Court Opinion

ID: 9463942
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 23:20:56.104404+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:38:22.588761
License: Public Domain

*199WINTER, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
In the prior appeal, we sustained the district court’s finding that defendants had followed in the past a pattern and practice of resistance in renting lots for mobile homes to blacks. While we declined to say that, whenever there was a pattern and practice of past racial discrimination, in-junctive relief should always be granted upon request, we concluded that in the instant case present effects of past discrimination which might require substantial correction still existed:
It is reasonable to assume that the past discrimination inhibited blacks from applying at Warwick’s park, as evidenced by the small number of black applicants. Although Warwick’s discriminatory acts may have changed, or even ceased, “as of recent” it is probable that without the affirmative relief sought by the Government, blacks will continue to be inhibited from applying at a park identified with past racial discrimination. As long as such vestiges of prior discrimination remain affirmative injunctive relief is appropriate and should be granted. (Emphasis added.)
United States v. Warwick Mobile Home Estates, Inc., 537 F.2d 1148, 1150 (4 Cir. 1976).
On remand the district court, without hearing, entered the decree from which this appeal is taken solely on the record before us in the present appeal. Thus, in the present appeal, the sole issue for decision is whether the decree entered by the district court on remand is consistent with the views we expressed. I think that it was not, and I respectfully dissent from a contrary holding.
I.
The decree entered by the district court recites its previous finding that the defendants have engaged in a pattern or practice of resistance to equal housing opportunity, and it permanently enjoined them from (1) refusing to show, sell, rent, volunteer information about, or negotiate for the sale or rental of a dwelling because of race or color; (2) representing falsely that a dwelling is not available on account of race or color; (3) otherwise denying a dwelling to anyone because of race or color; (4) discriminating in the terms, conditions or privileges of sale or rental on account of race or color; and (5) advertising a preference, limitation or discrimination based on race or color. The decree requires that there be established a program of instructions to defendants’ employees and that they be subjected to disciplinary action for failure to comply with the decree. There is a statement that the court shall retain jurisdiction and that “defendants’ keeping of racial records for the purpose of complying with the decree shall not be considered as discriminatory.” With respect to the latter, there is no provision in the decree requiring the maintenance of such records; and, from their history of past dealings, I cannot rest secure in a belief that these defendants will be so enlightened that they will maintain them voluntarily.
The decree requested by the government embodied all of the foregoing provisions, but it also asked that defendants adopt and implement an affirmative fair housing program to include: (1) display of a fair housing poster; (2) advertising through the media and promotional literature containing the “Equal Housing Opportunity” slogan; (3) a conspicuous statement on all rental application forms and sales contracts that all dwellings are available irrespective of race and color; (4) the elimination from such application forms or contracts of an item requiring information as to the applicant’s race; (5) written notification to military installations in Warwick’s vicinity of a policy of nondiscrimination; and (6) information to each person inquiring as to purchase of a mobile home that lots will be made available at defendants’ mobile home park.
Additionally, the government sought to require defendants to file with the court proposed written, objective, nonracial standards and criteria for the processing and approval of mobile homesite applications, and a report indicating steps taken toward implementing the provisions of the decree, *200including copies of application forms and written notifications, and photographs of posted signs. The government requested also that the decree require defendants to retain and preserve records containing information wherein the race of applicants would have been determined visually and recorded without the applicant’s knowledge, to file particularized reports as to whether applications were disapproved and why, and to permit representatives of the United States to inspect and copy all records of defendants relative to the rental of dwellings.
II.
From my examination of the record of the prior appeal as well as the briefs filed therein, I cannot say that the exact form of decree requested by the government on remand was before the panel of the court which decided the prior appeal, although there was a footnote reference in the section of the government’s brief arguing the need for affirmative relief to United States v. West Peachtree Tenth Corp., 437 F.2d 221 (5 Cir. 1971), in which the decree approved by the Fifth Circuit was almost identical to that requested by the government in this case. Nonetheless, it seems clear that in the prior appeal we were of the view that affirmative relief should be granted. To my mind, the decree which the district court entered falls fatally short of that objective.
It is true that the decree actually entered does require the employer to give a course of instruction to its employees and to issue specific directions to cease discrimination. To that extent, it requires affirmative action. But the likelihood that such halfhearted measures will readily wipe out vestiges of past discrimination is slight. The vestiges are there because the word is abroad in the community as a whole that defendants practice discrimination. To eliminate these vestiges, more is required than simply telling a disadvantaged member of the community who has the temerity to test the present effect of defendants’ past practices that he is now a welcome customer. The message to the community that past discrimination is no longer practiced and minority members are now welcome to do business with defendants should be carried to the community at large. Such steps as display of fair housing posters, use of the equal housing opportunity slogan on advertisements, statements on application forms and printed contracts that discrimination is not practiced, and written notification to military installations of a policy of nondiscrimination are essential to accomplish that purpose. Indeed, to my mind, they are the only reasonable means by which the community’s misapprehensions about present practices can be corrected.
It should be stressed that the district court entered the decree on remand without a hearing and without taking additional evidence. Thus, there was no showing that vestiges of past discrimination have been dissipated. This appeal should therefore be decided on the likelihood of the effectiveness of the decree which was entered, not on circumstances which have changed since the prior appeal.
If the affirmative conditions sought by the government are required — and I think that they are — it is'not unreasonable to me to say also that defendants should be put to the burden of assembling data and preparing reports for a reasonable period to show empirically that the corrective actions are effective. I do not disagree with the majority that with respect to record-keeping or any other provision, a decree should not be unduly burdensome to defendants in accomplishing the statutory and constitutional objectives of nondiscrimination. Where we differ is whether the burden of necessary steps should excuse imposing them. I think not when I give heed to the fact that the necessity for imposing them stems from defendants’ failure to obey the statute and the Constitution. I would therefore direct that the government’s request for the compilation of records, the filing of reports, and the preparation of written, objective, nonracial standards and criteria for employees to follow in the processing and approval of mobile homesite applications be granted. *201Short of such steps, I think that the previous panel’s direction for affirmative relief has been substantially diluted. Certainly, I have no doubt that based upon the uncontested fact of present effects of past discrimination and the likelihood of the effec-tivenesss of the district court’s decree, it abused its discretion in entering it.