Court Opinion

ID: 9425644
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:15:19.617138+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:22:56.205090
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice White,
with whom Mr. Justice Brennan and Mr. Justice Marshall join, and with whom Mr. Justice Douglas joins in Part II, dissenting.
I
Although the majority describes the “gravamen” of the respondents’ complaint as grounded on the Equal *634Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, respondents equally contended that the racially discriminatory appointment of members to the Educational Nominating Panel violated “the express provisions and intended purpose of the Educational Supplement” to the Philadelphia Home Rule Charter.1 The action sought injunctive and declaratory relief under 42 U. S. C. § 1983, and jurisdiction was invoked under 28 U. S. C. § 1343 (3).
The District Court, after trial at which evidence was developed on both the constitutional and state claims, decided the constitutional claim adversely to the respondents. As to the state claim, the court stated:
“Further, plaintiffs would have us construe Section 12-206 (c) of the Educational Supplement to hold that the phrase 'representative of the community’ refers to racial balance. However, the interpretation of this statute would more properly be decided by the State courts, and we take no position thereto.” 2 Educational Equality League v. Tate, 333 F. Supp. 1202, 1206-1207 (ED Pa. 1971).
*635The Court of Appeals reversed on the constitutional ground, noting that “[i]n view of the result reached on plaintiffs’ federal claims, the district court declined to exercise pendent jurisdiction over plaintiffs’ claim that the Mayor had also violated state law — -namely, various provisions of the Educational Supplement — in selecting Panel Members.” Educational Equality League v. Tate, 472 F. 2d 612, 616 n. 15 (CA3 1973).
Although the court did not directly reach the state claim, it thought that the legislative history of the Educational Supplement “serves as the background for the facts of which plaintiffs complain,” id., at 615, particularly the evidence that the chairman of the Educational Home Rule Charter Commission, which drafted the Educational Supplement, contemplated that the composition of the Panel would “constitute a balanced representation or cross-section of the people of the entire community — all of the community’s ethnic, racial, economic, or geographic element and segments.” Id., at 614 — 615.
There is no question in this case that the District Court had jurisdiction over this § 1983 action under § 1343 (3), since the equal protection claim was clearly substantial. Hagans v. Lavine, ante, p. 528. It is equally clear that if the pendent claim were a federal statutory one, the constitutional issue should not be reached if the statutory claim was dispositive. Id., at 543. The statement of this principle in Hagans, and the cases on which it relied, California Human Resources Dept. v. Java, 402 U. S. 121, 124 (1971); Dandridge v. Williams, 397 U. S. 471, 475-476 (1970); Rosado v. Wyman, 397 U. S. 397, 402 (1970); King v. Smith, 392 U. S. 309 (1968), are ultimately premised on what has come to be known as the rule of necessity, of avoiding resolution of contro*636versies on constitutional grounds where possible. Ashwander v. TV A, 297 U. S. 288, 341 (1936) (Brandéis, J., concurring). Mr. Justice Brandéis stated the rule as follows:
“The Court will not pass upon a constitutional question although properly presented by the record, if there is also present some other ground upon which the case may be disposed of. . . . Thus, if a case can be decided on either of two grounds, one involving a constitutional question, the other a question of statutory construction or general law, the Court will decide only the latter. Siler v. Louisville life Nashville R. Co., 213 U. S. 175, 191; Light v. United States, 220 U. S. 523, 538.” Id., at 347.
In Siler v. Louisville & Nashville R. Co., 213 U. S. 175 (1909), a state order regulating rates was attacked as unconstitutional, under the Fourteenth Amendment, on due process and equal protection grounds, as well as under Art. IV, § 4. The complaint also challenged the validity of the order under a state statute. The Circuit Court had invalidated the state regulation on equal protection and due process grounds. This Court began by noting that there was no question of the federal court’s jurisdiction by virtue of the federal questions. The Court, however, invalidated the regulation on state grounds, declaring this preferable to an unnecessary determination of federal constitutional questions:
“Where a case in this court can be decided without reference to questions arising under the Federal Constitution, that course is usually pursued and is not departed from without important reasons. In this case we think it much better to decide it with regard to the question of a local nature, involving the construction of the state statute and the authority therein given to the commission to make the *637order in question, rather than to unnecessarily decide the various constitutional questions appearing in the record.” 213 U. S., at 193.
