insurance companies in the District of Columbia the Department of Justice advised that the Fair Housing Act of 1968 “broadened the Shelley16 prohibition to cover not only judicial enforcement of such covenants, but also their inclusion in public documents such as deeds or insurance policies.” 17 The Department informed the companies they were violating the law by their practice of reporting the existence of racial restrictions appearing in the records of title on property for which they were issuing title insurance policies. All eighteen title companies replied that in future policies they would eliminate any reference to such restrictions.
The interpretation of the 1968 Act as applying to the title companies applies with even more obvious logic to the Recorder himself. If a deed can be considered a publication, it can. only be an effective publication when it is recorded *650for the world to see. The title abstracts and recitals of restrictions in title insurance policies are but republications, taken from the Recorder’s official records. If the title companies’ publications are covered by § 3604(c), so must be the Recorder’s publications.
We thus conclude that the Recorder in the District of Columbia does “publish . . . a notice, statement, with respect to the sale . . . of a dwelling . . . .” If he publishes such a notice which “indicates any preference, limitation, or discrimination based on race, color, religion, or national origin,” then he does so in violation of 42 U.S.C. § 3604(c). At the very least, appellants would seem to be entitled to the first item of their requested relief, a declaratory judgment that if the Recorder so does he acts in violation of law. Logically, on the authority in this and other jurisdictions, he can be restrained in advance from violation of law, particularly since it is undenied that his conduct up to now has been in complete disregard of the applicability of this law.18
Our conclusion in this regard is reinforced by another section of the Fair Housing Act, 42 U.S.C. § 3615, which provides in pertinent part that . . the law of a “State, a political subdivision, or other such jurisdiction that purports to require or permit any action that would be a discriminatory housing practice under this subchapter shall to that extent be invalid.” (Emphasis supplied.)
Section 3602 defines “discriminatory housing practice” as “an act that is unlawful under Section 3604, 3605, or 3606 of this title.” Section 3604(c) is the provision with which we have been most directly concerned, the section which prohibits the publishing of any discriminatory “notice, statement, or advertisement.”
Thus, ignoring Article 45, § 3(b), of the D.C. Police Regulations, even if under previous District of Columbia law the Recorder has been permitted to be a “neutral repository” in regard to discriminatory racial covenants, since § 3615 voids any law of a political subdivision that “permit[s] any action that would be a discriminatory housing practice,” and the publishing of racially restrictive covenants is defined by § 3604(c) as such activity, the Recorder of Deeds of the District of Columbia, whatever his original role, is no longer permitted to be a passive repository when it comes to recording — and thus publishing — racially restrictive covenants. Whether he has thought of it before or not, when the Recorder publishes the notice of the sale of a dwelling, i. e., records a deed containing discriminatory racial covenants for the world to see, he is engaging in an act unlawful under § 3604(c); he thus is also engaging in a discriminatory housing practice as defined by § 3602, and to whatever extent his actions in accepting and recording without question discriminatory racial covenants have been authorized by D.C. law, to that extent the D.C. law is invalid.
Another point made in Dancy v. Clark, supra, is relevant here. In Dancy this court observed that the Recorder of Deeds, though “in the category of ministerial officers,” nevertheless “is not *651wholly without discretion to determine whether any instrument of writing should be admitted to record.” 19 The Dancy court gives as an example of this discretion, “if a promissory note, or a deed of conveyance of land, or a chattel mortgage, were offered to him to be filed as a certificate of incorporation, he would certainly be warranted in a refusal to receive it.” Taking another example, if the Recorder were asked to record a devise of land that was a patent violation of the rule against perpetuities, and therefore invalid, he would have the discretion to refuse to record it, if such invalidity were somhow brought to his attention, and Dancy tells us that this refusal to record would be upheld by the courts.
The Dancy court summarized the scope of this discretion in the Recorder:
He has the right to exercise discretion in the premises, but not judicial discretion. The courts will sustain him when he acts within the limits of the discretion reposed in him; they will coerce his action when he has exceeded those limits and denied a right to which parties are by law entitled. Whether his action in the present case falls within or without the scope of the authority vested in him remains to be determined according to well-established principles of law.20
