Court Opinion

ID: 8890355
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2022-11-26 23:05:15.261546+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:07:10.501521
License: Public Domain

PELL, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
The majority opinion of this court affirms an order of the district court entered April 10, 1972, directing the Chicago Housing Authority to ignore a provision of the statutes of the State of Illinois which requires the approval, prior to CHA’s acquisition of real property, of “the governing body of the municipality” involved. I respectfully dissent.
My dissent in no way records disagreement with the underlying objective of the district court which obviously is to eliminate racial discrimination violative of the Constitution from the program of housing carried out under the CHA aegis. My thinking on the score is no different today than it was when I concurred in the majority opinion of this court in Gautreaux v. Chicago Housing Authority, 436 F.2d 306 (7th Cir. 1970), cert. denied, 402 U.S. 922, 91 S.Ct. 1378, 28 L.Ed.2d 661 (1971), (Gautreaux I). Likewise I do not intend to suggest any lack of sympathy for or understanding of the difficulties that have beset the district court’s continuing efforts to accomplish the stated objective.
I cannot conceive, however, that the due processes of the law should be abrogated by virtue of either commendable objective or difficulty of attainment. This court has in effect recognized this principle in one phase of the present litigation by reversing an order of the district court enjoining HUD from dispensing essentially nonrelated federal funds unless the city complied with certain stated conditions, the admitted purpose of which was to compel the city to approve CHA housing sites. Gautreaux v. Romney, 457 F.2d 124 (7th Cir. 1972). (Gautreaux III). This decision followed the mandate of this court in Gautreaux II (Gautreaux v. Romney, 448 F.2d 731 (7th Cir. 1971)) in which this court found violations of plaintiffs’ rights in federal and city programs for low-income public housing as made available to low-income families in Chicago. It is to be noted that Senior Judge Duffy was the author of all three of the Gautreaux opinions and that Chief Judge Swygert concurred in both II and III.
Subsequent to the issuance of the opinion in Gautreaux III, the district court entered its order of April 10, 1972, here under challenge.
*218It is with some regret that I conclude the district court has again pursued an improperly oblique course to realize the goal originally established by its order of February 10, 1969, Gautreaux v. Chicago Housing Authority, 296 F.Supp. 907 (N.D.Ill.1969), which order was affirmed in Gautreaux I. At the time of the issuance of that order by the district court neither the City of Chicago nor any of its officials was a party to the suit. Nevertheless, the district court after so observing, stated, “they will be bound by any order entered in this case against CHA of which they have actual notice. FRCP 65(d).” 296 F.Supp. at 914.
Rule 65(d), however, quite explicitly states that injunctive orders shall be binding upon the “parties to the action, their officers, agents, servants, employees, and attorneys, and upon those persons in active concert or participation with them who receive actual notice of the order by personal service or otherwise.” At that time, there was no record establishment of active concert or participation which would catch Chicago or its officials in the binding effect net. Indeed, the court observed that there was no evidence that the aldermen who vetoed white sites were necessarily motivated by racial animus when they followed a policy of keeping Negroes out of white neighborhoods. 296 F.Supp. at 914. The status of evidentiary proof of active concert or participation on the part of the city or its officials remains unchanged although they have now been made parties to the action. While their having been made parites could clearly subject them to the binding effect of an order, no order has been entered against the City of Chicago, its mayor, or any of its aldermen, all of whom were made parties by the supplemental complaint filed by the plaintiffs on February 1, 1972. In the supplemental complaint the plaintiffs did not charge the City defendants with a violation of their constitutional rights. It has not been asserted that said defendants’ objectives in considering the location of public housing have been other than constitutional. No evidence was offered indicating that the City defendants have been in “active concert or participation” with other defendants who may have been found to violate rights claimed by the plaintiffs.
Nevertheless, the April 19, 1972 order takes the direction of mandating CHA to ignore the following provision of Ill.Rev.Stat.1971, ch. 67½, § 9:
“If the area of operation of a housing authority includes a city, village or incorporated town having a population in excess of 500,000 as determined by the last preceding Federal census, no real property or interest in real property shall be acquired in such municipality by the housing authority until such time as the housing authority has advised the governing body of such municipality of the description of the real property, or interest therein proposed to be acquired, and the governing body of the municipality has approved the acquisition thereof by the housing authority.”