This course was taken despite the fact that the Court was without benefit of a construction of the statute by the highest state court of Kentucky. Id., at 194. This method of adjudication “avoids decision of constitutional questions where possible, and it permits one lawsuit, rather than two, to resolve the entire controversy.” C. Wright, Federal Courts 63 (2d ed. 1970). See H. Hart & H. Wechsler, The Federal Courts and the Federal System 922 (2d ed. 1973).
The policy of directly proceeding to a local law issue to avoid deciding a constitutional question, ruled upon in Siler, and which achieved doctrinal status in Ash-wander, is “well settled.” Hillsborough v. Cromwell, 326 U. S. 620, 629 (1946). Since the District Court and Court of Appeals passed by the state law claim, and directly proceeded to the federal constitutional issue, I would vacate the judgment of the Court of Appeals and remand to the District Court for assessment of the state law claim.3
The basic relief sought by respondents was to bar the 1971 Panel appointed by Mayor Tate from submitting nominees for the Board to the Mayor, and an order directing the Mayor to appoint a Nominating Panel “fairly representative of the racial composition of the school community.” This relief would be equally avail*638able as a remedy for violations by the Mayor of the Educational Supplement.
If the District Court had proceeded to the state law claim, it might have decided that it was without merit, or even perhaps frivolous, in which case it would, in any event, have been required to answer the constitutional question. Perhaps if this Court believed the state court claim were of a truly insubstantial nature, the suggestion for a remand might appear not to be worth the candle, and productive of unnecessary delay. I do not believe this to be the case, however.
The respondents’ view of state law was that the Mayor, here with the assistance of Deputy Mayor Zecca, was required to compile a list of all organizations which qualified under the nine categories set up by the city charter, and from this group to select the chief executive officer of one of those organizations in each category with the view of achieving a balanced racial composition on the Panel as a whole. This view was supported by the fact that the chairman of the Educational Home Rule Charter Commission, which drafted the Supplement, stated that the composition of the Panel should constitute a balanced cross section of the entire community, on racial, as well as other grounds. Minutes from the meetings of the Charter Commission were relied upon to support this reading of the charter.
On the other hand, petitioner reads the charter quite differently. Deputy Mayor Zecca testified that the description of certain categories almost dictated which organization was to have representation on the Nominating Panel. Category one on the Nominating Panel required representation of “a labor union council or other organization of unions of workers and employes organized and operated for the benefit of such workers and employes.” Mr. Toohey, the head of the AFL-CIO *639in Philadelphia, was appointed to the position. When Deputy Mayor Zecca was asked whether there was any other organization in Philadelphia which would fit this general category, he replied, “I don’t believe there is another organization that would fit that category to the extent that the AFL-CIO Council operates. This is the broadest possible group.” Tr., Aug. 25, 1971, p. 206. Zecca was then asked about the second category which provides for “a council, chamber, or other organization established for the purpose of general improvement and benefit of commerce and industry.” The Mayor had appointed the Philadelphian who was the chief ranking officer of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry. When asked why that appointment was made, Zecca stated: “Well, the Chamber of Commerce — I think the wording of the Charter makes it almost implicit that it is referring to the Chamber of Commerce, referring to the use of the word 'chamber.’ I think that these restraints, the framers of that Home Rule Supplement practically did everything but dictate exactly who they wanted to serve in those nine categories.” Id., at 207.