The emphasized portion of the quotation is what has special meaning for us here, and presents another way of viewing the action of the Recorder in the case at bar. The effect of the passage of 42 U.S.C. § 3604(c) was to limit this discretion with regard to restrictive covenants. Before the passage of Title VIII, there was no prohibition against publishing any “notices” or “statements” containing racially restrictive covenants, even though these were invalid, at least after Shelley v. Kraemer. The meaning of the discretion that the Dancy court explained was that the Recorder might record such invalid deeds (or covenants), even though he also had the discretion to refuse to record them. This would have been the case with racially restrictive covenants, just as it would have been with devises that violated the rule against perpetuities, both might be invalid, but the Recorder might accept either of them for recordation.
This changed with the passage of Title VIII, since it then became illegal for anyone to publish such a covenant, and this, as explained, supra, included the Recorder of Deeds. Since the Recorder, like any other ministerial officer, has no discretion to perform illegal acts, his discretion has been limited by Title VIII. While the existence of his discretion does not compel him to be alert to such in-validities as violations of the rule against perpetuities, the positive prohibition of 42 U.S.C. § 3604(c) imposes a duty on the Recorder to be alert for racially restrictive covenants, and to refuse to record them.21
B. The legislative history.
The legislative history, although extensive and voluminous, sheds little more definite light on the specific problem confronting us here. Nowhere in the legislative history is there mention of the Recorder of Deeds, nor any specific mention of the applicability of the act to any similar state official who performs what *652the panel opinion has been careful to describe as “ministerial” functions.22 However, the purpose behind the Fair Housing Act of 1968 was very clearly manifested, and that purpose, in all fair judgment, is broad enough to include such activity of the District of Columbia Recorder of Deeds.
Congress was aware that the measure would have a very broad reach, and indeed the legislation was seen as an attempt to alter the whole character of the housing market. “The fact is that the discrimination is not solely and plainly the act of a private person dealing with his own property. Discrimination is based in such matters on problems of whole community prejudices operating against the will even of the individual property owner and of the individual real estate broker who would not, within himself, want to perpetuate this kind of housing noose, who feels either a sense of social or business responsibility to do something about this issue, but who feels coerced and intimidated by the climate of the opinion in which he lives. That is the reason for putting into legislative terms a national policy designed to end discrimination in housing.” 23
It is undeniable that the fair housing provisions were aimed primarily toward actual sales and rentals of real estate, yet it is rather inconsistent to maintain that such a statute, with the broadest objectives and scope, is to apply to private persons in the commercial market in their publication of notices of sale of real estate, and not to apply to an official whose office exists for the primary purpose of publishing notices of the sale of real estate to interested third parties and to the public in general.24
Of course it is true that, as one witness at the hearings stated, the statute “outlaws advertising that is racial in nature,” but the statute does much more.25 That the reach of the statute *653was intended to be very broad is demonstrated by a statement made by Secretary of Housing Weaver:
This is a comprehensive proposal which would prohibit discrimination in the sale, rental, or financing of housing, including discriminatory advertising and discrimination in representations made as to the availability of housing26
The phrase emphasized, “representations made as to the availability of housing,” might be particularly applicable to a restrictive covenant in a deed, as the title examiner who looks at a deed to determine, in a sense, whether the property is “available” will be examining such a covenant. The title examiner furnishes his findings to the prospective purchaser or his lawyer, who makes his evaluation of the availability of the housing.
It does not matter whether the intent to discriminate is ultimately successful (the lawyer examining title will know the restrictive covenant is a nullity), but simply that the intent to discriminate is expressed. It is the latter activity that is forbidden, and even if the intent to discriminate is a legal nullity, it has a discouraging psychological effect on purchasers, and thus narrows the housing market in a way that it certainly was the objective of the Fair Housing Act to eliminate.27 Virtually no real estate transaction takes place without someone, usually a title examiner working for the purchaser, paying a visit to the Recorder of Deeds to check the title. What he finds there will affect the transaction, because what is there has been put under the District of Columbia statutes to serve as notice. It is the total sense and purpose of the Fair Housing Act that no discrimination shall affect such real estate transactions; it thus follows that there shall be no discriminatory representations at the office of the Recorder of Deeds. “Neutral repository” or not, the office of the Recorder is a vital part of the real estate world, and, as such, the Recorder’s office should be free from manifestations of *654discrimination such as racially restrictive covenants.
