Murrell v. The Ocean Mecca Motel

• Decision Date: 08 May 2001
• Docket Number: No. 00-2411,00-2411
• Parties: (4th Cir. 2001) MARIE MURRELL; KATRINA LITTLE; WALTER LITTLE, a minor; DARRYL LITTLE, a Minor, by their next friend and Guardian, Katrina Little, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. THE OCEAN MECCA MOTEL, INCORPORATED, Defendant-Appellee. Argued:
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fourth Circuit

Page 253

262 F.3d 253 (4th Cir. 2001)

MARIE MURRELL; KATRINA LITTLE; WALTER LITTLE, a minor; DARRYL LITTLE, a Minor, by their next friend and Guardian, Katrina Little, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. THE OCEAN MECCA MOTEL, INCORPORATED, Defendant-Appellee.

No. 00-2411

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

Argued: May 8, 2001

Decided: August 7, 2001

Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Maryland, at Baltimore. Frederic N. Smalkin, District Judge.

(CA-00-428-S)

COUNSEL ARGUED: James Patrick Gillece, Jr., MCGUIRE WOODS, L.L.P., Baltimore, Maryland, for Appellants. Lisa L. Walker, WHITEFORD, TAYLOR & PRESTON, L.L.P., Baltimore, Maryland, for Appellee. ON BRIEF: Elena D. Marcuss, MCGUIRE WOODS, L.L.P., Baltimore, Maryland, for Appellants. Edward M. Buxbaum, WHITEFORD, TAYLOR & PRESTON, L.L.P., Baltimore, Maryland, for Appellee.

Before MICHAEL and GREGORY, Circuit Judges, and Arthur L. ALARCON, Senior Circuit Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, sitting by designation.

Reversed and remanded by published opinion. Judge Michael wrote the opinion, in which Judge Gregory and Senior Judge Alarcon joined.

OPINION

MICHAEL, Circuit Judge:

Marie Murrell, who is white, checked into the Ocean Mecca Motel while the rest of her party remained in the car. Within minutes the motel discovered that the other members of Murrell's party were African American, and the entire party was promptly evicted without explanation. Murrell and the members of her party sued the motel under 42 U.S.C. S 1981(a), alleging that the motel interfered with their right to contract on account of their race. The district court granted the motel's motion for summary judgment. We reverse because the plaintiffs have established a prima facie case and have proffered sufficient evidence for a rational jury to conclude that the motel's stated reason for their eviction is pretext for discrimination.

I.

Because the plaintiffs were the nonmovants in the summary judgment proceedings, we construe the facts in the light most favorable to them, drawing all justifiable inferences in their favor. See Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 255 (1996). On July 30, 1999, Marie Murrell took her two young grandsons (ages seven and five) and their mother, Katrina Little, on a weekend trip to the beach in Ocean City, Maryland. Murrell is white, and the Littles are African American. The party made the trip from the Littles' apartment near Washington, D.C., to Ocean City, arriving late on Friday afternoon. Murrell and Little had not reserved a room, and they were unable to find accommodations at the first three motels they tried. Finally, the party stopped at the Ocean Mecca Motel. Murrell went into the office to inquire about a room while the Littles remained in the car. Two motel employees, William Charrier (the desk clerk) and Lacey Murphy, were in the office at the time. Murrell told Charrier that she needed a room for four, two adults and two children, and Charrier said that rooms were available. Charrier assigned Murrell a room on the south side of the motel for two nights and Murrell paid the bill in advance with $544 in cash. Murrell then left the office and drove her party to a parking spot near the assigned room. As soon as the Murrell party deposited its bags in the room, the children headed for the outdoor pool, followed by Murrell, their grandmother. Little, who stayed behind to fill the ice bucket, called the front desk for the location of the ice machine. Charrier, who had taken Little's call, happened to be looking out the office window as Little left the room and headed to the ice machine. Upon seeing Little, Charrier realized for the first time that the Murrell party was interracial.

Within about five minutes Little joined the rest of her party at the motel's pool. Immediately thereafter, Charrier appeared at the pool and confronted Murrell and Little. According to Murrell and Little, Charrier demanded in a loud, stern voice that they leave the motel immediately. When Murrell asked him why they had to leave, Charrier repeated, "you'll have to leave right now." Little then asked Charrier, "what did we do?" Instead of answering Little's question, Charrier said, "I want you off my premises now." Murrell and Little say that despite their repeated requests, they were not told why they were being thrown out of the motel.

