Court Opinion

ID: 9846424
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 03:40:37.083355+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:19:29.584155
License: Public Domain

TRAYNOR, J.
I concur in the judgment. In my opinion the findings of the trial court fail not only to provide an adequate basis for determining whether enforcement of the restriction in the light of changed conditions would impose great hardship upon the defendants with little or no benefit to the plaintiffs (Trustees of Columbia College v. Thacher, 87 N.Y. 311, 317 [41 Am.Rep. 365, 367]), but to consider whether enforcement would be contrary to the public interest in the use of land in urban communities where people are concentrated in limited areas.
The public policy against restricting the free use of land finds expression in the rule that an instrument creating an equitable servitude must be strictly construed and any doubts resolved in favor of the free use of the land. (Werner v. Graham, 181 Cal. 174, 181 [183 P. 945]; Marra v. Aetna Construction Co., 15 Cal.2d 375, 378 [101 P.2d 490].) Again, building restrictions imposed by private agreement between landowners cannot stand in the way of the public interest. Thus in Friesen v. City of Glendale, 209 Cal. 524 [268 P. 1080], covenantors entitled to the restrictive use of land were denied compensation for its use as a public street on the ground that the interest under a restrictive covenant “is not a property right, but is a contractual right cognizable in equity as between the contracting parties, not binding on the sovereign contemplating a public use of the particular property taken.” (209 Cal. 524, 531; see 19 Cal.L.Rev. 58). In Sackett v. Los Angeles City School Dist., 118 Cal.App. 254 [5 P.2d 23], the court held that a school district was not bound by a covenant restricting the use of lots to residential purposes, but was free to use the land for school playground purposes. The court stated, “the state and its various political subdivisions may not be bound by the terms of a private contract to which it was not a party (United, States v. Certain Lands, 112 F. 622; Down v. Cleveland Short Line Ry Co., 92 Ohio St. 461 [112 N.E. 505]; Friesen v. *832City of Glendale, supra). Public policy has been denominated a vague and uncertain guide at best (Miller & Lux v. Madera Canal etc. Co., 155 Cal. 59 [22 L.R.A. N. S. 391, 99 P. 502]), but instances arise that call for its application. The present action is one that does. It presents the situation of an agency of the state created for the sole purpose of providing adequate educational facilities for the youth of a certain limited area against whom there is sought to be invoked the aid of equity to" enforce a restriction created by the provisions of a private contract to which the state was in nowise -a party and by which it neither expressly nor by necessary implication consented to be bound. The state may not be thus hampered in carrying out a purpose in which it is so vitally interested.” (118 Cal.App. 254, 258.) In Hurd v. Albert, 214 Cal. 15 [3 P.2d 545], a tract restricted to residential purposes became enclosed in a business district as the city of Los Angeles developed. The public interest in the development of the city rendered the agreement unenforceable, even though its beneficiaries retained some interest in its enforcement. In Letteau v. Ellis, 122 Cal.App. 584, 588 [10 P.2d 496], the court held that a restriction against occupancy of land by persons of negro descent was unenforceable because of changed conditions, stating: “We find it needless to follow appellants’ arguments on the technical rules and distinctions made between conditions, covenants and mere restrictions ... A principle of broad public policy has intervened to the extent that modern progress is deemed to necessitate a sacrifice to many former claimed individual rights. The only obstacle met has been the rule of property or as termed the disinclination to disturb vested property rights. To some extent this, too, has yielded in the sense that many rights formerly labeled as property rights by a process of academic relation are now considered merely personal and have been subjected to the common good.” (See also, Batchelor v. Hinkle, 210 N.Y. 243 [104 N.E. 629]; Forstmann v. Joray Holding Co. Inc., 244 N.Y. 22 [154 N.E. 652] ; 14 Columb.L.Rev. 438; 3 Tiffany, Real Property (1939) 522.)