Respondents and petitioner thus squarely joined issue on the intent of the charter.4 Respondents thought any *640group fitting a given category should be put into a pool for that category, and then a particular group selected for each category with a view to achieving certain balances on the Panel as a whole. Evidently, the city’s view was that the most representative group of the Philadelphia community in each category should be picked without regard to balancing the Panel as a whole. The balancing was already achieved through the diversity of types of organizations to be represented on the Panel. Of course, to the extent that any predominantly white group was more representative of the citizens of Philadelphia, as a whole, than any predominantly black group, this might work to minimize the number of blacks appointed to the Panel, assuming the chief executive officer of a group reflects its predominant racial composition. The resolution of this issue is far from clear, and should have been decided by the District Court without proceeding immediately to the constitutional claim.
The majority only comes to grips with the state law claim of racial discrimination in a footnote, stating: “The statement by the chairman relied on by the dissent was coupled with the thought that one of the commission’s principal purposes was to preserve the Mayor’s accountability at the polls for his appointments. The commission apparently believed that the appropriate check on the Mayor’s actions was the court of public *641opinion.” Ante, at 626-627, n. 22. Whether the charter intended to confine the discretion of the Mayor is a matter of state law not passed upon by the two federal courts which have reviewed this case. I see no need for this Court, which is far away from the controversy at hand, to decide the merits of the state law claim, on the basis of its own reading of the charter. The state law claim should be left, in the first instance, to the District Court.5
As the majority opinion indicates, one of the grounds relied upon by the Court of Appeals in finding racial discrimination in the appointment of the Panel, under the Fourteenth Amendment, was the fact that Zecca was unaware of many black organizations and institutions set out in the city charter. Wholly aside from whether the “lack of awareness” might support an inference of racial discrimination, the Court of Appeals noted that Zecca thought that only particular organizations could qualify for appointment under various charter provisions. As I read his testimony, all Zecca claimed he had to know was that the Chamber of Commerce and the AFL-CIO were the most representative trade and labor groups in the city, which automatically dictated appointment of their representatives to the Panel. I take it that, under his view of the charter, it was not necessary to proceed further. If respondents’ reading of the charter requirements were to prevail over that of petitioner’s, a violation *642of the state law might well give rise to the relief requested.
Of course, the District Court on remand might decide that it should leave to the state courts resolution of the state law issue, and abstain. In such event, the proper course to follow would be to retain jurisdiction over the constitutional issue pending resolution of the state claim in another forum. The decision to abstain is by no means required and whether that course meets the test of “special circumstances,” see Lake Carriers’ Assn. v. MacMullan, 406 U. S. 498, 509 (1972), is far from certain. I raise this possibility only for the purpose of stressing that even if abstention were to be deemed appropriate, a question on which I indicate no view, the District Court should still refrain from deciding the constitutional issue. The paramount concern of avoiding constitutional questions, where possible, persists. The Court has noted that application of the abstention doctrine inevitably gives rise to delay and expense, England v. Medical Examiners, 375 U. S. 411, 418 (1964), but the policies underlying the Ashwander doctrine should prevail even at this late date in the litigation.
The bearing of the Ashwander doctrine was not raised by the parties to this litigation, either in the District Court, the Court of Appeals, or in this Court. However, this Court clearly has “the power to notice a ‘plain error’ though it is not assigned or specified,” Brotherhood of Carpenters v. United States, 330 U. S. 395, 412 (1947), and this holds true whether the error has or has not been briefed or argued in this Court. Silber v. United States, 370 U. S. 717 (1962).
In Alma Motor Co. v. Timken Co., 329 U. S. 129 (1946), the Court of Appeals had before it not only a constitutional question which it decided, but also a non-constitutional question, which alone would have disposed *643of the appeal. The Court of Appeals ruled on the constitutional question, and it appears that at no time did any party urge that court to rule on the statutory ground. This Court granted certiorari on the constitutional issue and heard argument at the October 1944 Term on the constitutional question. After the case had been set down for further argument in the 1945 Term, the United States, which was an intervenor in the action, pointed out that the case could be decided on statutory grounds, and moved to vacate the judgment of the Court of Appeals and to remand the case to it for determination of the statutory question. The Court adopted the suggestion of the United States, relying on Siler and stating:
"This Court has said repeatedly that it ought not pass on the constitutionality of an act of Congress unless such adjudication is unavoidable. This is true even though the question is properly presented by the record. If two questions are raised, one of non-constitutional and the other of constitutional nature, and a decision of the non-constitutional question would make unnecessary a decision of the constitutional question, the former will be decided.” Id., at 136.
