JOSIAH
BAYLIES, IMPLEADED, ETC., v. JOSEPHINE M. CURRY.
30
GARY, J. This is an action on the case under the act of June 10, 1885, "Civil
Rights," by the appellee, a colored woman, for
being refused, for the reason that she is a colored woman, the full and equal
enjoyment of the accommodations, [**8] etc., of a theatre conducted
by appellant. A motion in arrest of judgment on the ground that the action
ought to have been debt and not case being denied, that denial is now assigned
as error.
The form of the action is right. The case cited by appellant, Mount v. Hunter,
58
The statute under which this action is [**9]
brought declares the right to "full and equal enjoyment of the
accommodations," etc., and enacts that for denying them the person so
doing "shall, for every such offense, forfeit and pay a sum not less than
twenty-five dollars nor more than five hundred dollars, to the person aggrieved
thereby, to be recovered in any court [*110] of competent
jurisdiction," without prescribing the form of action.
"Whenever a statute prohibits an injury to an individual, or enacts that
he shall recover a penalty or damages for such injury, though the statute be silent as to the form of the remedy, this action (case)
may be supported."
Here the forfeiture to the person aggrieved is not certain in amount, and the
range of limits prescribed as the measure of recovery give a minimum below
which the caprice, and beyond which the passion, of a jury shall not fix
damages, in their nature not susceptible of mathematical adjustment.
By the evidence, the complaint of the appellee that
the appellant refused her the full and equal enjoyment of the accommodations of
[**10] his theatre, solely because of her color, is fully
sustained, and the only questions remaining for this court to pass upon arise
upon the refusal of the court to admit evidence offered as to the reasons of
the policy of the house to keep colored people separate from the white people,
set off by themselves, and upon instructions refused, presenting the same
question in part.
The fact that such was the policy had been proved by the appellee,
and the appellant offered, but was not permitted to show, that it was a rule of
the house that colored people should have one row of seats to themselves in
each part of the house, or as many rows as the tickets which they bought would
call for, because the house was in a "hard quarter" of the city, and
therefore it was necessary for the theatre to make stringent rules, and be
extremely cautious and careful, not only with reference to the colored, but
with reference to the white people, both as to who got into the theatre, and as
to where they sat, and next to whom they sat, to avoid collisions, both on
account of race prejudice, if it existed, and on account of other more
substantial reasons. That in the immediate neighborhood were quartered some [**11] of the worst [*111]
characters of the city, some of whom were colored. That there had been
disturbances in the theatre, some of which were caused by colored people. That the appellant was not actuated by any question of color of
skin. That colored persons were given the same advantages for the same
price in all parts of the theatre that white persons had, with the exception
only that the colored persons were assigned to a particular row of seats. This
exception is contrary to the statute. In Railroad Co. v.
Brown, 17 Wall. 445, 21 L. Ed. 675 (a colored woman being the
plaintiff), the charter by Congress of the company provided "that no
person shall be excluded from the cars on account of color." She bought a
ticket from
In going either way the colored car was in front, so that "colored"
going [**12] south, was "white" coming north, as the cars
themselves were not, but only the use of them, reversed. Here was certainly a
case of "equal" accommodations.
It was only necessary for a colored person who wished to ride in the
"white" car to imagine himself or herself going the other way from
that he or she intended, and the car would then be "white." The
plaintiff, against the direction of the servant of the company, who told her to
get into the front car, persisted in going into the other, and he put her out.
She recovered $ 1,500, and Judge Davis, for the Supreme Court, said that the
regulation of the company assigning colored persons to one, and excluding them
from another car, was "an ingenious attempt to evade a compliance with the
obvious meaning of the requirement. It is true that the words, taken literally,
might bear the interpretation put upon them by the plaintiff in error, but evidently
Congress did not use them in any such limited sense. * * * It told this
company, in substance, that it could extend its road within the district, as
desired, but that this discrimination must cease, and the colored
[*112] and white race, in the use of the cars, be placed on
an equality. [**13] "
The argument of appellant that the operation of the rule of this theatre
"was absolutely 'equal' because while the negroes were excluded from
sitting in the same row with white persons, the white persons were thereby
excluded from sitting in the same row with negroes, would not, perhaps, have
been applicable in the construction of the charter of the road in that case,
but if it is a good one, it affords an easy method of evading the law in many
of the cases provided for by it. It is the custom, so general that the court
can not affect ignorance of it, that one buying tickets, with seats reserved,
to any public amusement, has his choice of any unsold for which he is willing
to pay the price. No white man is ever denied that choice because he is white.
If so denied because he is colored, "full and equal enjoyment" is
denied. And it is not for the residents of any part of the city, however
disreputable they may be, to nullify the law. If the appellant caters for such
a class, he must abide the consequences of such lawlessness as he can not, with
or without police assistance, restrain.
These views dispose of all the justifications or excuses urged by appellant for
taking any notice [**14] of the complexion
of the appellee, and the judgment is affirmed.
Judgment affirmed.