Our construction of Title VIII to prevent the recording of deeds with racially restrictive covenants is similar to the construction of Title II of the Omnibus Civil Rights Bill which the Supreme Court used in Daniel v. Paul,28 where the Court said:
[I] t does not follow that the scope of § 201(b) (3) should be restricted to the primary objects of Congress’ concern when a natural reading of its language would call for broader coverage. In light of the overriding purpose of Title II “to move the daily affront and humiliation involved in discriminatory denials of access to facilities ostensibly open to the general public,” [citation omitted] . . . the statutory language “place of entertainment” should be given full effect according to its generally accepted meaning and applied to recreational areas.29
Just as the Court in Daniel read Title II broadly to effectuate the congressional purpose, we think that Title VIII should be read broadly to effect the congressional purpose in eliminating racially restrictive covenants from the housing market, and thus the Recorder’s activity in publishing deeds comes within the prohibition of Title VIII.
As Congress has so clearly manifested its intent in Title VIII, we think that we may rest our decision on this statutory ground without any need to seek a constitutional basis. This is particularly appropriate where, as here, Congress has exercised its constitutional role of “fleshing out” the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments by the passage of appropriate legislation.30
C. Harm to the appellants.
The question of whether the appellants in this case have shown the requisite harm to them to support an action must also be evaluated with reference to the broad congressional policy in passing the fair housing provisions, a “national policy of open housing that [would] greatly facilitate movement of people free from the artificial barriers of racial restrictions.”31 Given this broad congressional policy, this situation is not unlike that in Barrows v. Jackson,32 where the Court held that a homeowner could assert the rights of third persons injured by a racially restrictive covenant which burdened the homeowner’s land. As in Barrows, this is an occasion when the reasons underlying the normal rule denying standing to raise another’s rights “are outweighed by the need to protect the fundamental rights” of those whom Congress has sought to protect by the fair housing provisions.33
Even aside from their ability to assert harm to third persons, however, there is here present actual harm to the appellants themselves, which they may assert. While it is true that racially restrictive covenants cannot be enforced, and thus might be thought to be harmless, it is nevertheless true that it is the premise of the legislation under which relief is here sought that a mere “notice, statement, or advertisement” indicating a racial preference, such as we have in the case at bar, is ipso facto harmful. Since the purpose of the legislation is to prevent discrimination in housing, it must have been assumed by Congress that any such “notice, statement, or advertisement,” merely by its publication, might have the effect of preventing some persons from *655buying or renting housing with regard to which any such discriminatory “notice” or “statement” had been made.
It necessarily follows that since the market for any such housing is limited by the exclusion of any persons who would be prevented from buying or renting by the mere publication of the discriminatory “notice, statement, or advertisement,” homeowners such as appellants who own property in connection with which such a “notice, statement, or advertisement” has been published have been “harmed” by such a limitation in the marketability of their homes. This is true whether such reluctance to buy or rent stems from “a misapprehension as to the legal effect” of the discriminatory language or simply a desire on the part of such persons not to buy or rent where they appear to be unwanted.34
Looking at the matter from a different point of view, a landowner whose deed does not have a restrictive clause has reason to object to the appearance of such clauses in other deeds. There may well be prospective buyers who would be uninfluenced by racial considerations in deciding where to buy if left to themselves, without any official or published input along those lines, but who may be influenced or induced to give a marginal preference to a home that has such a deed. So far as the effective market is concerned, it is enough if such a buyer gives a preference in only the limited sense of letting those restrictive deeds define the area where he first begins to look at houses.
If the above analysis of the District of Columbia statutes, the Recorder’s present office practice under those statutes, and the Fair Housing Act of 1968 is valid, by the accepted standards of judicial decision-making it is unnecessary to examine appellants’ constitutional arguments which form so large a part of Judge Wright’s rationale, and the reversal of the judgment of the District Court may rest on the statutory grounds.35

