Kirchberg v. Feenstra

• Decision Date: 23 March 1981
• Docket Number: No. 79-1388,79-1388
• Parties: Karl J. KIRCHBERG, Appellant, v. Joan Paillot FEENSTRA et al
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

450 U.S. 455

101 S.Ct. 1195

67 L.Ed.2d 428

Karl J. KIRCHBERG, Appellant,

v Joan Paillot FEENSTRA et al.

No. 79-1388.

Argued Dec. 10, 1980.

Decided March 23, 1981.

Syllabus

In 1974, the husband of appellee Feenstra (hereafter appellee), without her knowledge, executed a mortgage on their jointly owned home as security on the husband's promissory note to appellant. The husband executed the mortgage pursuant to a now superseded Louisiana statute (Art. 2404) that gave a husband the unilateral right to dispose of jointly owned community property without his spouse's consent. In 1976, after appellee refused to pay her husband's note, appellant commenced foreclosure proceedings and instituted the instant action in Federal District Court for declaratory relief. Appellee asserted a counterclaim challenging the constitutionality of Art. 2404, and Louisiana and its Governor were joined as third-party defendants on the counterclaim. The District Court granted the State's motion for summary judgment. While appellee's appeal to the Court of Appeals was pending, Louisiana completely revised its community-property code provisions so as to grant spouses equal control over the disposition of such property. Because the new code did not take effect until January 1, 1980, it did not control the mortgage executed by appellee's husband. The Court of Appeals held that Art. 2404 violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, but limited its decision to prospective application because the ruling "would create a substantial hardship with respect to property rights and obligations within the State of Louisiana."

Held :

1. Article 2404 violated the Equal Protection Clause. Gender-based discrimination is unconstitutional absent a showing that the classification substantially furthers an important governmental interest, and it is immaterial that under the earlier statutory provisions appellee could have made a "declaration by authentic act" prohibiting her husband from executing a mortgage on her home without her consent. The "absence of an insurmountable barrier" will not redeem an otherwise unconstitutionally discriminatory law. Trimble v. Gordon, 430 U.S. 762, 774, 97 S.Ct. 1459, 1467, 52 L.Ed.2d 31. Because appellant has failed to offer any justification for the challenged classification and because the State, by declining to appeal from the decision below, has apparently abandoned any claim that an important government objective was served by Art. 2404, the Court of Appeals' judgment is affirmed. Pp. 459-461.

2. There is no ambiguity on the only other question properly before this Court, which is whether the Court of Appeals' prospective decision applies to the mortgage in this case. The dispute between the parties at its core involves the validity of a single mortgage—that executed by appellee's husband—and in passing on the constitutionality of Art. 2404, the Court of Appeals clearly intended to resolve that controversy adversely to appellant. Pp. 461-463.

609 F.2d 727, affirmed.

Alan F. Schoenberger, New Orleans, La., for appellant, pro hac vice, by special leave of Court.

Barbara Hausman-Smith, White River Junction, Vt., for appellees.

Justice MARSHALL delivered the opinion of the Court.

In this appeal we consider the constitutionality of a now superseded Louisiana statute that gave a husband, as "head and master" of property jointly owned with his wife, the unilateral right to dispose of such property without his spouse's consent. Concluding that the provision violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, we affirm the judgment of the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit invalidating the statute.

I

In 1974, appellee Joan Feenstra filed a criminal complaint against her husband, Harold Feenstra, charging him with molesting their minor daughter. While incarcerated on that charge, Mr. Feenstra retained appellant Karl Kirchberg, an attorney, to represent him. Mr. Feenstra signed a $3,000 promissory note in prepayment for legal services to be performed by appellant Kirchberg. As security on this note, Mr. Feenstra executed a mortgage in favor of appellant on the home he jointly owned with his wife. Mrs. Feenstra was not informed of the mortgage, and her consent was not required because a state statute, former Art. 2404 of the Louisiana Civil Code Ann. (West 1971), gave her husband exclusive control over the disposition of community property.¹

Mrs. Feenstra eventually dropped the charge against her husband. He did not return home, but instead obtained a legal separation from his wife and moved out of the State. Mrs. Feenstra first learned of the existence of the mortgage in 1976, when appellant Kirchberg threatened to foreclose on her home unless she paid him the amount outstanding on the promissory note executed by her husband. After Mrs. Feenstra refused to pay the obligation, Kirchberg obtained an order of executory process directing the local sheriff to seize and sell the Feenstra home.