In the present case there is a public interest in the congestion of the limited residential districts for colored people. That congestion is a consequence- of residential segregation *833of the colored population accomplished, not by ordinances, which would be unconstitutional (Buchanan v. Warley, 245 U.S. 60 [38 S.Ct. 16, 62 L.Ed. 149, 210 Ann.Cas.l918A 1201]; Harmon v. Tyler, 273 U.S. 688 [47 S.Ct. 471, 71 L.Ed. 831]; City of Richmond v. Deans, 37 F.2d 712, aff’d 281 U.S. 704 [50 S.Ct. 407, 74 L.Ed. 1128]; City of Dallas v. Liberty Annex Corp. (Tex.Civ.App.), 19 S.W.2d 845; see 16 C.J.S..1474; Hunting, The Constitutionality of Race Distinctions and the Baltimore Negro Segregation Ordinance, 11 Columb.L.Rev. 23; Minor, Constitutionality of Segregation Ordinances, 18 Va.L.Rev. 561; Benson, Segregation Ordinances, 1 Va.L.Rtev. (N.S.) 330; Mangum, The Legal Status of the Negro, p. 138 et seq.), but by agreements between private persons, which the courts have recognized as valid. (Corrigan v. Buckley, 271 U.S. 323 [46 S.Ct. 521, 70 L.Ed. 969]; Los Angeles Inv. Co. v. Gary, 181 Cal. 680 [186 P. 596, 9 A.L.R. 115]; Janss Inv. Co. v. Walden, 196 Cal. 753 [239 P. 34]; Queensborough Land Co. v. Cazeaux, 136 La. 724 [67 So. 641, Ann.Cas.l916D 1248, L.R.A.1916B 1201]; Parmalee v. Morris, 218 Mich. 625 [188 N.W. 330, 38 A.L.R. 1180]; Porter v. Barrett, 233 Mich. 373 [206 N.W. 532, 42 A.L.R. 1267] ; United Cooperative Realty Co. v. Hawkins, 269 Ky. 563 [108 S.W.2d 507]; see Bruce, Racial Zoning by Private Contract in the Light of the Constitution and the Rule Against Restraint on Alienation, 21 Ill.L.Rev. 704; Martin, Segregation of Negroes, 32 Mich.L.Rev. 721; 23 Cal.L.Rev. 361; Mangum, op. cit. p. 147; cf. Gandolfo v. Hartman, 49 F. 181 [16 L.R.A. 277]; Rutledge, J., concurring in Hundley v. Gorewitz, 132 F.2d 23, 25.)
The problem of race segregation cannot be solved by the courts alone, for it involves emotions and convictions too deeply imbedded in the social outlook of men to be uprooted overnight by judicial pronouncements. Nevertheless the problem must be confronted step by step, however provisional the solution, with regard both for the interests of minority groups and the general public interest, It must be recognized that the steady migration of southern negroes and the influx of negroes into urban communities in response to the increasing demands of industry for labor, together with race segregation (see Kennedy, The Negro Peasant Turns Cityward, ch. II, The Causes of Migration, p. 41; *834Woofter, Negro Problems in Cities, eh. II, The Rapid City Growth, p. 26; Sterner, The Negro’s Share, A Study of Income, Consumption, Housing, and Public Assistance, pp. 186-209; Martin, Segregation of Negroes, 32 Mich.L.Rev. 721), have made it impossible for many negroes to find decent housing in large centers of population. The report of the Committee on Negro Housing of the President’s Conference on Home Building and Home Ownership (1932) page 3, states: “Cities of the North . . . have shown increases ranging from 10 to 600 per cent. Chicago’s Negro population in 1910 was 44,103; in 1930 it had increased to 233,903. Philadelphia’s increased from 84,459 in 1910 to 219,599 in 1930, and that of New York . . . from 91,709 to 327,706.” In recent years there has been a large negro migration into Southern California. The census of 1940 shows an increase of the colored population of Los Angeles from 67,348 in 1930 to 97,847 (Statistical Abstract of the United States, 1942, 78th Congress, 1st Sess., House Document No. 5'3, p. 29), and the war has accelerated the pace of this migration.
Negroes migrating' into urban communities have found barriers at every turn. “Segregation . . . has kept the Negro-occupied sections of cities throughout the country fatally unwholesome places, a menace to the health, morals and general decency of cities, and ‘plague spots for race exploitation, friction and riots. ’ ” (Report of the Committee on Negro Housing of the President’s Conference on Home Building and Home Ownership, pp. 45 and 46.) The choice lies between the continuation of such conditions and the expansion of urban negro districts. Race restriction agreements, undertaking to do what the state cannot, must yield to the public interest in the sound development of the whole community. The courts, as the agencies of the state confronted with the problem of enforcing racial zoning by private agreements, must consider all of the factors that affect the public interest. It is pertinent to recall the words of Judge Cardozo in his concurring opinion in Adler v. Deegan, 251 N.Y. 467, 484 [167 N.E. 705, 711] : “The Multiple Dwelling Act is aimed at many evils, but most of all it is a measure to eradicate the slum. It seeks to bring about conditions whereby healthy children shall be born, and healthy men and women reared, in the dwellings of the great metropolis. To have such men and women is not a city concern merely. It is the *835concern of the whole state. Here is to be bred the citizenry with which the State must do its work in the years that are to come. The end to be achieved is more than the avoidance of pestilence or contagion. The end to be achieved is the quality of men and women ... If the moral and physical fibre of its manhood and womanhood is not a State concern, the question is, what is?”
In the present case a residential district populated by colored people now surrounds the restricted area on three sides. The question whether the restricted area shall stand as a barrier against expansion of the negro district cannot be determined entirely by findings with regard to property values and the interests of property owners. It is also necessary to determine whether maintenance of this barrier would deprive the colored population of any feasible access to additional housing and compress it within the inflexible boundaries of its present district at the risk of a congestion whose evils would inevitably burst the bounds of that district.
The trial court should therefore be directed to make findings as to the housing facilities available in the district occupied by the colored population and to determine whether there is a need for additional housing that would justify an expansion of the district by absorption of the restricted area.