The presence of the nonconstitutional ground had not been raised below, or in this Court until after argument, but the Court observed:
“We agree that much time has been wasted by the earlier failure of the parties to indicate, or the Circuit Court of Appeals or this Court to see, the course which should have been followed. This, however, is no reason to continue now on the wrong course. The principle of avoiding constitutional questions is one which was conceived out of considerations of *644sound judicial administration. It is a traditional policy of our courts.” Id., at 142.
II
Since the majority fails to accept my views on the matter of reaching the constitutional question, I feel compelled to express my thoughts on the merits of the claim of racial discrimination.
On the record in evidence before it, the Court of Appeals found that the 1971 Nominating Panel was dis-criminatorily chosen. Although the sufficiency of the evidence to support that conclusion is arguable, I would not substitute our own view of the facts and overturn the Court of Appeals’ judgment in this respect. Negroes constituted 34% of the population, and 60% of the public school students were Negroes. The purpose of the ordinance establishing the Nominating Panel was to stimulate and invite participation by all groups in the community, including Negroes and other minorities. It is, therefore, especially significant, even from this distant vantage point, that despite the evident intent of the ordinance to have municipal authorities seek out citywide associations and interest groups, the city official most responsible, short of the Mayor, for the composition of the Panel confessed ignorance of many of the organizations from which nominations to the Panel might have been made and which might have put forward meritorious suggestions for School Board membership. There was also highly probative evidence with respect to the Mayor’s statement that he intended to appoint no more Negroes to the School Board. These facts, when seen through the eyes of judges familiar with the context in which they occurred, may have special significance that is lost on those with only the printed page before them. Sometimes a word, a gesture *645or an attitude tells a special story to those who are part of the surrounding milieu. This is one of those situations, and I would not purport to reassess the facts and overturn the considered judgment of the Court of Appeals.
The Court complains that the testimony about the Mayor’s statement concerning school membership for Negroes was inadmissible hearsay and was thus entitled to no credence. Ante, at 618 and n. 19. But nowhere in this record can one find a denial by Mayor Tate that he did not say what the testimony indicated. His declaration that he was not going to appoint any more Negroes to the School Board was a statement of future intention and as such was quite plainly admissible in evidence.
“[Wjhenever the intention is of itself a distinct and material fact in a chain of circumstances, it may be proved by contemporaneous oral or written declarations of the party.
“The existence of a particular intention in a certain person at a certain time being a material fact to be proved, evidence that he expressed that intention at that time is as direct evidence of the fact, as his own testimony that he then had that intention would be.” Mutual Life Insurance Co. v. Hillmon, 145 U. S. 285, 295 (1892).
As an eminent commentator has observed:
“[I]t is now clear that out-of-court statements which tend to prove a plan, design, or intention of the declarant are admissible, subject to the usual limitations as to remoteness in time and apparent sincerity common to all declarations of mental state, to prove that the plan, design, or intention of the *646declarant was carried out by the declarant.” C. McCormick, Evidence §295, p. 697 (2d ed. 1972).
