Taylor v. Dearborn Tp.
| Decision Date | 05 April 1963 |
| Docket Number | No. 124,124 |
| Parties | Thomasina TAYLOR, Lloyd Holt, Lillie Ammons and Aaron Neal, Plaintiffs and Appellants, v. TOWNSHIP OF DEARBORN, a public corporation, the Village of Inkster, a Home Rule Village, John Canfield, Supervisor of the Township of Dearborn, the Charter Commission of the proposed City of Dearborn Heights, Joseph McCarthy, Chairman of the Charter Commission of the proposed City of Dearborn Heights, and George E. Wicklund, Secretary, Felexa Thirwell, Wayne County Board of Supervisors, Edgar M. Branigin, Wayne County Clerk, Wayne County Board of Canvassers, Freda K. DePlanche, Clerk of the Village of Inkster, and the Council of the Village of Inkster, Defendants and Appellees. |
| Court | Michigan Supreme Court |
Richard D. Dunn, Inkster, (Stanley E. Beattie, Detroit, of counsel), for Dearborn Tp. and others.
Albert H. Schlenker, Jr., Inkster, for defendant-appellee Village of Inkster.
Before the Entire Bench.
BLACK, Justice (for affirmance and remand with special instructions).
This case was conceived of Gomillion v. Lightfoot, 364 U.S. 339, 81 S.Ct. 125, 5 L.Ed.2d 110, decided November 14, 1960. Prior to submission (October 18-19, 1960) of Gomillion our own case of Village of Inkster v. Wayne County Supervisors, 363 Mich. 165, 108 N.W.2d 822 was submitted for decision. The Inkster Case determined over objection of the village that the proceedings to incorporate Wayne county's new city of Dearborn Heights were statutorily valid. Now the village joins these class-acting plaintiffs in assailing the same proceedings as violative of rights protected by the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments. All plaintiffs rely upon the gomillion Case and its ban against the singling out by State action of readily isolated segments of racial minorities for discriminatory treatment.
Plaintiffs' bill was filed shortly after handing down of the mentioned Inkster decision. It gathers its whole thrust and force in complete paragraph 21:
The trial chancellor, following an extended testimonial hearing of the merits, concluded that plaintiffs had failed to sustain the foregoing allegation and found that the legal need for contiguity of an incorporated city was the controlling reason for inclusion, by the statutory petitioners and the electors, of the rectangular 'corridor' (see map, 363 Mich. at 167, 108 N.W.2d at 823) as a part of the new city of Dearborn Heights. He found further, and accordingly ruled, that the incorporation of such new city violated no right asserted by plaintiffs.
Bray v. Stewart, 239 Mich. 340, 214 N.W. 193, upheld statutory validity of the proceedings by which Inkster village was incorporated. That was in 1927, following incorporation of the present city of Dearborn. The incorporation of Dearborn city and of Inkster village--the city east and the village west of Gulley road (see map)--changed the legal status of great portions of Dearborn township. The unincorporated remainder of the township was left in 2 separated segments, one north and one south of Dearborn and Inkster. However, the incorporation of the village differed from that of Dearborn city in that the village territory remained a part of the township. 1 It is this combined village-township status, of residence and franchise, which plaintiffs seek to By delicate overture the controversy should be stripped of all digressive and impertinently heated veneer lest the Court enter--unnecessarily this time--another thorny and trackless bramblebush of politics. Here are the standout specifics of the case, with respect to which there can be little if any serious disagreement:
preserve as against city incorporation of the 2 segments with the 'corridor'; the corridor by which the segments were statutorily joined.
First: If the separated segments were to be incorporated at all, as one city, it was legally, practically and politically necessary that the incorporating petitioners and electors include within the corporate limits some portion of Inkster village. Why necessary? Because the common law definitely requires contiguity of the territory of a city 2 and definitely permits (as held in the cited Inkster Case) incorporation of a new city partly from unincorporated territory and partly from incorporated village territory. And previous voting experiences shown in the record, all dismal of result, suggested that in all probability city status of the segments was politically attainable only by the means shown in the cited Inkster Case.
