Jones v. United States Dept. of Hous. & Urb. Dev.(HUD)
| Decision Date | 12 December 1974 |
| Docket Number | Civ. A. No. 74-2628. |
| Citation | 390 F. Supp. 579 |
| Parties | Elouise JONES et al. v. The UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF HOUSING AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT (HUD) et al. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Louisiana |
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Joseph W. Thomas, Anthony W. Skidmore, John M. Blanchard, Okla Jones, II, New Orleans, La., for plaintiffs.
Michaelle F. Pitard, New Orleans, La., for United States and HUD.
Henry Kinney, New Orleans, La., for City of New Orleans and Moon Landrieu.
Robert Chatelain, New Orleans, La., for the Koffmans and Parkchester Realty Corporation.
Harry P. Gamble, III, Russ M. Herman, New Orleans, La., for Centurion of La.
The named plaintiffs in this class action represent everyone living in the Parkchester Apartments on September 26, 1974, the date this suit was filed. They have twice before asked the court to enter temporary relief, and now they seek a preliminary injunction to stop the proposed demolition and sale of the Parkchester property. Hearings were held on November 27 and December 2, 1974.
In their complaint, the plaintiffs claim that the Koffmans, the partnership that owns the Parkchester property; the Parkchester Realty Corporation, lessee and manager of the property; and the Department of Housing and Urban Development, which holds the mortgage on the Apartments, are engaged in a scheme to phase out the project and that this scheme is designed to discriminate against black persons. They also claim that the defendants have failed properly to maintain the buildings and grounds over the last few years because the once white project has become largely black. They joined as defendants Centurion of Louisiana, which holds an option to buy the property, and the City of New Orleans, but the plaintiffs have since voluntarily dismissed both these parties.
The plaintiffs also ask the court to enjoin any further action until HUD agrees to pay them the relocation assistance payments they claim are due them under the Uniform Relocation Assistance Act, 42 U.S.C. §§ 4601 et seq. On November 12, 1974, in an opinion on preliminary motions, the court granted HUD's motion to dismiss this claim because that statute does not require the payment of benefits to persons displaced by the sale of land to a private developer but only to persons who must be relocated because the construction of new federal projects requires existing structures to be removed. Therefore that claim is no longer before the court. The plaintiffs also ask for an injunction preventing further action until HUD files an environmental impact statement of the kind required by the National Environmental Policy Act, 42 U.S.C. § 4332(2)(C). They claim that HUD's action in approving the demolition of buildings and sale of the land amounts to major federal action, significantly affecting the human environment. This claim remains before the court.
Shortly after the plaintiffs filed their complaint, the court granted a limited temporary restraining order preventing the demolition of any buildings other than the eleven then vacant and scheduled for demolition. This order could be effective for only ten days under the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure; it lapsed two months ago. On October 23, 1974, the plaintiffs asked the court to enjoin several state eviction proceedings based on allegations of non-payment of rent. The court denied their motion for reasons fully given at the hearing. In brief, however, this was because there had been no racial discrimination shown in the evictions; each eviction has been the result of a court action, and in each case has been preceeded by a notice to pay, notice of the eviction proceeding, and a chance to appear in court to assert any defenses to the eviction effort.
Although their complaint also asks for damages, the plaintiffs' motion for a preliminary injunction seeks only to prevent any further demolition, the eviction of any tenants (including those who have not paid their rent for several months, in protest against the conditions at Parkchester), and the sale of the Parkchester property to Centurion of Louisiana. The motion also asks the court to direct HUD to enforce and Parkchester Realty to comply with the maintenance provisions of the regulatory agreement between them.
At the hearing on their motion, the plaintiffs proved that conditions in the Parkchester Apartments have changed drastically in the last few years. The evidence demonstrates that these once liveable buildings have become virtually uninhabitable. The Parkchester Apartments show the classic signs of urban decay in its most acute form: leaky ceilings, broken windows, locks that no longer work, cracked and ripped out walls, broken, leaking plumbing. Many of the buildings are now abandoned, and the interiors of the apartments in them have been ripped apart. Rubbish has accumulated throughout the project, and rat infestation is a serious problem. Conditions are, in short, deplorable.
But the fact that these apartments are not suitable places for people to live does not mean that a federal court has authority to make them habitable or to order someone else to do so. Federal judges have no blanket authority to right all wrongs and remedy every injustice, however troubled by them they may be. The same Constitution that protects the rights of the people limits the jurisdiction and the authority of federal judges.
This is as it should be. For in a democratic society, the power to make laws belongs to the Congress, elected by the people. And the duty to execute the laws rests on the President, who is also elected. In part, the limitations placed on the federal courts come from the people's unwillingness to place too much power in the hands of men appointed for life, and every judge who takes an oath to uphold and defend the Constitution must scrupulously respect those limitations. In part, these restrictions come from the nature of the judicial process itself. Frankfurter, Mr. Justice Holmes and the Supreme Court 25 (1938).
The federal courts can act only when the Constitution, a statute or a rule of common law authorizes them to act. To succeed, the plaintiffs must prove that the defendants have in some fashion violated federal law and that, under the tests the law directs the court to apply, they are entitled to a preliminary injunction. The plaintiffs claim that the governmental and private defendants have violated the laws in several respects. These claims, and the evidence on which they must be decided, are complex and must be dealt with separately.
In Counts I and II of their complaint, the plaintiffs allege that HUD and the Koffmans have failed for racially discriminatory reasons to maintain the apartments and property. Their basic argument is that the property deteriorated at the same time that the racial composition of the apartments changed; they urge the court to infer that the Koffmans, with HUD's knowledge and help, deliberately permitted the property to deteriorate because black tenants had replaced white ones. They charge that HUD violated Executive Order No. 11063, Nov. 20, 1962, 27 F.R. 11527, which obliges HUD to prevent racial discrimination in certain federally assisted housing; and that it administered a federal program in a racially discriminatory way, violating the Fifth Amendment. The plaintiffs also charge that the Koffmans have violated 42 U.S. C. § 1982, which guarantees all citizens the same property rights that white citizens enjoy, and 42 U.S.C. § 2000d, which prohibits persons receiving federal financial assistance from engaging in race discrimination.
There is no need to confront the legal issues these charges raise. The plaintiffs have failed to prove an initial and essential element of their case. The evidence does not demonstrate that there is any significant difference in the amount of maintenance work being done on the Parkchester complex now as compared with the most recent years in which the majority of the residents of the Apartments were white, considering completely objective economic data.
During the years 1967 through 1974, the racial composition of the project changed completely. Defendant Koffmans' Exhibit 7 demonstrates the change:
Occupancy
Spanish
Year White Black American Oriental Total
1968 1147 5 (In these years the government 1152
report forms showed
1969 908 261 no columns for these ethnic 1169
groups. Presumably they
1970 640 544 were encompassed in the 1188
"white" data)
1971 110 798 204 4 1116
1972 44 961 65 2 1072
1973 27 965 20 2 1014
1974 7 650 4 2 663
The plaintiffs and others testified that during this period the condition of the apartments greatly deteriorated. But the evidence does not demonstrate that this deterioration was due to any difference in the maintenance policies of the defendants, or that it was caused by the ethnic change in the tenancy.
Plaintiffs' Exhibit 2 sets out the amount of money spent on maintenance and repairs during each year from 1967 through 1973 and shows the amount as a percentage of the 1967 expenditure. When set next to the Department of Labor's cost of living index for these years, again using 1967 as a base, the plaintiffs' own figures tell a revealing story:
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