Brown v. South Carolina State Forestry Commission, Civ. A. No. AC-774.

• Court: United States District Courts. 4th Circuit. United States District Court of South Carolina
• Citation: 226 F. Supp. 646
• Decision Date: 10 July 1963
• Docket Number: Civ. A. No. AC-774.
• Parties: J. Arthur BROWN et al., Plaintiffs, v. SOUTH CAROLINA STATE FORESTRY COMMISSION, Fulton B. Creech, Chairman, C. H. Niederhof, A. B. Taylor, Sr., John C. Pracht, Robert C. Edwards, Members of the South Carolina State Forestry Commission; Charles H. Flory, State Forester, and C. West Jacocks, State Park Director, and Davis Lee by Intervention, Defendants.

226 F. Supp. 646

J. Arthur BROWN et al., Plaintiffs,
v.
SOUTH CAROLINA STATE FORESTRY COMMISSION, Fulton B. Creech, Chairman, C. H. Niederhof, A. B. Taylor, Sr., John C. Pracht, Robert C. Edwards, Members of the South Carolina State Forestry Commission; Charles H. Flory, State Forester, and C. West Jacocks, State Park Director, and Davis Lee by Intervention, Defendants.

Civ. A. No. AC-774.

United States District Court E. D. South Carolina, Columbia Division.

July 10, 1963.

Matthew J. Perry, Lincoln C. Jenkins, Jr., Columbia, S. C., Jack Greenberg, Michael Meltsner, New York City, for plaintiff.

Daniel R. McLeod, Atty. Gen. of South Carolina, Harry M. Lightsey, Jr., Asst. Atty. Gen., and David W. Robinson, Columbia, S. C., for defendants.

MARTIN, District Judge.

This suit was originally filed on July 8, 1961, by the plaintiffs for their own benefit and on the behalf of all other persons similarly situated. In the Complaint the plaintiffs allege that they are denied the use of public park facilities in the State of South Carolina solely because they are Negroes in violation of their constitutional rights. The plaintiffs ask that certain statutes of the State of South Carolina, which allegedly require racial discrimination in the public park system in South Carolina, be declared unconstitutional and that the defendants be enjoined from prohibiting them and other Negroes similarly situated from making use of the public parks and beaches owned and operated by the State of South Carolina.

By Order of The Honorable George Bell Timmerman, dated September 17, 1961, the plaintiffs filed an Amended Complaint on October 17, 1961, which, in effect, asked for the same relief as the original complaint.

226 F. Supp. 647

On November 30, 1961, plaintiffs filed a Motion for Preliminary Injunction in which they asked that the Court grant a preliminary injunction against the defendants restraining them from enforcing certain statutes of South Carolina and from discriminating against Negroes in regard to the use of the public parks and beaches owned and operated by the State of South Carolina until this suit could be heard on its merits.

On December 17, 1963, the defendants filed an Answer in which they admit that the State of South Carolina operates some parks for white citizens and some parks for Negro citizens in accordance with State law but deny that such operation of the park facilities deprives the plaintiffs of their constitutional rights. Defendants further allege that this action is brought in reality by nonresident corporations.

Along with the Answer, defendants moved that the issues in the cause be tried by the Court with an Advisory Jury.

On January 2, 1963, plaintiffs filed a motion to strike paragraphs (11), (12), (13), (15) and so much of paragraph (16) as alleges "This action is in reality an effort by nonresident corporations to enforce alleged rights to equal protection possessed by individuals."

On January 11, 1963, defendants propounded fifteen interrogatories to the plaintiffs in which they seek information pertaining to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People; the NAACP Legal and Educational Defense Fund, the relationship between the NAACP and its Legal and Educational Defense Fund, the offices held in the NAACP by the plaintiffs Newman, Shaprer, Brown and Nelson; the payment of legal fees to the attorneys representing the plaintiffs in this action (and other suits pending in the Federal Courts) and the status of the attorneys in relation to the NAACP or its Legal and Educational Defense Fund. The plaintiffs promptly filed objections to all interrogatories propounded upon the ground that they are irrelevant, immaterial, impertinent and not directed to any issue in controversy in this action.

On March 23, 1963, the plaintiffs filed a Motion for Summary Judgment under the provisions of Rule 56 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.

On July 11, 1961, Davis Lee, moved the Court for an Order permitting him to intervene in the action as a defendant, and file an Answer to the complaint in the suit, upon the ground that he was similarly situated like the approximately 900,000 Negro citizens of the State of South Carolina and, as such, has a defense to the plaintiffs' claim presenting both questions of law and of fact which are common to the main action. By Order of The Honorable George Bell Timmerman, dated December 13, 1961, the motion was granted and the Answer of the defendant Davis Lee was filed effective October 12, 1961.

On February 5, 1962, the defendant Davis Lee filed a motion to bring in the action an additional party, the South Carolina Branches of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. At the same time the said defendant filed a motion for leave to file a "supplemental Answer and counterclaim." The proposed counterclaim was filed as an attachment to the latter motion. In the proposed counterclaim, defendant asks damages against the plaintiffs and the South Carolina branches of the NAACP in the sum of $10,000,000, treble damages, as provided by the Clayton Amendment to the Sherman Anti-Trust Act on the theory that the plaintiffs in concert with the South Carolina Branch of the NAACP has disrupted his newspaper business and has injured the business of other citizens by organized boycotts of trade and other alleged unlawful activity. On April 18, 1963, the defendant, Davis Lee, filed a proposed amendment to the original proposed counterclaim in which he alleges that the NAACP...