Dotson v. City of Indianola, GC 80-220-WK-O.

• Decision Date: 13 May 1981
• Docket Number: No. GC 80-220-WK-O.,GC 80-220-WK-O.
• Citation: 514 F. Supp. 397
• Parties: Nelson DOTSON et al., Plaintiffs, v. The CITY OF INDIANOLA et al., Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Northern District of Mississippi

514 F. Supp. 397

Nelson DOTSON et al., Plaintiffs, v. The CITY OF INDIANOLA et al., Defendants.

No. GC 80-220-WK-O.

United States District Court, N. D. Mississippi, Greenville Division.

May 13, 1981.

Charles Victor McTeer, Greenville, Miss., for plaintiffs.

W. Dean Belk, Indianola, Miss. and James L. Robertson, Oxford, Miss., for defendants.

Before CHARLES CLARK, Circuit Judge, KEADY, Chief Judge, and SENTER, District Judge.

OPINION

CHARLES CLARK, Circuit Judge:

On October 1, 1980, Nelson Dotson and fifteen other black adult citizens, residents, and qualified electors of Sunflower County, Mississippi, brought this action pursuant to Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, as amended, 42 U.S.C. §§ 1973 et seq. Section 5 prohibits a state or political subdivision from enacting or seeking to administer any voting qualification, prerequisite, standard, practice, or procedure different from that in effect on November 1, 1964, without first either obtaining a declaratory judgment in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia or securing tacit recognition from the Attorney General that the voting change does not have the purpose or effect of denying or abridging the right to vote on account of race, color, or membership in a language minority. 42 U.S.C. § 1973c.

The complaint in this case is composed of five counts, only the first of which is presently under consideration. In Count I the plaintiffs challenge four annexations to the corporate limits of Indianola, claiming that the City violated Section 5 when it made these annexations without obtaining preclearance as required by the Act. They seek declaratory and injunctive relief against Phillip Fratesi, Mayor of Indianola, and against Gary L. Austin, Charlotte H. Buchanan, G. Clarke Johnson, W. Harold Manning, and James D. Robinson, members of the Indianola Board of Aldermen. The plaintiffs seek an order setting aside the 1977 municipal elections and scheduling a special election to choose new city officials. They also ask for prospective injunctive relief requiring the City to hold future elections based upon the pre-annexation city limits.

We grant only the plaintiffs' request for declaratory and prospective injunctive relief.

I.

Substantially all of the facts necessary to the disposition of the issues in this case have been stipulated by the parties. On May 25, 1965; May 4, 1966; September 2, 1966; and July 14, 1967, the City of Indianola obtained decrees from the Chancery Court of Sunflower County, Mississippi, approving its Petitions for Confirmation of Extension of Boundaries. Each of these annexations added new eligible voters to the electoral base for Indianola; and the City now concedes, as it must, that annexations enlarging the number of eligible voters in the municipality are changes of a voting qualification, prerequisite, standard, practice, or procedure as contemplated by Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act. See Perkins v. Matthews, 400 U.S. 379, 388-95, 91 S.Ct. 431, 437-39, 27 L.Ed.2d 476, 484-89 (1971). Indianola also concedes that it has not yet obtained preclearance of these annexations as required by Section 5.

Indianola has implemented the 1965-67 annexations in the municipal elections conducted in 1968, 1969, 1973, and 1977. In each of these elections, persons residing in the newly annexed areas have participated both as voters and as candidates. The incumbent mayor and aldermen were all elected in 1977, and four of the five present aldermen reside in the annexed areas.

Some additional facts are relevant to the question of the scope of relief to be afforded in this case. On October 2, 1975, J. Stanley Pottinger, Assistant U.S. Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division, wrote to Frank Crosthwait, then City Attorney for Indianola. Pottinger informed Crosthwait that the Division had learned of several annexations to the corporate limits of Indianola and advised him that these changes in voting practice or procedure could not lawfully be implemented unless the City first complied with the preclearance requirement of Section 5. Pottinger requested the City to submit the annexations to the Attorney General for review or to bring an appropriate declaratory action in the District Court for the District of Columbia. On November 10, 1975, Crosthwait replied to the Pottinger letter, noting three of the challenged annexations and identifying them by their location in the Chancery Clerk's records. Crosthwait's letter did not refer to the 1965 annexation.

