Evers v. Dwyer
| Decision Date | 15 December 1958 |
| Docket Number | No. 382,382 |
| Citation | 79 S.Ct. 178,358 U.S. 202,3 L.Ed.2d 222 |
| Parties | O. Z. EVERS et al., Appellants, v. John T. DWYER et al |
| Court | U.S. Supreme Court |
Messrs. Robert L. Carter, New York, H. T. Lockhard, Memphis, Tenn., for appellants.
Messrs. Frank B. Gianotti, Jr., City Atty., Walter Chandler, Memphis, Tenn., Allison B. Humphreys, Nashville, Tenn., Edward P. Russell, Charles M. Crump, Memphis, Tenn., for appellees.
Appellant, a Negro resident of Memphis, Tennessee, brought this class action in the Western Division of the United States District Court for the Western District of Tennessee, seeking a declaration as to his claimed constitutional right, and that of others similarly situated, to travel on buses within that City without being subjected, as required by Tenn. Code Ann., 1955, §§ 65—1704 through 65—1709, to segregated seating arrangements on account of race. An injunction against enforcement of this stat- ute or any other method of state-enforced segregation on Memphis transportation facilities was also sought. Various officials and officers of the City of Memphis, the Memphis Street Railway Company, and one of that Company's employees were named as defendants. After a hearing a three-judge District Court, without reaching the merits, dismissed the complaint on the ground that no 'actual controversy' within the intendment of the Declaratory Judgment Act, 28 U.S.C. § 2201, 28 U.S.C.A. § 2201, had been shown, in that appellant had ridden a bus in Memphis on only one occasion and had 'boarded the bus for the purpose of instituting this litigation,' and was thus not 'representative of a class of colored citizens who do use the buses in Memphis as a means of transportation.'
Of course, the federal courts will not grant declaratory relief in instances where the record does not disclose an 'actual controversy.' Public Service Commission of Utah v. Wycoff Co., 344 U.S. 237, 73 S.Ct. 236, 97 L.Ed. 291. In Maryland Casualty Co. v. Pacific Coal & Oil Co., 312 U.S. 270, 273, 61 S.Ct. 510, 512, 85 L.Ed. 826, this Court said: In the present case we think that the record establishes...
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