Charrier presents a different version of the events. According to Charrier, Lacey Murphy, the other motel employee on duty, walked out to the pool to make a routine check. When she returned to the office, Murphy told Charrier that there appeared to be "too many people" in Murrell's room. (The motel claims that its south-side rooms, where Murrell was assigned, have a four-person limit.) Charrier immediately went out to the pool to confront Murrell and Little. He claims that when he inquired about the number in her party, Murrell admitted that there were five. According to Charrier, he then told Murrell that he did not "have a room big enough" for five people. Charrier says that Little pointed out that one in their party was "only a baby," but Charrier replied, "all children count." Charrier contends that he was enforcing the motel's policy that no more than four guests were allowed to occupy a south-side room.

We pause to mention that Murrell and Little proffered evidence to contradict the motel's assertion that there was a fifth person (a baby) in the Murrell party and that the motel had a four-person limit for south-side rooms. First, although Little did have a daughter who was six months old at the time, the baby was at home with her father while Murrell, Little, and the two boys went to Ocean City for the weekend. This was confirmed in testimony by Murrell, Little, the two boys, and the baby's father. The family's testimony is also supported by an admission by Charrier, who inspected the Murrell party's room right before the party removed its belongings. Charrier has a clear recollection of what he saw: luggage on the floor and the bed, with a few articles of clothing removed. Charrier, as he recalls, did not see any articles for the care or entertainment of a baby, such as diapers, diaper bags, formula, bottles, or baby toys. Second, Murrell and Little proffered evidence to refute the motel's claim that the Murrell party was evicted because its room had a four-person limit. The motel's brochure and web site stated that all rooms had between a fiveand seven-person limit. There was no mention of any room with a fourperson limit. Further, on every other occasion when guests exceeded the room limit, they were given the option of renting a second room or a larger room. Although a second room was available when the Murrell party was evicted, Charrier did not offer the party another room.

We return to the events occurring at the time the Murrell party was being evicted. After Charrier told Murrell that her party would have to leave the motel, Murrell and her family retrieved their belongings from the room, and Murrell went to the front desk to get her money back. When Charrier handed her the cash, he said that he was withholding fifty dollars for the cost of cleaning the room. Murrell demanded a full refund, pointing out that her party had been in the room for less than ten minutes. Charrier argued with Murrell, but he eventually refunded the entire amount. Before she left the office, Murrell told Murphy, the other motel employee, that she was being asked to leave because of race discrimination. Murphy did not respond. As Murrell headed to her car, she met a party of two, an African American man and a white man, coming into the motel. Murrell said to the men, "I'm with black people and they're throwing me out." The two men mentioned Murrell's race discrimination complaint when they went into the motel office. Murphy, who was at the desk, told the men that Murrell had been evicted because she had too many persons in her room. The men rented a room without difficulty.

Murrell, Little, and Little on behalf of her two minor sons sued the motel under 42 U.S.C. S 1981(a), alleging that the motel had unlawfully interfered with their right to contract on account of their race. The district court granted the motel's motion for summary judgment, concluding that: "where a group of individuals of different races is evicted all of a piece, there is insufficient circumstantial evidence to carry their individual claims to trial, absent at least some other evidence, such as a history of discrimination." The plaintiffs now appeal, and we review the district court's grant of summary judgment de novo. See Higgins v. E.I. DuPont de Nemours & Co., 863 F.2d 1162, 1167 (4th Cir. 1988).

II.

Section 1981 outlaws race discrimination in the making and enforcement of private contracts. The statute provides that "[a]ll persons . . . shall have the same right . . . to make and enforce contracts . . . as is enjoyed by white citizens." 42 U.S.C.S 1981(a). This right extends, for example, to "the making, performance, modification, and termination of contracts, and the enjoyment of all benefits, privileges, terms, and conditions of the contractual relationship." Id. S 1981(b). Section 1981 only proscribes purposeful discrimination, see Gen. Bldg. Contractors Ass'n v. Pennsylvania, 458 U.S. 375, 391 (1982), and applies to "an innkeeper's discriminatory eviction of a guest on the basis of race," Evans v. Holiday Inns, Inc., 951 F. Supp. 85, 88 (D. Md. 1997).

In this case the plaintiffs do not point to any direct evidence of discrimination. As a result, the question is whether the plaintiffs have proffered circumstantial evidence of discrimination sufficient to satisfy the familiar McDonnell Douglas framework for proof. See McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green, 411 U.S. 792 (1973); see also Patterson v. McLean Credit Union, 491 U.S. 164, 186 (1989); Hawkins v. Pepsico, Inc., 203 F.3d 274, 278 (...