Kramer v. UNION FREE SCHOOL DISTRICT# 15

• Decision Date: 10 May 1966
• Docket Number: No. 66-C-76.,66-C-76.
• Citation: 259 F. Supp. 164
• Parties: Morris H. KRAMER, Plaintiff, v. UNION FREE SCHOOL DISTRICT #15, Raymond S. Baron, Jesse Cesiari, Bardon Deixel, Ralph J. Edsel, J. Gibson Fruin, Elliot A. Norwalk and Harold S. Rosenfeld, Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Eastern District of New York

259 F. Supp. 164

Morris H. KRAMER, Plaintiff, v. UNION FREE SCHOOL DISTRICT #15, Raymond S. Baron, Jesse Cesiari, Bardon Deixel, Ralph J. Edsel, J. Gibson Fruin, Elliot A. Norwalk and Harold S. Rosenfeld, Defendants.

No. 66-C-76.

United States District Court E. D. New York.

May 10, 1966.

Murray A. Miller, New York City, for plaintiff.

Louis J. Lefkowitz, Atty. Gen. of New York, by Daniel M. Cohen, Asst. Atty. Gen., of New York, Charles A. Brind, Jr., Albany, N. Y., for defendants; John P. Jehu, Albany, N. Y., of counsel.

ZAVATT, Chief Judge.

MEMORANDUM

Plaintiff, in this action, seeks an order pursuant to 28 U.S.C. §§ 2281 and 2284 convoking a three-judge constitutional court for the purpose of determining that New York Educational Law McKinneys' Consol.Laws, c. 16, § 2012 is unconstitutional and restraining defendants from enforcing that section in the forthcoming election in Union Free School District No. 15. Plaintiff further requests that a three-judge court order defendants to submit a plan whereby plaintiff will be permitted to register to vote in all future school board elections in said District No. 15. Defendants, on the other hand, move to dismiss the action on the grounds that this court lacks jurisdiction over the subject matter and that the complaint fails to state a claim upon which relief may be granted. There is neither diversity of citizenship nor an amount of money in controversy. If this court has jurisdiction, it can only lie under 28 U.S.C. § 1343 which provides in part:

"The district courts shall have original jurisdiction of any civil action authorized by law¹ to be commenced by any person:

* * * * * *

(3) To redress the deprivation, under color of any State law, statute, ordinance, regulation, custom or usage, of any right, privilege or immunity secured by the Constitution of the United States or by any Act of Congress providing for equal rights of citizens or of all persons within the jurisdiction of the United States * * *."

Title 2 of New York's Education Law, provides for the organization of school districts within the State. Article 41 thereof provides for district meetings. Plaintiff, herein, challenges the constitutionality of the statutory qualifications for voters at district meetings embodied in § 2012 thereof, which provides:

"§ 2012. Qualifications of voters at district meetings

A person shall be entitled to vote at any school meeting for the election of school district officers, and upon all other matters which may be brought before such meeting, who is: 1. A citizen of the United States.

2. Twenty-one years of age.

3. A resident within the district for a period of thirty days next preceding the meeting at which he offers to vote; and who in addition thereto possesses one of the following three qualifications:

a. Owns or is the spouse of an owner, leases, hires, or is in the possession under a contract of purchase of, real property in such district liable to taxation for school purposes, but the occupation of real property by a person as lodger or boarder shall not entitle such person to vote, or

b. Is the parent of a child of school age, provided such a child shall have attended the district school in the district in which the meeting is held for a period of at least eight weeks during the year preceding such school meeting, or

c. Not being the parent, has permanently residing with him a child of school age who shall have attended the district school for a period of at least eight weeks during the year preceding such meeting.

No person shall be deemed to be ineligible to vote at any such meeting, by reason of sex, who has the other qualifications required by this section."

As amended L.1956, c. 497, eff. April 9, 1956. Plaintiff, an unmarried adult, residing in the district with his rent-paying parents, is not permitted to register to vote under this statute. He claims that the statute violates the "XIV Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, in that it denies the Plaintiff and others similarly situated their privilege, as Citizens of the United States, of their right to vote."

A. Convening a three-judge district court

28 U.S.C. § 2281 provides:

"§ 2281. Injunction against enforcement of State statute; three-judge court required

An interlocutory or permanent injunction restraining the enforcement, operation or execution of any State statute by restraining the action of any officer of such State in the enforcement or execution of such statute or of an order made by an administrative board or commission acting under State statutes, shall not be granted by any district court or judge thereof upon the ground of the unconstitutionality of such statute unless the application therefor is heard and determined by a district court of three judges under section 2284 of this title."

The principles governing a district judge on a motion to convene such a court are set out in Ex parte Poresky, 290 U.S. 30, 31-32, 54 S.Ct. 3, 4-5, 78 L.Ed. 1, 2 (1933):

"* * * If the court is warranted in taking jurisdiction and the case falls within § 2281, a single judge is not authorized to dismiss the complaint on the merits, whatever his opinion of the merits might be. * * * The provision requiring the presence of a court of three judges necessarily assumes that the District Court has jurisdiction. In the absence of diversity of citizenship, it is essential to jurisdiction that a substantial federal question should be presented. `A substantial claim of unconstitutionality is necessary for the application of § 2281.' * * * That provision does not require three judges to pass upon this initial question of jurisdiction.

The existence of a substantial question of constitutionality must be determined by the allegations of the bill of complaint. * * * The question may be plainly unsubstantial, either because it is `obviously without merit' or because `its unsoundness so clearly results from the previous decisions of this court as to foreclose the subject and leave no room for the inference that the question sought to be raised can be the subject of controversy.' * * *

While it is appropriate that a single District Judge to whom application is made for an interlocutory injunction restraining the enforcement of a state statute should carefully scrutinize the bill of complaint to ascertain whether a substantial question is presented,

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