Hansberry v. Lee

• Decision Date: 12 November 1940
• Docket Number: No. 29,29
• Citation: Hansberry v. Lee, 311 U.S. 32, 61 S.Ct 115, 85 L.Ed. 22, 132 A.L.R. 741 (1940)
• Parties: HANSBERRY et al. v. LEE et al
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

311 U.S. 32

61 S.Ct 115

85 L.Ed. 22

HANSBERRY et al.

v LEE et al.

No. 29.

Argued Oct. 25, 1940.

Decided Nov. 12, 1940.

Messrs. Earl B. Dickerson, Truman K. Gibson, Jr., C. Francis Stradford, Loring B. Moore, and Irvin C. Mollison, all of Chicago, Ill., for petitioners.

[Argument of Counsel from pages 33-34 intentionally omitted] Messrs. McKenzie Shannon, Angus Roy Shannon, and William C. Graves, all of Chicago, Ill., for respondents.

[Argument of Counsel from Pages 35-36 intentionally omitted] Mr. Justice STONE delivered the opinion of the Court.

The question is whether the Supreme Court of Illinois, by its adjudication that petitioners in this case are bound by a judgment rendered in an earlier litigation to which they were not parties, has deprived them of the due process of law guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment.

Respondents brought this suit in the Circuit Court of Cook County, Illinois, to enjoin the breach by petitioners of an agreement restricting the use of land within a described area of the City of Chicago, which was alleged to have been entered into by some five hundred of the land owners. The agreement stipulated that for a specified period no part of the land should be 'sold, leased to or permitted to be occupied by any person of the colored race', and provided that it should not be effective unless signed by the 'owners of 95 per centum of the frontage' within the described area. The bill of complaint set up that the owners of 95 per cent of the frontage had signed; that respondents are owners of land within the restricted area who have either signed the agreement or acquired their land from others who did sign and that petitioners Hansberry, who are Negroes, have, with the alleged aid of the other petitioners and with knowledge of the agreement, acquired and are occupying land in the restricted area formerly belonging to an owner who had signed the agreement.

To the defense that the agreement had never become effective because owners of 95 per cent of the frontage had not signed it, respondents pleaded that that issue was res judicata by the decree in an earlier suit. Burke v. Kleiman, 277 Ill.App. 519. To this petitioners pleaded, by way of rejoinder, that they were not parties to that suit or bound by its decree, and that denial of their right to litigate, in the present suit, the issue of performance of the condition precedent to the validity of the agreement would be a denial of due process of law guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment. It does not appear, nor is it contended that any of petitioners is the successor in interest to or in privity with any of the parties in the earlier suit.

The circuit court, after a trial on the merits, found that owners of only about 54 per cent of the frontage had signed the agreement, and that the only support of the judgment in the Burke case was a false and fraudulent stipulation of the parties that 95 per cent had signed. But it ruled that the issue of performance of the condition precedent to the validity of the agreement was res judicata as alleged and entered a decree for respondents. The Supreme Court of Illinois affirmed. 372 Ill. 369, 24 N.E.2d 37. We granted certiorari to resolve the constitutional question. 309 U.S. 652, 60 S.Ct. 889, 84 L.Ed. 1002.

The Supreme Court of Illinois, upon an examination of the record in Burke v. Kleiman, supra, found that that suit, in the Superior Court of Cook County, was brought by a landowner in the restricted area to enforce the agreement which had been signed by her predecessor in title, in behalf of herself and other property owners in like situation, against four named individuals who had acquired or asserted an interest in a plot of land formerly owned by another signer of the agreement; that upon stipulation of the parties in that suit that the agreement had been signed by owners of 95 per cent of all the frontage, the court had adjudged that the agreement was in force, that it was a covenant running with the land and binding all the land within the described area in the hands of the parties to the agreement and those claiming under them including defendants, and had entered its decree restraining the breach of the agreement by the defendants and those claiming under them, and that the appellate court had affirmed the decree. It found that the stipulation was untrue but held, contrary to the trial court, that it was not fraudulent or collusive. It also appears from the record in Burke v. Kleiman that the case was tried on an agreed statement of facts which raised only a single issue, whether by reason of changes in the restricted area, the agreement had ceased to be enforcible in equity.

