Westray v. Porthole, Inc.

• Decision Date: 22 May 1984
• Docket Number: R-84-434.,Civ. A. No. R-84-433
• Citation: 586 F. Supp. 834
• Parties: Henry WESTRAY, Jr., et al., Plaintiffs, v. The PORTHOLE, INC., et al., Defendants. Henry WESTRAY, Jr., et al., Plaintiffs, v. The OFFICE DISCO, INC., et al., Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Maryland

586 F. Supp. 834

Henry WESTRAY, Jr., et al., Plaintiffs, v. The PORTHOLE, INC., et al., Defendants.

Henry WESTRAY, Jr., et al., Plaintiffs, v. The OFFICE DISCO, INC., et al., Defendants.

Civ. A. Nos. R-84-433, R-84-434.

United States District Court, D. Maryland.

May 22, 1984.

Donald Jones, Singleton, Dashiell & Robinson, P.A., Baltimore, Md., for plaintiffs.

Nathan Braverman, Garbis & Schwait, P.A., Baltimore, Md., for defendants.

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER

RAMSEY, District Judge.

Currently before the Court are the defendants' motions to dismiss in the above-captioned cases. The plaintiffs have filed memoranda in opposition. The motions will be considered together because the complaints in each case are substantially similar, and the motions and memoranda are identical. The Court now rules pursuant to Local Rule 6(E) without the need for oral argument.

These actions were brought under 42 U.S.C. § 2000a et seq., 42 U.S.C. § 1981, the Thirteenth Amendment, and Article 49B, § 5 of the Maryland Annotated Code "seeking to redress deprivation of rights of blacks to equal access to public accomodation and the rights of whites whose rights of association are infringed upon by this discriminatory exclusion ...." The plaintiffs are five blacks and seven whites who complain that on numerous occasions when they visited the "Porthole" bar and "The Torch" bar the whites were permitted to enter, but the blacks were barred when they were unable to produce three, or sometimes four or five, forms of identification. The defendants in each are the incorporated owners of the bars and their licensees, and in R-83-434 also include the unnamed doormen.

In the motions to dismiss, the defendants challenge the sufficiency of each of the plaintiffs' four counts under Rule 12(b)(6) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. The grant of a motion to dismiss pursuant to Rule 12(b)(6) is appropriate only when "it appears beyond doubt that plaintiffs can prove no set of facts in support of their claims which would entitle them to relief." Conley v. Gibson, 355 U.S. 41, 45-46, 78 S.Ct. 99, 101-02, 2 L.Ed.2d 80 (1957). In ruling upon the pending motion to dismiss, this Court must view the complaint in the light most favorable to plaintiffs and resolve every doubt in his behalf. See 5 C. Wright & A. Miller, Federal Practice and Procedure § 1357 (1969). The plaintiffs' allegations are to be taken as true for the purposes of ruling upon the pending motion. See id.; see also Warth v. Seldin, 422 U.S. 490, 95 S.Ct. 2197, 45 L.Ed.2d 343 (1975); Jenkins v. McKeithen, 395 U.S. 411, 421-22, 89 S.Ct. 1843, 1848-49, 23 L.Ed.2d 404 (1969). Moreover, any inference that may reasonably be drawn or construed from plaintiffs' complaint shall be considered together with the allegations of fact. Murray v. City of Milford, 380 F.2d 468, 470 (2d Cir.1967); L.S. Good & Co. v. H. Daroff & Sons, Inc., 263 F.Supp. 635, 644 (N.D.W.Va.1967). In addition, dismissal of a civil rights action on motion should be sparingly practiced.

I. Count I: Standing of the White Plaintiffs under Section 1981 to Assert Rights of Association.

The Court dismisses Count I of the complaint with respect to the seven white plaintiffs.¹ A plaintiff who alleges interference with his "rights of association," but not with one of the rights listed in the statute does not state a claim for relief under 42 U.S.C. § 1981. See Warth v. Seldin, 422 U.S. 490, 95 S.Ct. 2197, 45 L.Ed.2d 343 (1975). Although the white plaintiffs might have enjoyed the company of their black friends who allegedly were denied admittance to the "Torch" and the "Porthole," they have endured no injury that is cognizable under this section of the civil rights statutes.

The Court first notes that although the parties have argued in terms of standing this issue can be analyzed as to whether the white plaintiffs have stated a claim for relief under 42 U.S.C. § 1981. "Whether the answer is labeled `standing' or `cause of action,' the question is whether the statute or constitution authorizes the plaintiff to sue." Currie, Misunderstanding Standing, 1981 Sup.Ct.Rev. 41, 43. The defendants do not raise traditional standing issues: they do not argue that the plaintiffs' alleged injuries are to attenuated or indirect, see Warth v. Seldin, 422 U.S. 490, 498-502, 95 S.Ct. 2197, 2204-2207, 45 L.Ed.2d 343 (1975) (discussing standing cases), that they have failed to satisfy the "case or controversy" requirement of Article III. Instead, their motion is directed at the scope of section 1981. The Court, therefore, need not address the constitutional and prudential limitations of standing other than those necessarily involved in the interpretation of this statute.