More importantly, the statement evidencing the May- or's attitude toward Negroes and their appointment to the School Board was simply not hearsay. At the time that the challenged statement was assertedly made and when it was later related by the witness who saw the Mayor make it on television,6 Mayor Tate was still in office and a party to the lawsuit. The statement was an admission on his part, and as such it was not hearsay. This elementary proposition of evidence law has most recently been recognized by the draftsmen of the Proposed Rules of Evidence for the United States Courts and Magistrates. Rule 801 (d)(2) expressly acknowledges that an admission by a party-opponent is not hearsay if the statement is offered against the party and was actually made by him in either his individual or representative capacity. The Advisory Committee’s Note succinctly outlines the reasons justifying the rule:
“Admissions by a party-opponent are excluded from the category of hearsay on the theory that their admissibility in evidence is the result of the adversary system rather than satisfaction of the conditions of the hearsay rule. Strahorn, A Reconsideration of the Hearsay Rule and Admissions, 85 U. Pa. L. Rev. 484, 564 (1937); Morgan, Basic Problems of Evidence 265 (1962); 4 Wigmore § 1048. No guarantee of trustworthiness is required in the case of an admission. The freedom which admissions have enjoyed from technical demands of searching for an assurance of trustworthiness in some against-interest circumstance, and from the restrictive influences of the opinion rule and the *647rule requiring firsthand knowledge, when taken with the apparently prevalent satisfaction with the results, calls for generous treatment of this avenue to admissibility.”
The District Court, therefore, was in error in refusing to admit the Mayor’s statement in evidence, and the Court of Appeals was correct in considering it and giving it the weight it deserved. Its conclusion was that the statement supported an inference that there was racial discrimination in the formation of the Nominating Panel. But this Court now says that the inference is not a strong one and is insufficient, along with the other evidence, to sustain the judgment. It is at precisely this point, however, that I would not profess superior insight as to the meaning of “local” facts and override the judgment of the Court of Appeals with respect to the issue of discrimination.
My disagreement with the Court does not go beyond what I consider its improvident exercise of a factfinding role in this particular case. I do not question the long-established principle that this Court has a special responsibility, if not an affirmative duty, to ensure by independent review of the facts that the Constitution is not frittered away.
“This Court’s duty is not limited to the elaboration of constitutional principles; we must also in proper cases review the evidence to make certain that those principles have been constitutionally applied.” New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U. S. 254, 285 (1964).
Similarly,
“That the question is one of fact does not relieve us of the duty to determine whether in truth a federal right has been denied. ... If this requires *648an examination of evidence, that examination must be made. Otherwise, review by this Court would fail of its purpose in safeguarding constitutional rights.” Norris v. Alabama, 294 U. S. 587, 589-590 (1935).
The constitutional obligation of this Court, therefore, is to scrutinize a record in a case raising federal constitutional questions with detachment and circumspection, and always with an eye toward the impact of factual determinations on the federal right asserted.
But this has never been thought to be a license to rummage through a record looking for shreds of evidence that will discredit the judgment under review and suggest a contrary conclusion. Quite assuredly, reasonable men can, will, and often should differ as to questions of fact as well as law. Likewise, the records in many cases coming to this Court contain complicated, interwoven questions of what, have been designated as “law and fact.” See H. Hart & H. Wechsler, supra, at 601-610. “[I]t is almost impossible[, however,] to conceive how this Court might continue to function effectively were we to resolve afresh the underlying factual disputes in all cases containing constitutional issues.” Time, Inc. v. Pape, 401 U. S. 279, 294 (1971) (Harlan, J., dissenting).
In this case, two interrelated “factual” questions are presented: did the Mayor make the statement evidencing his attitude toward appointing Negroes to the School Board and, if so, is the inference strong enough to support the judgment of the Court of Appeals? The District Court apparently assumed the statement was made, but ruled it inadmissible hearsay that the court should not consider. The Court of Appeals, however, accepted the making of the statement and reached the conclusion, based on the statement, that “[i]f the Mayor decided, prior to receiving nominees from the Panel to exclude *649black nominees from consideration, an inference maybe drawn that the Mayor in similar manner excluded blacks from consideration as members of the 1971 Panel.” 472 F. 2d, at 616 n. 9. The Court apparently disagrees with the unanimous Court of Appeals’ assessment that the statement was ever made, but surely this is not the type of historical fact that should command this Court’s attention, at least absent some unusually extraordinary or complicating factors. As for the second issue — whether the inference was strong enough to support the judgment of racial discrimination — I fail to see how we are better equipped for this determination than our counterparts on the Court of Appeals.
