Humburd v. Crawford

• Decision Date: 15 November 1905
• Citation: 105 N.W. 330,128 Iowa 743
• Parties: W. M. HUMBURD v. MRS. EDWARD CRAWFORD and LEILA HUNTER, Appellants
• Court: Iowa Supreme Court

105 N.W. 330

128 Iowa 743

W. M. HUMBURD v. MRS. EDWARD CRAWFORD and LEILA HUNTER, Appellants

Supreme Court of Iowa, Des Moines

November 15, 1905

Appeal from Polk District Court.--HON. A. H. MCVEY, Judge.

ACTION for damages occasioned by the refusal to allow plaintiff to eat at the defendant's table. Verdict and judgment for plaintiff, and defendants appeal.

Affirmed.

McHenry & Graham, for appellants.

S. Joe Brown, for appellee.

OPINION

LADD J.

The plaintiff was one of the jurors to whom a civil cause had been submitted at the January, 1904, term of the district court of Polk county. Pending their deliberations, the bailiff in charge arranged with defendants to serve dinner for the jurors, and conducted them to their house. Upon arrival the defendants, as the evidence tended to show, refused to allow plaintiff to sit at their table solely because of his color, whereupon the other jurors were served, and he was compelled to go elsewhere for food. It is not questioned but that this was in violation of the civil rights statute, if defendants were maintaining an eating house such as therein contemplated. That statute declares that "all persons within this State shall be entitled to the full and equal enjoyment of the accommodations advantages, facilities and privileges of inns, restaurants chop houses, eating houses, lunch counters and all other places where refreshments are served, public conveyances, barber shops, bath houses, theaters, and all other places of amusement. Any person who shall violate the provisions of this section by denying to any person, except for reasons by law applicable to all persons, the full enjoyment of any of the accommodations, advantages, facilities or privileges enumerated herein, or by aiding or inciting such denial, shall be guilty of a misdemeanor." Code, section 5008.

The evil sought to be remedied was unjust or groundless discrimination between individuals where the public generally are invited to be served or entertained. See Bowlin v Lyon, 67 Iowa 536, 25 N.W. 766. If, then, the object and practice of defendants was to serve meals to whomsoever applied, at prices charged to all, their place was an eating house within the meaning of this statute. If meals were served only in pursuance of previous arrangements, and therefore to particular individuals, rather than to any who might apply, it was a private boarding house only. The distinction was clearly drawn in the fifth paragraph of the court's charge: "If you find from a preponderance of the evidence in this case that the defendants conducted a...