Williams v. Kleppe

• Decision Date: 30 July 1976
• Docket Number: No. 75-1332,75-1332
• Citation: 539 F.2d 803
• Parties: Stephen WILLIAMS et al., Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. Thomas KLEPPE et al., Defendants-Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — First Circuit

Page 803

539 F.2d 803

Stephen WILLIAMS et al., Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. Thomas KLEPPE et al., Defendants-Appellees.

No. 75-1332.

United States Court of Appeals, First Circuit.

Argued April 7, 1976.

Decided July 30, 1976.

Alan Dershowitz, Cambridge, Mass., with whom Jeanne Baker, Rosenberg & Baker, and John Reinstein, Cambridge, Mass., were on brief, for appellants.

James J. O'Leary, Asst. U. S. Atty., Washington, D. C., with whom James N. Gabriel, U. S. Atty. and William E. Hughes, Asst. U. S. Atty., Boston, Mass., were on brief, for Thomas Kleppe, et al., appellees.

Ansel B. Chaplin, Boston, Mass., with whom Roger M. Barzun, Paul C. Irwin, and Chaplin, Barzun & Casner, Boston, Mass., were on brief, for Truro Neighborhood Ass'n, appellee.

Before COFFIN, Chief Judge, McENTEE and CAMPBELL, Circuit Judges.

COFFIN, Chief Judge.

Plaintiff-appellants, who wish to enjoy nude bathing at one of the more remote beaches of the Cape Cod Seashore National Park (Seashore), sought a declaration of unconstitutionality of the regulation of the National Park Service imposing a total ban on such activity. Officials of the Department of the Interior and the Park Service are defendants and an association of owners of residences within the Seashore, the Truro Neighborhood Association, was allowed to intervene. ¹

The site of this controversy is a beach known as Brush Hollow on the Atlantic shore of Cape Code, a three mile expanse between two conventionally operated beaches. For some forty or fifty years this spot, hidden behind some of the highest sand dunes on the Cape, had been used by individuals, couples, and small groups for skinny dipping. Apparently neither the town of Truro, in which Brush Hollow was located, nor the Commonwealth of Massachusetts sought to suppress this bucolic activity. Nor, after the creation of the Seashore in 1959, did the National Park Service.

By the 1970s the press of population was increasingly felt. In 1972 Brush Hollow attracted as many as 150 nude bathers in a day. The existence of the only "free beach" on the east coast became a matter for regional and national news coverage. In the summer of 1974 the average daily count of nude bathers was over 300, on weekends rising to 600, and attaining a peak of over 1200 on one day in August.

As the popularity of Brush Hollow built up, so did the concern of the owners of residential property within the Seashore and near points of access to the beach. Their complaints, see infra, stimulated the Park Service to appraise the alternatives open to it. Significant factors in the study of the Seashore Advisory Commission were the primary emphasis on conservation reflected in the classification of Brush Hollow as a non-managed area and the statutory mandate to consider the interests of owners of private property within the boundaries of the Seashore. ² Pursuant to the Congressional mandate that "the seashore shall be permanently preserved in its present state", 16 U.S.C. § 459b-6(b)(1), the Park Service had set aside all Seashore land for conservation except some trails, picnic areas, visitor centers, and six developed beaches. ³ Brush Hollow was classified as a Class III area, with primary emphasis on conservation, and, while some recreational use was contemplated, the beach was equipped with no organized facilities or services.

The Park Service, after considering other alternatives, including the allowance of nude bathing at other beaches, equipping Brush Hollow as a managed beach, and limiting access to Brush Hollow consistent with its Class III status, adopted the regulation at issue, 36 C.F.R. § 7.67(g), which bars public nude bathing within the Seashore to all persons over ten years of age. Suit was brought and hearing was had at which affidavits were accepted and evidence taken. The district court, although finding that "nude bathing at Brush Hollow is entitled to some constitutional protection", held that the regulation withstood constitutional challenge, the conditions prompting the regulation outweighing the right at issue. Appellants, standing on the finding of some constitutional interest, claim that no "outweighing" interest was established and that lesser restrictive alternatives were available.

The experiences of the summer of 1974 included, in addition to the accession of far greater numbers of nude bathers than ever before, demonstrable damage to the environment, ⁴ increasing attendance despite attempts of enforcement, ⁵ record traffic congestion, ⁶ litter, ⁷ and trespassing. ⁸ On the other hand, appellants make the points that no attempt was made to enforce littering or trespass regulations; parking restrictions were feebly enforced; no attempt was made to limit access to beaches via stickers; no regulations forbad walking on dunes and vegetation; and signs announcing a nude beach were not utilized. Appellants further argue that it would cost the Park Service no more to limit access than to impose a total ban on nude bathing, and that, as yet, no one knows precisely where the danger point of environmental degradation is reached.

Appellants' attack on the total ban imposed by Seashore officials on nude bathing is not premised on procedural irregularities in its promulgation sufficient to deprive bathers of procedural due process. Rather, it is founded on the theory that they and their predecessors at Brush Hollow beach have, through their long tolerated practice of nude bathing, acquired a substantively protected constitutional right. ⁹ To quote from their brief, "(W)here . . . as at Brush Hollow, tradition, custom and usage have given rise to the reasonable expectation that one may engage in a harmless, healthful activity outside the sight of those who might be offended without fear of harassment, arrest and prosecution, there exists a right to nudity." Plaintiffs do not claim that the right entitles them to be free from any restraint. They seek "only the right to continue their practice in numbers consonant with environmental needs somewhere within the Seashore." (Emphasis in brief.) They claim that this right, though acquired through prescription, is one of the smaller liberties entitled to substantive constitutional protection. Government encroachment is only authorized if the government interest involved is important and cannot be served by more selective or less restrictive measures.

In Meyer v. Nebraska, 262 U.S. 390, 399, 43 S.Ct. 625, 626, 67 L.Ed. 1042 (1923), the Court attempted a partial catalogue of the liberties encompassed by the Fourteenth Amendment. ¹⁰ Over time, as appellants note, the Court has afforded a high degree of protection to a number of liberties not specifically enumerated in the Constitution. See, e. g., Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479, 85 S.Ct. 1678, 14 L.Ed.2d 510 (1965); Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113, 93 S.Ct. 705, 35 L.Ed.2d 147 (1973). And we have joined the lists of the courts which have recognized as a protectible, if minor interest, one's desire to wear his hair as he chooses an individual right concerning one's own...