The District Court, having failed to consider the case with the Mayor’s statement in evidence, provides no crutch for this Court. If the District Court’s assessment of the presence of racial discrimination is deemed a critical factor, the proper course would be to remand the case to the District Court, rather than to reject, on its own motion, the weight given to that testimony by the Court of Appeals. In United States v. Matlock, ante, at 177-178, where we determined that the District Court had erroneously excluded evidence as hearsay, we determined the evidence should be admitted, but remanded the case to the District Court to determine what weight should be given to the evidence. In the present posture of this case the Court is in no position to rely on any view of the relevant and admissible facts other than its own.
I am also unconvinced that we must reverse every ultimate factual conclusion of the courts of appeals whenever we disagree with them or simply because we would not have arrived at the same conclusion had we been deciding the issue in the first instance. Where ample evidence supports the court of appeals’ judgment and reasonable *650men could make different assessments of the facts, there is room for deferring to the court of appeals. This is especially true where its judgment rests on “an intensely local appraisal” of the facts “in the light of past and present reality . . . White v. Regester, 412 U. S. 755, 769-770 (1973).
I must dissent.7

 This was a “short and plain statement of the claim/’ and was a general assertion that there had been racially discriminatory appointments in violation of the Charter. As the Court stated in Conley v. Gibson, 355 U. S. 41, 48 (1957), “[t]he Federal Rules reject the approach that pleading is a game of skill in which one misstep by counsel may be decisive to the outcome and accept the principle that the purpose of pleading is to facilitate a proper decision on the merits.” A fair reading of the complaint shows that this general claim was supported by allegations of racial discrimination in the body of the complaint and that other violations of the Supplement were asserted “[i]n addition” to the allegations of racial discrimination.

 As to another subsidiary state law point, the court stated: “Similarly, while it is clear that the Mayor has not appointed the chief executive officer of the various organizations selected for representation on the Panel as required by the Educational Supplement, *635such violations have no bearing on the charges of racial discrimination and should also be decided by the State courts.”

 This case raises entirely separate issues than were posed in Mine Workers v. Gibbs, 383 U. S. 715 (1966), where a state claim was pendent to a federal statutory claim. Under such circumstances, the Ashwander doctrine is inapplicable, since there is no federal constitutional claim, and once having decided the federal claim, upon which jurisdiction is premised, the court must determine whether it is proper to resolve the pendent state claim as well.

 The general claim of discrimination was not abandoned at trial. As the transcript shows, the statutorj' claim remained “one of the pieces” in the “picture” of racial discrimination. After evidence was taken, respondents continued to press this claim in their post-trial brief, which stated:
4 The evidence presented clearly demonstrates that the entire scheme of appointments violated the central principle of the Panel as expressed by the framers of the Supplement. It is clear from the documents introduced by the defendant that the Panel method of selecting School Board members was adopted after great consideration of a number of alternatives. It is equally clear that the Commission intended that the Panel mechanism function as a substitute for or counterpart of popular election; it should therefore *640constitute a balanced representation of the people of the entire community.”
The statement of counsel at the opening of the trial obviously did not fully reflect or anticipate the evidence at trial or the issues tendered and accepted by the District Court. That court, rather than deciding the state law issues as part of the constitutional claim, expressly left them for resolution in the state courts. The fact that a state law claim is presented with a constitutional argument does not remove the claim as an alternative ground of decision.

 In arguing that the claim was insubstantial, the majority attacks a straw man. It assumes that the claim could only have been based on § 12-206 (c) of the charter, which relates to the selection of at-large members of the Panel. But the claim advanced by respondents was that the framers of the charter intended that the nine organizational seats on the Panel, selected under § 12-206 (b), when combined with the four at-large selections, represent a racial cross section of the community.

 Tr. of Oral Arg. 31.

 I do agree with the Court that the remedy against the incumbent Mayor Rizzo was improvident. See Soomer v. Littleton, 414 U. S. 514 (1974).