On December 23, 1975, Pottinger again wrote to Crosthwait, this time requesting additional information necessary for proper evaluation of the annexations. For some unexplained reason, the City never responded to this request. Then, on August 21, 1980, the Department of Justice wrote to the present City Attorney, W. Dean Belk, and asked the City to provide the additional information previously requested concerning the 1966 and 1967 annexations. The Justice Department also requested the same kind of information for the 1965 annexation. The City represents to this court that it has now submitted all of the information sought by the Department of Justice concerning each of these annexations.

II.

The Voting Rights Act ordinarily limits the issues for determination by the three-judge court to the question of whether the political subdivision has complied with the requirements of the Act and to the nature of relief to be afforded the plaintiffs in the event of non-compliance. See United States v. Board of Supervisors of Warren County, Miss., 429 U.S. 642, 97 S.Ct. 833, 51 L.Ed.2d 106 (1977); Perkins v. Matthews, 400 U.S. 379, 91 S.Ct. 431, 27 L.Ed.2d 476 (1971).

However, Indianola has interposed numerous defenses to the plaintiffs' requested relief. The main defense, and the one upon which the City primarily relies, is the doctrine of laches. Laches is an equitable concept that may operate in some contexts as a time limitation barring a plaintiff's claim. It is founded upon the policies of promoting repose in society, encouraging diligence in plaintiffs, avoiding evidentiary problems occasioned by long delay, and advancing shared concepts of justice. See generally Note, The Application of the Doctrine of Laches in Public Interest Litigation, 56 B.U.L. Rev. 181, 196 (1976). To prevail on a laches defense, a defendant must show a delay by the plaintiff in asserting a right or claim, that the delay was inexcusable, and there has been undue prejudice to the defendant resulting from the delay. See, e. g., Environmental Defense Fund v. Alexander, 614 F.2d 474, 478 (5th Cir. 1980), cert. denied, ___ U.S. ___, 101 S.Ct. 316, 66 L.Ed.2d 146 (1980); Bernard v. Gulf Oil Co., 596 F.2d 1249, 1256 (5th Cir. 1979); Matter of Henderson, 577 F.2d 997, 1001 (5th Cir. 1978).

Although there is no precedent for application of the laches defense to private suits for injunctive relief under Section 5, the City urges us to adopt it in this case. The gist of its argument is as follows. Indianola first annexed adjacent lands in 1965. Thus, the plaintiffs have delayed 15 years before initiating this action. The City then argues that we should look to the analogous state statute of limitations, in this case the six-year "catch-all" statute embodied in Miss. Code Ann. § 15-1-49 (1972). Since the plaintiffs' delay exceeds the applicable limitations period, a presumption arises that the delay is inexcusable, thereby shifting to the plaintiffs the burden of showing some justification for the untimeliness of their suit. To demonstrate prejudice the City offers three categories of evidence. First, it offers proof of potential witnesses who are now deceased or who have diminished memories of the events surrounding the annexations to show it has incurred a disadvantage in asserting or establishing its claims or defenses. Second, the City offers to show that it has expanded municipal services and incurred bond obligations on the assumption that the annexations were properly made. Third, the City proffers evidence of injury to citizens and residents of Indianola who, relying in good faith on the validity of the annexations, have moved into and purchased property in the newly annexed areas.

Nevertheless, we conclude that the doctrine of laches is not available in a private action for injunctive relief brought under Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act. We do so for several reasons.

First, application of the laches defense to bar the plaintiffs' action would frustrate the remedial purposes of the Act. Section 5 was intended to prevent covered states from fashioning voting changes which might deprive blacks of their right to vote. See generally South Carolina v. Katzenbach, 383 U.S. 301, 308-16, 86 S.Ct. 803, 808-12, 15 L.Ed.2d 769, 775-80 (1966). Congress imposed upon the covered states the burden of submitting any change in voting practice or procedures for approval in Washington, D.C., before it became effective. See Perkins v. Matthews, 400 U.S. 379, 396, 91 S.Ct. 431, 441, 27 L.Ed.2d 476, 489 (1971); Ramos v. Koebig, 638 F.2d 838, 846 (5th Cir. 1981).

Indianola has not discharged its undisputed obligation to submit these four annexations to either test designated by Congress. The burden to obtain federal approval of those annexations before conducting elections based upon the new corporate limits has always rested with the City. The laches defense, however, presupposes that the plaintiffs had an obligation to challenge the altered voting regulation in the first instance. Allowing Indianola to assert laches to bar the plaintiffs' requested relief would transform its own long failure to comply with the duty imposed upon it by Section 5 into a defense. Under this approach, the longer the City delayed in fulfilling its statutory responsibilities, the better its defense would become. Therefore, to apply the doctrine of laches to a private injunctive action "would be to do precisely what § 5 was...