Court Opinion

ID: 9636275
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 14:22:26.308977+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:09:43.755206
License: Public Domain

STEPHENS, Associate Justice
(dissenting).
Assuming, under the motion to dismiss of the defendants Garland, the truth of the assertions of the bill of complaint, a cause of action in equity for removal of the restrictive covenants is, in my opinion, stated. I think it a well settled rule that where changes either within or without an area covered by restrictive covenants have been of such nature as to cause perpetuation of the covenants to be a heavy burden on property owners seeking to be relieved of them, and of no substantial benefit to those opposing their removal or non-enforcement, equity will grant relief either by refusing to enforce the covenants or by removing them, as the bill seeks. Downs v. Kroeger, 200 Cal. 743, 2S4 P. 1101; Hurd v. Albert, 214 Cal. 15, 3 P.(2d) 545, 76 A.L.R. 1348; Jackson v. Stevenson, 156 Mass. 496, 31 N.E. 691, 32 Am.St.Rep. 476; Trustees of Columbia College v. Thacher, 87 N.Y. 311, 41 Am.Rep. 365. These cases involved covenants against the erection of buildings other than residences. Clark v. Vaughan, 131 Kan. 438, 292 P. 783. This involved a covenant against sale or lease of property to colored persons.
I think the majority opinion denies effect to the rule stated and assumes to establish as conditions precedent to the removal, or non-enforcement, of restrictive covenants either a change from white to colored occupancy in the very properties protected by the covenants or a change to another type of use, as, for example, from residential to business. As to the first alleged condition, it seems necessarily predicated upon the proposition that a person seeking to remove a covenant must show that he has breached it himself, and that the person for whose benefit the covenant runs has ignored that breach. I find nothing in the authorities warranting this. As to the second alleged condition, change in type of use has no relationship to covenants against colored occupancy.
I think the position of the majority unsuited to a growing community where changes not only in population but also in the character of property from residential to business are highly probable.