. Intermountain Lumber Co. v. Radetsky, 75 Colo. 570, 227 P. 564, 33 A.L.R. 844 (1924).

. 24 App.D.C. 487, 499 (1905) (emphasis supplied).

. Ibid. (emphasis supplied).

. “[I]t shall be a violation of this Article for any person to do any of the following because of the race, color, religion or national origin of any individual.
* * Si* s{i *
“(b) Include in the terms or conditions of a transfer of an interest in real property any clause, condition or restriction.”

. See, e. g., Humble Oil & Refining Co. v. Downey, 143 Tex. 171, 183 S.W.2d 426 (1944) (conveyance by lease of properties worth many millions of dollars set aside because of a faulty acknowledgment).

. 141 F.2d 912 (6th Cir. 1944).

. 11 Misc.2d 938, 174 N.Y.S.2d 126 (1958).

. Motels of Maryland, Inc. v. Baltimore County, 244 Md. 306, 223 A.2d 609 (1966).

. Appliance Buyers Credit Corp. v. Crivello, 43 Wis.2d 241, 168 N.W.2d 892 (1969).

. State ex rel. Puthoff v. Cullen, 5 Ohio App.2d 13, 213 N.E.2d 201 (1966).

. See, e. g., Tandy v. Dickinson, 371 S.W.2d 81 (Texas Civ.App., 1963); Low v. Sanger, 478 P.2d 60 (Wyo.1970).

. 334 U.S. 1, 68 S.Ct. 836, 92 L.Ed. 1161 (1948).

. 42 U.S.C. § 3604(c) (1970).

. Webster’s New International Dictionary (1931 ed.), at 1731.

. Black’s Law Dictionary 1396 (4th ed. 1951).

. Shelley v. Kraemer, 334 U.S. 1, 68 S.Ct. 836, 92 L.Ed. 1161 (1948).

. Exhibit A, attached to Plaintiffs’ Memorandum of Points and Authorities in Opposition to Defendants’ Motion to Dismiss the Complaint.

. Evans v. Abney, 396 U.S. 435, 90 S.Ct. 628, 24 L.Ed.2d 634 (1970), relied on by the original panel opinion to show that all racial restrictions are not required to be wiped away by the courts, is not to the contrary. Abney held that the Cy Pres doctrine of trusts may not be applied where it was clear that the testator did not intend such application when it resulted in a mixing of the races that the testator felt unwise. This was sustained by the Supreme Court on the grounds that it has always been state policy to uphold the intentions of testators, and nothing yet enacted by Congress or to be found in the Constitution has changed that. In the field of housing discrimination, the reverse is true. There is now a congressional mandate that racially restrictive covenants may not be permitted in the selling or renting cf dwellings, 42 U.S.C. § 3601 (also a D.C. Police Regulation to the same effect); thus, this area of law, the selling or rental of real estate is different from the devising of real estate, which was involved in Evans v. Abney.

. 24 App.D.C., at 499.

. Id. (emphasis supplied).

. This discussion points up one difference between the Police Regulation, Article 45, § 3(b), and Title VIII. The Police Regulation, by its terms, is directed only toward the maker of the deed or the transfer of an interest in real property, while Title VIII prohibits the proscribed publishing by anyone. Thus it can be argued that the Police Regulation has no effect upon the discretion of the Recorder, who might still be allowed to record a deed with a condition proscribed by Article 45, § 3(b). After Title VIII, of course, the discretion of the Recorder would be limited to exclude such recordation. On the other hand, because of the wording of 45 D.C.Code § 503, it may still be maintained that by virtue of Article 45, § 3(b), the Recorder is barred from recording a deed which violates the Police Regulation. See supra, I.O.

. This is more understandable when one realizes that the fair housing provisions were finally added to the Civil Rights Bill on the floor of the Senate. These provisions originally appeared in a different bill which never was voted out of the Senate committee which considered it. While there is one House Report which deals with the legislation, it is nothing-more than a recommendation that the bill pass, and as the fair housing provisions were never actually voted out of a Senate committee, there is no helpful Senate Report either. Our research has indicated that the only helpful legislative history is the Senate hearings which are here referred to.

. Testimony of Marvin Braiterman, Counsel to the Commission on Social Action of Reform Judaism, representing the Commission on Religion and Race, Synagogue Council of America, testifying before the Senate Subcommittee on Constitutional Rights of the Committee on the Judiciary which was considering S.1026, the Senate bill from which were taken the fair housing provisions which were ultimately enacted. Hearings Before the Subcommittee on Constitutional Rights of the Committee on the Judiciary, United States Senate, on S.1026, S.1318, S.1359, S.1362, S.1462, H.R.2516 and H.R.10805 (Proposed Civil Rights Act of 1967) (August and September 1967) (Hereafter “1967 Hearings”), at 128.