Anticipating Mrs. Feenstra's defense to the foreclosure action, Kirchberg in March 1976 filed this action in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana, seeking a declaratory judgment against Mrs. Feenstra that he was not liable under the Truth in Lending Act, 15 U.S.C. § 1601 et seq., for any nondisclosures concerning the mortgage he held on the Feenstra home. In her answer to Kirchberg's complaint, Mrs. Feenstra alleged as a counterclaim that Kirchberg has violated the Act, but also included a second counter- claim challenging the constitutionality of the statutory scheme that empowered her husband unilaterally to execute a mortgage on their jointly owned home. The State of Louisiana and its Governor were joined as third-party defendants on the constitutional counterclaim. The governmental parties, joined by appellant, moved for summary judgment on this claim. The District Court, characterizing Mrs. Feenstra's counterclaim as an attack on "the bedrock of Louisiana's community property system," granted the State's motion for summary judgment. 430 F.Supp. 642, 644 (1977).²

While Mrs. Feenstra's appeal from the District Court's order was pending before the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, the Louisiana Legislature completely revised its code provisions relating to community property. In so doing, the State abandoned the "head and master" concept embodied in Art. 2404, and instead granted spouses equal control over the disposition of community property. La.Civ.Code Ann., Art. 2346 (West Supp.1981).³ The new code also provided that community immovables could not be alienated, leased, or otherwise encumbered without the concurrence of both spouses. La.Civ.Code Ann., Art. 2347 (West Supp.1981).⁴ These provisions, however, did not take effect until January 1, 1980, and the Court of Appeals was therefore required to consider whether Art. 2404, the Civil Code provision which had authorized Mr. Feenstra to mortgage his home in 1974 without his wife's knowledge or consent, violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

Because this provision explicitly discriminated on the basis of gender, the Court of Appeals properly inquired whether the statutory grant to the husband of exclusive control over disposition of community property was substantially related to the achievement of an important governmental objective. See, e. g., Wengler v. Druggist Mutual Insurance Co., 446 U.S. 142, 100 S.Ct. 1540, 64 L.Ed.2d 107 (1980); Craig v. Boren, 429 U.S. 190, 97 S.Ct. 451, 50 L.Ed.2d 397 (1976). The court noted that the State had advanced only one justification for the provision—that "[o]ne of the two spouses has to be designated as the manager of the community." ⁵ The court agreed that the State had an interest in defining the manner in which community property was to be managed, but found that the State had failed to show why the mandatory designation of the husband as manager of the property was necessary to further that interest. The court therefore concluded that Art. 2404 violated the Equal Protection Clause. However, because the court believed that a retroactive application of its decision "would create a substantial hardship with respect to property rights and obligations within the State of Louisiana," the decision was limited to prospective application. 609 F.2d 727, 735-736 (1979). Only Kirchberg appealed the judgment of the Court of Appeals to this Court. We noted probable jurisdiction. 446 U.S. 917, 100 S.Ct. 1849, 64 L.Ed.2d 270 (1980).⁶

II

By granting the husband exclusive control over the disposition of community property, Art. 2404 clearly embodies the type of express gender-based discrimination that we have found unconstitutional absent a showing that the classification is tailored to further an important governmental interest. In defending the constitutionality of Art. 2404, appellant Kirchberg does not claim that the provision serves any such interest.⁷ Instead, appellant attempts to distinguish this Court's decisions in cases such as Craig v. Boren, supra, and Orr v. Orr, 440 U.S. 268, 99 S.Ct. 1102, 59 L.Ed.2d 306 (1979), which struck down similar gender-based statutory classifications, by arguing that appellee Feenstra, as opposed to the disadvantaged individuals in those cases, could have taken steps to avoid the discriminatory impact of Art. 2404. Appellant notes that under Art. 2334 of the Louisiana Civil Code, in effect at the time Mr. Feenstra executed the mortgage, Mrs. Feenstra could have made a "declaration by authentic act" prohibiting her husband from executing a mortgage on her home without her consent.⁸ By failing to take advantage of this procedure, Mrs. Feenstra, in appellant's view, became the "architect of her own predicament" and therefore should not be heard to complain of the discriminatory impact of Art. 2404.

By focusing on steps that Mrs. Feenstra could have taken to preclude her husband from mortgaging their...