Gomillion v. Lightfoot

• Decision Date: 15 September 1959
• Docket Number: No. 17589.,17589.
• Parties: C. G. GOMILLION et al., Appellants, v. Phil M. LIGHTFOOT, as Mayor of the City of Tuskegee, et al., Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit

270 F.2d 594 (1959)

C. G. GOMILLION et al., Appellants, v. Phil M. LIGHTFOOT, as Mayor of the City of Tuskegee, et al., Appellees.

No. 17589.

United States Court of Appeals Fifth Circuit.

September 15, 1959.

Fred D. Gray, Montgomery, Ala., Arthur D. Shores, Birmingham, Ala., Robert L. Carter, New York City, for appellants.

James J. Carter, Thomas B. Hill, Jr., Montgomery, Ala., Harry D. Raymon, Tuskegee, Ala., Hill, Hill, Stovall & Carter, Montgomery, Ala., for appellees.

Before JONES, BROWN and WISDOM, Circuit Judges.

JONES, Circuit Judge.

The Legislature of Alabama passed a statute which changed the boundaries of the City of Tuskegee in Macon County of that State, Acts 1957, p. 185. The boundary changes reduced the area of the municipality. The plaintiffs, appellants here, are Negroes. They brought a class suit in the District Court for the Middle District of Alabama against the Mayor, the members of the City Council, and the Chief of Police of the City of Tuskegee, and the members of the Board of Revenue, the Sheriff, and the Judge of Probate of Macon County, and the City of Tuskegee, alleging that as a result of the realignment of the boundaries most of the Negroes who had formerly lived in the City and substantially all of the Negroes who had been qualified to vote in City elections would no longer reside within the City. No white person residing in the City as previously constituted was excluded from it by the Act. The named plaintiffs, Negroes who had resided within the City limits as they formerly existed but beyond those limits as they are redefined by the statute, for themselves and others of such class, assert in their complaint that they have been deprived of police protection and street improvements, and have been denied the right to vote in municipal elections and participate in the municipal affairs of Tuskegee. It was averred that the purpose of the passage of the statute was to deny and deprive the plaintiffs of the right of franchise and other rights and privileges of citizenship of the City of Tuskegee.

By the prayer of the complaint the plaintiffs asked for a declaration that the Legislative Act, as applied to the plaintiffs, is in violation of the due process and equal protection clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment and of the Fifteenth Amendment. Temporary and permanent injunctions were sought to restrain the defendants from enforcing the statute as to the plaintiffs and those similarly situated, and from denying them the right to participate in municipal elections and to be recognized and treated as citizens of the City of Tuskegee. The defendants filed a motion to dismiss upon the grounds, variously stated, that the courts of the United States cannot inquire into the purpose of enacting or interfere with the carrying out of State legislation fixing the boundaries of municipalities within the State; and that the suit was, in substance, one against the State of Alabama which these plaintiffs could not maintain. The district court granted the motion to dismiss and in its opinion discussed the questions presented, and thus stated its conclusions:

"Thus this Court must now conclude that regardless of the motive of the Legislature of the State of Alabama and regardless of the effect of its actions, in so far as these plaintiffs\' right to vote in the municipal elections is concerned, this Court has no authority to declare said Act invalid after measuring it by any yardstick made known by the Constitution of the United States. This Court has no control over, no supervision over, and no power to change any boundaries of municipal corporations fixed by a duly convened and elected legislative body, acting for the people in the State of Alabama". 167 F.Supp. 410.

The Court entered a judgment dismissing the action upon the ground that the complaint failed to state a claim against the defendants upon which relief could be granted, and for lack of jurisdiction. From this judgment the plaintiffs have appealed.

A general statement of the powers of States over municipal corporations has been made in these words:

"The creation of municipal corporations, and the conferring upon them of certain powers and subjecting them to corresponding duties, does not deprive the legislature of the State of that general control over their citizens which was before possessed. It still has authority to amend their charters, enlarge or diminish their powers, extend or limit their boundaries, consolidate two or more into one, overrule their legislative action whenever it is deemed unwise, impolitic or unjust, or even abolish them altogether in the legislative discretion, and substitute those which are different. The rights and franchises of such a corporation, being granted for the purposes of government, can never become such vested rights as against the State that they cannot be taken away; nor does the charter constitute a contract in the sense of the constitutional provision which prohibits the obligation of contracts being violated. * * * Restraints on the legislative power of control must be found in the constitution of the State, or they must rest alone in the legislative discretion. If the legislative action in these cases operate injuriously to the municipalities or to individuals, the remedy is not with the courts. The courts have no power to interfere, and the people must be looked to, to right through the ballot-box all these wrongs." 1 Cooley\'s Constitutional Limitations, 8th Ed., 393 et seq.

