Thomason v. Cooper, 15915.

• Decision Date: 28 April 1958
• Docket Number: No. 15915.,15915.
• Citation: 254 F.2d 808
• Parties: Mrs. Clyde THOMASON, Appellant, v. William G. COOPER, M.D., as President of Board of Trustees, Little Rock Independent School District, et al. (Defendants), and John Aaron, a minor, and Thelma Aaron, a minor, by their mother and next friend (Mrs.) Thelma Aaron, a feme sole, et al. (Plaintiffs), Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit

254 F.2d 808 (1958)

Mrs. Clyde THOMASON, Appellant, v. William G. COOPER, M.D., as President of Board of Trustees, Little Rock Independent School District, et al. (Defendants), and John Aaron, a minor, and Thelma Aaron, a minor, by their mother and next friend (Mrs.) Thelma Aaron, a feme sole, et al. (Plaintiffs), Appellees.

No. 15915.

United States Court of Appeals Eighth Circuit.

April 28, 1958.

Griffin Smith, Little Rock, Ark. (Wood & Smith, Little Rock, Ark., were on the brief), for appellant.

Wiley A. Branton, Pine Bluff, Ark. (Thurgood Marshall, New York City, was with him on the brief), for appellees John Aaron, et al.

A. F. House, Little Rock, Ark., filed brief for appellees William G. Cooper, et al., and Little Rock Independent School Dist.

Before SANBORN, WOODROUGH and JOHNSEN, Circuit Judges.

SANBORN, Circuit Judge.

This is an appeal from an order of the District Court entered on August 30, 1957, making Mrs. Clyde Thomason a party defendant in the case of Aaron v. Cooper, 143 F.Supp. 855, and enjoining her and the class she represents from using an order of the Chancery Court of Pulaski County, Arkansas, as a means for preventing the Little Rock School Board from opening on September 3, 1957, the partially integrated high schools in the Little Rock School District in accordance with the Board's plan of integration, and from frustrating the judgment and decree of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Arkansas of August 15, 1956, in Aaron v. Cooper, approving that plan and providing for its effectuation. That judgment and decree was affirmed by this Court in 243 F.2d 361, and, in effect, became its judgment and decree. See Hagerott v. Adams, 8 Cir., 61 F.2d 35, 36, and cases cited.

The instant case is very fairly stated in appellant's brief as follows:

"This appeal is an outgrowth of proceedings originating in United States District Court at Little Rock reported in Aaron v. Cooper, 143 F. Supp. 855 and affirmed on appeal to this court in 243 F.2d 361.

"The original plaintiffs were Negro children who petitioned the district court for an injunction and declaratory judgment designed to effectuate immediate admission to Little Rock Central High School and other schools in the district. The respondent school board answered setting forth a plan for admission of Negro pupils over a period of seven years beginning at Central High School in the two upper grades.

"Upon trial the district court dismissed the petition, found that the plan of respondent was constitutional compliance, and retained jurisdiction for future orders. This decision was affirmed on appeal to this court.

"On August 27, 1957 Mrs. Clyde Thomason, the present appellant, filed a petition with Pulaski Chancery Court at Little Rock in which the Little Rock School Board was named respondent reciting the announced intention of respondent to permit enrollment of Negro pupils at Little Rock Central High School at the beginning of the school term September 3, 1957. The petition recited the adoption of certain initiated acts by the voters of Arkansas prohibiting the required enrollment of children in integrated schools. It was alleged that the imminent prospect of admission of Negro pupils to previously white schools had created a genuine danger of violence and civil commotion.

"A hearing on this petition was held August 29, 1957 and testimony was given. A decree was entered containing, among others, the following recital:

"`Plaintiff has offered testimony of considerable probative value consisting of information received through her own efforts and the testimony of Orval E. Faubus, Governor of Arkansas, tending to show that until a comparatively recent time the plan proposed by the school board for gradual integration could be well calculated to succeed without serious incident but that through certain events over which the school board had no control public sentiment has undergone a swift change and that a a probability of violence and civil commotion exists in the event the plan is carried out at this particular time.\'

and further,

"`the Chancery Court has jurisdiction of the parties of the subject matter for the sole and limited purpose of issuing whatever orders are necessary to maintain order and prevent civil commotion.\'

"The chancellor then proceeded to state:

"`The function of Pulaski Chancery Court, in view of Brown v. Board of Education 347 U.S. 483, 74 S.Ct. 686, 98 L.Ed. 873; 349 U.S. 294, 75 S.Ct. 753, 99 L.Ed. 1083 is limited to orders touching on restraint of conditions reasonably calculated to result in violence and civil commotion. The opinion of this court is not intended to impair or challenge the basic principle announced in Brown v. Board of Education because agreement or disagreement with such decision is not essential to decision here.\'

"An order was issued restraining the school board from requiring petitioner\'s child or any other white child from enrolling in and attending a school where both white and Negro children are enrolled and from enrolling Negro children in schools subject to the jurisdiction of Little Rock School Board which had been maintained exclusively for white children.

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