The quoted portion of Section 9 is merely one paragraph of the Housing and Redevelopment Act of the State of Illinois which deals with the acquisition of property and gives the Housing Authority the power of eminent domain. The legislature of Illinois has decreed that in cities having a population in excess of 500,000, consent must be obtained from the governing body of the municipality. This condition precedent to the exercise of the power of eminent domain is now ordered to be ignored by the Chicago Housing Authority.
If this were a case in which it was demonstrated that the portion of the statute was unconstitutional on its face, which is not even suggested as far as I can see, or in which the statute was proven to be unconstitutionally applied, the situation might now be different. These issues, however, are not confronted or apparently considered in the court’s April 1972 order.
It is obvious, of course, that the present path is far easier than would be *219the route of establishing unconstitutional application. The City Council, a legislative body, is concerned not simply with the operation of a public housing program, but it is also concerned, or should be concerned, with city-wide planning and zoning, with population density and environmental control, and with the provision of public services and the maintenance of a real estate tax basis adequate to support such services. These issues are troublesome and complex but in my opinion afford no excuse for taking the easier route of ordering CHA just to ignore the necessity of complying with the statute.
There is also no confrontation with the matter of financing the purchase of real estate, even if CHA did purport to exercise its eminent domain power without compliance with its enabling statute. The district court seems to be in essence saying go ahead and condemn irrespective of whether funds are available. Yet, 42 U.S.C. § 1411(f) provides for a contribution by the state as a condition of a capital grant as follows:
“No capital grant pursuant to this section shall be made for any low-rent-housing or slum-clearance project unless the public housing agency receiving such capital grant shall also receive, from the State, political subdivision thereof, or otherwise, a contribution for such project (in the form of cash, land, or the value, capitalized at the going Federal rate of interest, of community facilities or services for which a charge is usually made, or tax remissions or tax exemptions) in an amount not less than 20 per centum of its development or acquisition cost.”
Also, the district court order appears to ignore completely the federal statutory requirement for a cooperative agreement with the governing body of the locality involved. 42 U.S.C. § 1415(7).
Although suggested by HUD in the court below, there is a complete disregard of the fact that financing is done by bonds. It needs no citation of authority to recognize that bonds disapproved by counsel will not sell and funds will not be raised. It is equally a matter of common knowledge that bond counsel traditionally approach approval of bond issues with what could be termed a hypertechnical scrutiny.
If the City authorities are in active concert and participation in implementing housing on an unconstitutional basis, then it appears to me that issue should be faced squarely and the accompanying problems should be the subject of scrutiny.
I recognize that the district court deemed itself to be engaged in a remedial process but it applied that remedial process by indirection to new parties without a sufficient foundation in the record. As Mr. Chief Justice Burger stated in Swann v. Charlotte-Meeklenburg Board of Education, 402 U.S. 1, 16, 91 S.Ct. 1267, 1276, 28 L.Ed.2d 554 (1971):
“In seeking to define even in broad and general terms how far this remedial power extends it is important to remember that judicial powers may be exercised only on the basis of a constitutional violation.”
Here it appears to me that the judicial power of legislative excision is being exercised without the necessary foundation of a constitutional violation by the parties immediately affected.
I have the uncomfortable feeling on this record that because of the tribulations, which should not be minimized, of this litigation, the zeal of the plaintiffs and perhaps the frustrations which the district court has felt in the particular conurbation context in not being able to accomplish a commendable objective, this case has now been transformed from one involving unconstitutional implementation of the Federal Low-Rent Housing Act into a case of claimed unconstitutional deprivation of low-cost housing. However, absent constitutional mandate, the assurance of adequate housing is a legislative not a judicial function. Lindsey v. Normet, 405 U.S. 56, *22074, 92 S.Ct. 862, 31 L.Ed.2d 36 (1972). The City Council of Chicago is a legislative body and it has the ultimate determination as to whether it should provide low-cost housing. It is only when it proceeds with low-cost housing in an unconstitutional manner that there should be judicial interference. Thus far there has been no judicial determination that the City is embarked upon such a course of interference. Without such a determination, the court should not order the legislative function of the City Council to be ignored.
Accordingly, I would reverse the order of the district court.