The white plaintiffs have not shown that the "statutory provision on which the claim rests properly can be understood as granting persons in the plaintiffs' position a right to judicial relief." Id. at 500, 95 S.Ct. at 2206. As discussed in Warth, "the actual or threatened injury required by Article III may exist solely by virtue of `statutes creating legal rights, the invation of which creates standing ....'" Id. In their memorandum, the plaintiffs attempt to convince the Court that what may hold true for other civil rights statutes holds true for section 1981. A civil remedy under this section, however, is separate and independent of other civil rights remedies such as section 1983, which pertains to the deprivation of rights under the color of state law, or the public accommodations provisions of 42 U.S.C. § 2000a et seq.

Although it is now clear that whites may avail themselves of section 1981, see McDonald v. Santa Fe Trail Transportation Co., 427 U.S. 273, 96 S.Ct. 2574, 49 L.Ed.2d 493 (1976); Fiedler v. Marumsco Christian School, 631 F.2d 1144, 1149-50 (4th Cir.1980), this section only protects certain enumerated rights:

All persons within the jurisdiction of the United States shall have the same right in every State and Territory to make and enforce contracts, to sue, be parties, give evidence and to full and equal benefit of all laws and proceedings for the security of persons and property as is enjoyed by white citizens, and shall be subject to like punishment, pains, penalties, taxes, licenses, and exactions of every kind, and to no other.

42 U.S.C. § 1981. As noted by the defendants, section 1981 can be divided roughly into three parts: the contracts clause, the equal benefit clause, and the like punishment clause. See Mahone v. Waddle, 564 F.2d 1018 (3d Cir.1977), cert. denied, 438 U.S. 904, 98 S.Ct. 3122, 57 L.Ed.2d 1147 (1978); Vietnamese Fishermen's Association v. Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, 518 F.Supp. 993, 1008 (S.D.Tex.1981). "To state a claim under § 1981, a plaintiff must prove a deprivation of one of the enumerated rights which, under similar circumstances, would have been accorded to a person of a different race and also that such deprivation was intentional and motivated by racial prejudice." Robertson v. Maryland State Department of Personnel, 481 F.Supp. 108, 112 (D.Md.1978).

The white plaintiffs claim only that the defendants violated their rights of association with persons who had been discriminated against. They do not allege the violation of any of their rights that are listed in section 1981.² They neither attempt to assert the rights of blacks who were discriminated against, see East v. Texas Motor Freight System, Inc. v. Rodriquez, 431 U.S. 395, 97 S.Ct. 1891, 52 L.Ed.2d 453 (1977); Chavez v. Tempe Union High School District, 565 F.2d 1087 (9th Cir. 1977); Wisconsin NOW v. Wisconsin, 417 F.Supp. 978 (W.D.Wis.1976), nor allege discrimination against themselves, see Valle v. Stengel, 176 F.2d 697 (3d Cir.1949) (whites refused admittance to swimming pool because they were accompanied by blacks). The majority of the cases relief upon by the plaintiffs are easily distinguishable from the present situation: their inability to enjoy the company of their friends in the defendants' bars is unlike the interference with a white plaintiff's contract rights because of his association with a black, see e.g., Sullivan v. Little Hunting Park, 396 U.S. 229, 90 S.Ct. 400, 24 L.Ed.2d 386 (1969); Runyon v. McCrary, 427 U.S. 160, 96 S.Ct. 2586, 49 L.Ed.2d 415 (1976); DesVergnes v. Seekonk Water District, 601 F.2d 9 (1st Cir.1979); DeMatteis v. Eastman Kodak Co., 511 F.2d 306, modified, 520 F.2d 409 (2d Cir.1975); Walker v. Pointer, 304 F.Supp. 56 (N.D.Tex.1969). Language in these cases concerning "associational rights" should not be taken out of context. In DeMatteis, supra, when the plaintiff alleged that he lost his job because of his association with blacks, he stated a claim under section 1981 because the defendant interfered with his contract rights, not his rights of association. Even if one labels such injuries as "derivative to discrimination aimed at blacks," National Organization for Women v. Sperry Rand Corp., 457 F.Supp. 1338, 1346 (D.Conn. 1978),³ section 1981 provides a claim for relief to such a white person not because of the illegal discrimination against a black person but because his own rights under the section have been impinged.⁴

The holding in Trafficante v. Metropolitan Life Insurance Co., 409 U.S. 205, 93 S.Ct. 364, 34 L.Ed.2d 415 (1972), that 42 U.S.C. § 3610(a) protects whites against injury from the loss of interracial social association in the area of equal housing opportunity — a holding upon which the plaintiffs rely heavily — is not persuasive when considering standing under section 1981.⁵ Trafficante, which was based upon the legislative history of the 1968 Civil Rights Act and the broad language of the section in question, does not control with respect to questions of standing under section 1981 and 1982. Warth v. Seldin, supra, at 512-14, 95 S.Ct. at 2212-13; see also Gladstone Realtors v. Village of Bellwood, 441 U.S. 91, 99 S.Ct. 1601, 60 L.Ed.2d 66 (1979). The sections, and the rights created under them, are...