From this the Supreme Court of Illinois concluded in the present case that Burke v. Kleiman was a 'class' or 'representative' suit and that in such a suit 'where the remedy is pursued by a plaintiff who has the right to represent the class to which he belongs, other members of the class are bound by the results in the case unless it is reversed or set aside on direct proceedings'; (372 Ill. 369, 24 N.E.2d 39), that petitioners in the present suit were members of the class represented by the plaintiffs in the earlier suit and consequently were bound by its decree which had rendered the issue of performance of the condition precedent to the restrictive agreement res judicata, so far as petitioners are concerned. The court thought that the circumstance that the stipulation in the earlier suit that owners of 95 per cent of the frontage had signed the agreement was contrary to the fact as found in the present suit did not militate against this conclusion since the court in the earlier suit had jurisdiction to determine the fact as between the parties before it and that its determination, because of the representative character of the suit, even though erroneous, was binding on petitioners until set aside by a direct attack on the first judgment.

State courts are free to attach such descriptive labels to litigations before them as they may choose and to attribute to them such consequences as they think appropriate under state constitutions and laws, subject only to the requirements of the Constitution of the United States. But when the judgment of a state court, ascribing to the judgment of another court the binding force and effect of res judicata, is challenged for want of due process it becomes the duty of this Court to examine the course of procedure in both litigations to ascertain whether the litigant whose rights have thus been adjudicated has been afforded such notice and opportunity to be heard as are requisite to the due process which the Constitution prescribes. Western Life Indemnity Co. v. Rupp, 235 U.S. 261, 273, 35 S.Ct. 37, 40, 59 L.Ed. 220.

It is a principle of general application in Anglo-American jurisprudence that one is not bound by a judgment in personam in a litigation in which he is not designated as a party or to which he has not been made a party by service of process. Pennoyer v. Neff, 95 U.S. 714, 24 L.Ed. 565; 1 Freeman on Judgments, 5th Ed., § 407. A judgment rendered in such circumstances is not entitled to the full faith and credit which the Constitution and statute of the United States, R.S. § 905, 28 U.S.C. § 687, 28 U.S.C.A. § 687, pre- scribe, Pennoyer v. Neff, supra; Lafayette Ins. Co. v. French, 18 How. 404, 15 L.Ed. 451; Hall v. Lanning, 91 U.S. 160, 23 L.Ed. 271; Baker v. Baker, E. & Co., 242 U.S. 394, 37 S.Ct. 152, 61 L.Ed. 386, and judicial action enforcing it against the person or property of the absent party is not that due process which the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments requires. Postal Telegraph-Cable Co. v. Neport, 247 U.S. 464, 38 S.Ct. 566, 62 L.Ed. 1215; Old Wayne Mut.L. Ass'n v. McDonough, 204 U.S. 8, 27 S.Ct. 236, 51 L.Ed. 345.

To these general rules there is a recognized exception that, to an extent not precisely defined by judicial opinion, the judgment in a 'class' or 'representative' suit, to which some members of the class are parties, may bind members of the class or those represented who were not made parties to it. Smith v. Swormstedt, 16 How. 288, 14 L.Ed. 942; Royal Arcanum v. Green, 237 U.S. 531, 35 S.Ct. 724, 59 L.Ed. 1089, L.R.A.1916A, 771; Hartford L. Ins. Co. v. Ibs, 237 U.S. 662, 35 S.Ct. 692, 59 L.Ed. 1165, L.R.A.1916A, 765; Hartford Life Ins. Co. v. Barber, 245 U.S. 146, 38 S.Ct. 54, 62 L.Ed. 208; Supreme Tribe of Ben-Hur v. Cauble, 255 U.S. 356, 41 S.Ct. 338, 65 L.Ed. 673; cf. Christopher v. Brusselback, 302 U.S. 500, 58 S.Ct. 350, 82 L.Ed. 388.

The class suit was an invention of equity to enable it to proceed to a decree in suits where the number of those interested in the subject of the litigation is so great that their joinder as parties in conformity to the usual rules of procedure is impracticable. Courts are not infrequently called upon to proceed with causes in which the number of those interested in the litigation is so great as to make difficult or impossible the joinder of all because some are not within the jurisdiction or because their whereabouts is unknown or where if all were made parties to the suit its continued abatement by the death of some would prevent or unduly delay a decree. In such cases where the interests of those not joined are of the same class as the interests of those who are, and where it is considered that the latter fairly represent the former in the prosecution of the litigation of the issues in which all have a common interest, the court will proceed to a decree. Brown v. Vermuden, 1 Ch.Cas. 272; City of London v. Richmond, 2 Vern. 421; Cockburn v. Thompson, 161 Ves.Jr. 321; West v. Randall, Fed.Cas.No.17,724, 2 Mason 181; Beatty v. Kurtz, 2 Pet. 566, 7 L.Ed. 521; Smith v. Swormstedt, supra; Supreme Tribe of Ben-Hur v. Cauble, supra; Story, Equity Pleading (2d Ed.) § 98.

It is evident that the considerations which may induce a court thus to proceed, despite a technical defect of parties, may...