. Compare Judge Wright’s opinion, pp. 634-635.

. That statement was made by William L. Taylor, Staff Director, U.S.Commission on Civil Rights, in the course of the 1967 Hearings, supra, note 17, during an exchange with Senator Ervin with regard to the meaning of the words “oral or written” (which words were later dropped), which preceded the words “notice, statement, or advertisement” in that section of the bill which ultimately became 42 U.S.C. § 3604(c). The dialogue itself shows the statute as construed by Senator Ervin, and was as follows:
Senator Ervin: I invite your attention to subsection (c) of section 404. . . . Doesn’t that make it unlawful for a man to prefer to sell a house to a man of his own race, religion, or national origin than to others?
Mr. Taylor: I think it outlaws advertising that is racial in nature.
Senator Ervin: Look at those “or’s.” They are not “and’s,” they are “or’s.” As we lawyers say, they are in the disjunctive. Now leave out the ones that are immaterial. It makes it unlawful to make any oral statement with respect to the sale or rental of a dwelling that indicates any preference based on *653race, color, religion, or national origin or an intention to make any such preference. Doesn’t that make it unlawful for a man to make any statement orally in respect to the sale or rental of property that he prefers to sell or rent property to a man of his race, religion, or national origin in preference to that of a man of another race or another religion or another national origin? [1967 Hearings, at 233.]
Later in this dialogue, Mr. Taylor made the statements about the proposed act that “I would say that a man cannot print a statement saying T prefer to sell my house to a white man,’ ” and “I think that [the section] is intended to refer to public statements,” showing that Mr. Taylor understood the proposed act to do more than simply prohibit advertising that “is racial in nature.”

. 1967 Hearings, supra, note 23, at 482 (emphasis supplied).

. See, e. g., the Statement of Secretary Weaver recorded in the 1967 Hearings, at 487:
I believe that the [fair housing provisions] should be enacted because the time has come when the Federal Government must establish a national policy against discrimination in housing as it has in other vital areas of American life. It should be enacted so that more than 20 million American Negroes and other minorities will attain the freedom to choose the homes in which they wish to live on the basis of what they can afford — just as other Americans do.
The rebuilding of our cities cannot be successful unless we eliminate all forms of discrimination including discrimination in housing. Our nonwhite citizens must be free to find their homes both in our central cities and our suburbs if the enforced racial ghetto is to be eliminated. The rising crescendo of voices in these ghettos cries out for better housing. And the conscience of America cannot be at ease as long as a sector of its citizens continues to be denied equality of opportunity in shelter. These voices must be heard if we are to solve the most important domestic problem facing America today. No valid reason can be advanced why ten percent of our fellow Americans should be deprived of freedom of choice in selecting the most essential commodity, a home in which to live and to bring up their children.

. 395 U.S. 298, 89 S.Ct. 1697, 23 L.Ed.2d 318 (1969).

. 395 U.S., at 307-308, 89 S.Ct., at 1702 (emphasis supplied).

. See, e. g., Jones v. Alfred H. Mayer Co., 392 U.S. 409, 88 S.Ct. 2186, 20 L.Ed.2d 1189 (1968), Katzenbach v. Morgan, 384 U.S. 641, 672, 86 S.Ct. 1731, 16 L.Ed.2d 828 (1966).

. 1967 Hearings, at 479 (Statement of Senator Hart, one of the sponsors of the original bill).

. 346 U.S. 249, 73 S.Ct. 1031, 97 L.Ed. 1586 (1953).

. See 346 U.S., at 257, 73 S.Ct., at 1035.

. See Judge Wright’s opinion, pp. 640-641.

. A particularly puzzling aspect of this case is that the appellants did not seek relief from the Commissioners or the Mayor of the District of Columbia before coming into the District Court. D.C. Code § 45-701 provides in pertinent part that “The performance, by the Recorder of Deeds and officers and employees in his office, of their duties and functions shall be subject to the supervision and control of the Commissioners of the District.” This makes it clear that the Commissioners would have had the power to grant the relief which appellants seek here. As neither party raised the issue of failure to seek a remedy from the Commissioners before coming into court, however, and the case has been argued before both a regular panel and the court en banc, we are reluctant to allow this question to affect our disposition of the case.