Court Opinion

ID: 9424278
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:11:05.801298+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:22:49.338599
License: Public Domain

*175Mr. Justice Black,
concurring in the judgment.
The petitioner, Sandra Adickes, brought suit against the respondent, S. H. Kress & Co., to recover damages for alleged violations of 42 U. S. C. § 1983. In one count of her complaint she alleged that a police officer of the City of Hattiesburg, Mississippi, had conspired with employees of Kress to deprive her of rights secured by the Constitution and that this joint action of a state official and private individuals was sufficient to constitute a violation of § 1983. She further alleged in another count that Kress’ refusal to serve her while she was in the company of Negroes was action “under color of” a custom of refusing to serve Negroes and whites together in Mississippi, and that this action was a violation of § 1983. The trial judge granted a motion for summary judgment in favor of Kress on the conspiracy allegation and, after full presentation of evidence by the petitioner, granted a motion for a directed verdict in favor of the respondent on the custom allegation. Both decisions rested on conclusions that there were no issues of fact supported by sufficient evidence to require a jury trial. I think the trial court and the Court of Appeals which affirmed were wrong in allowing summary judgment on the conspiracy allegation. And — assuming for present purposes that the trial court’s statutory interpretation concerning “custom or usage” was correct — it was also error to direct a verdict on that count. In my judgment, on this record, petitioner should have been permitted to have the jury consider both her claims.
Summary judgments may be granted only when “the pleadings, depositions, answers to interrogatories, and admissions on file, together with the affidavits, if any, show that there is no genuine issue as to any material fact....” Fed. Rule Civ. Proc. 56 (c). Petitioner in this case alleged that she went into Kress in the company of Negroes *176and that the waitress refused to serve her, stating [w]e have to serve the colored, but we are not going to serve the whites that come in with them.” Petitioner then alleged that she left the store with her friends and as soon as she stepped outside a policeman arrested her and charged her with vagrancy. On the basis of these facts she argued that there was a conspiracy between the store and the officer to deprive her of federally protected rights. The store filed affidavits denying any such conspiracy and the trial court granted the motion for summary judgment, concluding that petitioner had not alleged any basic facts sufficient to support a finding of conspiracy.
The existence or nonexistence of a conspiracy is essentially a factual issue that the jury, not the trial judge,should decide. In this case petitioner may have had to prove her case by impeaching the store’s witnesses and appealing to the jury to disbelieve all that they said was true in the affidavits. The right to confront, cross-examine and impeach adverse witnesses is one of the most fundamental rights sought to be preserved by the Seventh Amendment provision for jury trials in civil cases. The advantages of trial before a live jury with live witnesses, and all the possibilities of considering the human factors, should not be eliminated by substituting trial by affidavit and the sterile bareness of summary judgment. “It is only when the witnesses are present and subject to cross-examination that their credibility and the weight to be given their testimony can be appraised. Trial by affidavit is no substitute for trial by jury which so long has been the hallmark of ‘even handed justice.’ ” Poller v. Columbia Broadcasting, 368 U. S. 464, 473 (1962).
Second, it was error for the trial judge to direct a verdict in favor of the respondent on the “custom” *177count. The trial judge surveyed the evidence and concluded that it was insufficient to prove the existence of a custom of not serving white people in the company of Negroes. He thereupon took the case away from the jury, directing a verdict for the respondent. The Court of Appeals affirmed this conclusion. In my opinion this was clear error.
Petitioner testified at trial as follows:
“Q. Did you have occasion to know of specific instances where white persons in the company of Negroes were discriminated against? A. Yes.
“Q. How many such instances can you recall? A. I can think of about three at the moment.
“Q. Will you describe the three instances to us? A. I know that people were turned away from a white church, an integrated group was turned away from a white church in Hattiesburg. I was not present but this was explained to me. I saw a rabbi being beaten because he was in the company of Negroes.
“Q. This was a white rabbi? A. Yes. And people were turned away from a drug store in Hattiesburg, an integrated group. I don’t remember the name of the drug store.
“Q. On the basis of what you studied and on the basis of what you observed, and on the basis of your conversations with other persons there, did you come to a conclusion with regard to the custom and usage with regard to the white community towards serving persons, white persons, in the company of Negroes? A. Yes.
“Q. What was that conclusion? A. The conclusion was that white persons — it was a custom and usage not to serve white persons in the company of Negroes.”
*178This evidence, although weakened by the cross-examination, was sufficient, I think, to require the court to let the case go to the jury and secure petitioner’s constitutionally guaranteed right to a trial by that jury. See Galloway v. United States, 319 U. S. 372, 396 (1943) (Black, J., dissenting).
I do not find it necessary at this time to pass on the validity of the statutory provision concerning “custom or usage” or on the trial court’s views, concurred in by the Court of Appeals, on the proper interpretation of that term. Assuming that the trial court’s interpretation was correct and that the provision as so interpreted is valid, there was enough evidence in this record to warrant submitting the entire question of custom or usage to the jury in accordance with instructions framed to reflect those views.
For the foregoing reasons I concur in the judgment reversing the Court of Appeals and remanding for a new trial on both counts.