Court Opinion

ID: 9460856
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 22:01:40.029216+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:36:48.440751
License: Public Domain

DAVIS, Judge
(concurring):
I join in the result and also fully in Parts I, II, and III of the court’s opinion, but with an addition and a caveat as to Part II. I agree that, for this case, it makes no difference whether the original Mitchel Field housing plan (which included public low-income housing) was definite or tentative. In either case it had not left the planning level before it was changed to omit the low-income housing feature, and appellants could abandon the plan without violating a constitutional or statutory duty. But if the stage of the planning should make a difference, I would hold that the “plan” on which appellants rely was no more than a series of proposals, suggestions, and recommendations for action by Nassau County and other agencies or groups; no definitive or operative action was taken to adopt those proposals which always remained in the process of being evaluated. In a word, if there was a “plan” it was still inchoate, not definitive.
My caveat relates to a housing project which has left the planning stage and *1085gone into full operation. If an existing public low-income project which had lasted for some time were to be abandoned by its public owner because of proven racial discrimination, e. g. because too many of the tenants turned out to be black or Puerto Rican, I am not at all certain that Palmer v. Thompson, 403 U.S. 217, 91 S.Ct. 1940, 29 L.Ed.2d 438 (1971), would control. That case involved swimming pools, not housing, and at least some of the Justices of the majority seemed to indicate that the proof of discrimination was not overwhelming.
As for Part IV of the court’s opinion, I concur in it, too, except insofar as it may tend to suggest that the Executive Order involved here created no private rights of action in anyone, not even federal employees. That question is unnecessary to consider in this case which does not concern present or potential federal workers. Depending on their contents and purpose, certain executive orders can and do create private rights of action vindicable in court. Perhaps the most significant in recent years, at least for federal employees, was § 14 of Executive Order No. 10988, 27 F.R. 551, Jan. 18, 1962, see 5 U.S.C. § 7301 (1970), which extended to nonveteran civil service employees the statutory protections given veterans against discharge and other adverse personnel actions. That Executive Order and its successor (Executive Order No. 11491) have been regularly enforced, for over twelve years, by the federal courts in a large number of injunction and declaratory actions and in suits for monetary claims. Cf. Arnett v. Kennedy, 416 U.S. 134, 94 S.Ct. 1633, 40 L.Ed.2d 15, 1974, pp. 140-145, 94 S.Ct. pp. 1638-1640, esp. p. 142, 94 S.Ct. p. 1638, n. 7 (opinion of Mr. Justice Rehnquist), p. 169, 94 S.Ct. p. 1652 (opinion of Mr. Justice Powell), pp. 172-175, 94 S.Ct. pp. 1653-1654, esp. p. 174, 94 S.Ct. p. 1654 n. 4 (opinion of Mr. Justice White).