Second: The petitioners and electors chose to proceed as thus permitted, taking into the new city the narrowest and most feasible part of the village, the better as their proofs suggest and the trial chancellor found to leave the whole village (including its comparably greater area of exclusive white residence) 3 substantially intact.
Third: There is no suggestion that the 'impenetrable wall,' of which plaintiffs complain, exists with respect to the southerly boundary of the north segment which adjoins the village, or the north boundary of the south segment which borders the village on the south. Further, plaintiffs do not object to incorporation, separately as 2 distinct cities, of the north and south segments. The taking of the corridor thus becomes the real target of their charge. In such connection it is significant that there is no area of Negro residence at all east or west of that part of the corridor which is north of Michigan avenue.
The present issue cannot be one of motive on the part of the incorporations of and campaigners for the new city. Such an issue is not currently justiciable. See Detroit United Railway v. City of Detroit, 255 U.S. 171, 41 S.Ct. 285, 65 L.Ed. 570; Deerfield Park District v. Progress Development Corp., 22 Ill.2d 132, 174 N.E.2d 850 (); 26 Ill.2d 296, 186 N.E.2d 360 (). 4 The motives of such incorporators and campaigners are important only as a possible link with racially discriminatory events which may, but as yet have not, occurred within the new city by action of or with tacit consent of the city fathers. This is not to suggest that plaintiffs have proved the invidious motive they allege. It is to say only that the issue is not as yet before us.
The real question is whether the electors (see tabulation of vote by areas, 363 Mich. at 172, 108 N.W.2d at 825) brought about a result which became and now is a violation of the rights of plaintiffs under the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments. The answer depends in part on the persuasiveness of what is offered as proof supporting quoted paragraph 21 of the bill, and partly upon validity of plaintiffs' contention Turning now to the descriptive and largely undisputed facts. Exhibit 2 is a large map of the entire area of Inkster village and of the incorporated new city. It portrays with care and specificity the areas and locations of Negro and white residence in Inkster village and in the incorporated corporated new city, all taken from the 1960 census. The situation thus portrayed may be summarized as follows:
that their combined right of franchise (that of resident electors of the incorporated and unincorporated parts of Dearborn township as same stood prior to the incorporating vote of June 20, 1960) was and is a status the courts of Michigan must maintain by force of Gomillions's rule.
(a) The village and new city consist almost entirely of areas of white residence excepting only as to the southerly portion of the village, referring to that part which lief south of Michigan avenue and west of Inkster's Bayhan street. Bayhan parallels the west line of the corridor and is distant some 1750 feet westerly therefrom. East of Bayhan and west of the corridor are a few sporadic homes of Negro residence. These are all south of Yale avenue, which in turn is about 1750 feet south of Michigan avenue. In the new city proper, but 2 small places are disignated 'Non-Negro, Non-White.' The rest of the city is all white, excepting only that undisputed testimony shows that 9 Negroes reside in the north segment.
(b) The heaviest areas of Negro residence are in the southwest quadrant of the village, and in the westerly half of the southeast quadrant thereof west of Bayhan. They are separated from the corridor by what may be termed another parallel corridor, Michigan avenue and Bayhan being the north and west boundaries thereof and Beech-Daly being the east boundary. The corporate status of this last corridor was unchanged by the new incorporation.
Looking with care at Exhibit 2, it is manifest that the petitioners for incorporation are criticized by plaintiffs for not having done what purposeful segregators would have prepared for elective approval, that is, a petition for incorporation which--in addition to the areas that were incorporated--would have taken in all of the huge areas of white residence of Inkster lying north of Michigan avenue. It is equally manifest that the petitioners for incorporation undertook to take into the new city as little as possible of the village. Thus they are damned for taking too little when in all probability they would have been denounced for taking too much.
In connection with the conclusions thus drawn the trial chancellor's question to plaintiffs' counsel and the latter's reply disclose with significance that plaintiffs' real contention is that the west boundary of the corridor could not have been...
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