To this rule Professor Cooley notes exceptions but none are here pertinent. A portion of the language above has been quoted with approval by the Supreme Court. Town of Mount Pleasant v. Beckwith, 100 U.S. 514, 529, 25 L.Ed. 699. With fewer words it has been said:

"The power to create or establish municipal corporations, to enlarge or diminish their area, to reorganize their governments or to dissolve or abolish them altogether is a political function which rests solely in the legislative branch of the government, and in the absence of constitutional restrictions, the power is practically unlimited." 37 Am.Jur. 626, Municipal Corporations, § 7.

In an often cited opinion the Supreme Court has thus pronounced governing principles:

"Municipal corporations are political subdivisions of the state, created as convenient agencies for exercising such of the governmental powers of the state as may be intrusted to them. For the purpose of executing these powers properly and efficiently they usually are given the power to acquire, hold, and manage personal and real property. The number, nature, and duration of the powers conferred upon these corporations and the territory over which they shall be exercised rests in the absolute discretion of the state. Neither their charters, nor any law conferring governmental powers, or vesting in them property to be used for governmental purposes, or authorizing them to hold or manage such property, or exempting them from taxation upon it, constitutes a contract with the state within the meaning of the Federal Constitution. The state, therefore, at its pleasure, may modify or withdraw all such powers, may take without compensation such property, hold it itself, or vest it in other agencies, expand or contract the territorial area, unite the whole or a part of it with another municipality, repeal the charter and destroy the corporation. All this may be done, conditionally or unconditionally, with or without the consent of the citizens, or even against their protest. In all these respects the state is supreme, and its legislative body, conforming its action to the state Constitution, may do as it will, unrestrained by any provision of the Constitution of the United States. Although the inhabitants and property owners may, by such changes, suffer inconvenience, and their property may be lessened in value by the burden of increased taxation, or for any other reason, they have no right, by contract or otherwise, in the unaltered or continued existence of the corporation or its powers, and there is nothing in the Federal Constitution which protects them from these injurious consequences. The power is in the state, and those who legislate for the state are alone responsible for any unjust or oppressive exercise of it." Hunter v. City of Pittsburgh, 207 U.S. 161, 28 S.Ct. 40, 46, 52 L.Ed. 151. See City of Pawhuska v. Pawhuska Oil & Gas Co., 250 U.S. 394, 39 S.Ct. 526, 63 L.Ed. 1054; City of Trenton v. State of New Jersey, 262 U.S. 182, 43 S.Ct. 534, 67 L.Ed. 937, 29 A.L.R. 1471.

In a leading Florida case it is stated:

"The existence of the power of a State legislature to establish, alter, extend, or contract municipal boundaries is freely conceded. But is that power unlimited, and the exercise of it entirely beyond the reach of judicial review in any and all cases? The weight of authority in this country seems to answer this question in the affirmative, and to hold that the legislative power in this regard is practically plenary and unlimited, in the absence of express constitutional restriction thereof." State ex rel. Davis v. City of Stuart, 97 Fla. 69, 120 So. 335, 341, 64 A.L. R. 1307.

It is a general rule that the "power of increase and diminution of municipal territory is plenary, inherent and discretionary in the Legislature, and, when duly exercised, cannot be revised by the courts." Cooley on Municipal Corporations 106 § 32. See 16 C.J.S. Constitutional Law § 145, p. 706; Cooley's Constitutional Limitations, supra; State ex rel. Davis v. City of Stuart, supra.

It is not claimed that any provision of the State Constitution is violated. The Alabama Constitution expressly recognizes the legislative power of "altering or rearranging the boundaries" of municipalities. Ala.Const.Sec. 104(18); Ensley v. City of Simpson, 166 Ala. 366, 52 So. 61; State ex rel. Brooks v. Gullatt, 210 Ala. 452, 98 So. 373. Should it be contended that a state constitutional question is presented, such...