places of public accommodation

The appellant, Heart of Atlanta Motel, Inc., owns and operates a 216-room motel located on Courtland Street in Atlanta, Georgia, two blocks from downtown Peachtree Street. The motel is readily accessible to interstate highways 75 and 85 and state highways 23 and 41. It solicits patronage from outside Georgia through national advertising media, maintains over 50 billboards and highway signs, accepts convention trade from outside the state, and approximately 75 percent of its registered guests are from out of state. The motel provides lodging to transient guests along with restaurant facilities and prior to the Act had followed a practice of refusing to rent rooms to Negroes. The United States filed suit against the appellant in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia under Sections 206(a) and 206(b) of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The complaint alleged that the appellant was operating a motel in which it refused to accept Negro guests solely because of their race. The appellant offered no evidence at trial, submitting the case on the pleadings, admissions, and stipulation of facts, though the appellees proved the refusal to accept Negro transients after passage of the Act. The District Court granted the government's motion for summary judgment and issued a permanent injunction restraining the appellant from continuing its discriminatory practices, citing 231 F. Supp. 393. The case reached the Supreme Court on direct appeal under 28 U.S.C. § 1252. The motel is located at the intersection of two major interstate highways and advertises in national magazines and on billboards directed at interstate travelers. Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 on July 2, 1964, following extensive hearings before Senate and House committees on bills including S. 1732 and H.R. 7152. The Act's Title II, set forth in 42 U.S.C. § 2000a et seq., provides that all persons shall be entitled to the full and equal enjoyment of goods, services, facilities, privileges, advantages, and accommodations of any place of public accommodation without discrimination on the ground of race, color, religion, or national origin. The appellant admitted that 75 percent of its guests come from out of state. The motel's policy of refusing to rent rooms to Negroes has the effect of impeding interstate travel by Negro citizens.

In 1992 Colorado voters approved Amendment 2 to the state constitution by a 53.4 percent to 46.6 percent margin. The amendment responded to ordinances enacted in Aspen, Boulder, and Denver that prohibited discrimination based on sexual orientation in housing, employment, education, public accommodations, health and welfare services, and other transactions. Amendment 2 provided that neither the state nor any of its agencies, political subdivisions, or municipalities could enact, adopt, or enforce any statute, regulation, ordinance, or policy whereby homosexual, lesbian, or bisexual orientation, conduct, practices, or relationships would constitute or entitle any person to minority status, quota preferences, protected status, or a claim of discrimination. The amendment immediately repealed existing municipal ordinances in Aspen, Boulder, and Denver and barred all future legislative, executive, or judicial action at any level of state or local government that would protect persons based on those characteristics. It also nullified a statewide executive order prohibiting employment discrimination against state employees on the basis of sexual orientation and specific antidiscrimination policies at state colleges. Homosexual and bisexual individuals together with the three affected municipalities filed suit in Colorado state court against Governor Roy Romer, the Attorney General, and the State of Colorado. The plaintiffs asserted that Amendment 2 violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. The trial court granted a preliminary injunction against enforcement. The Colorado Supreme Court affirmed the injunction and remanded for further proceedings in Evans v. Romer, 854 P.2d 1270 (1993). On remand the trial court found that Amendment 2 failed strict scrutiny, permanently enjoined its enforcement, and entered final judgment for the plaintiffs. The Colorado Supreme Court affirmed that judgment in Evans v. Romer, 882 P.2d 1335 (1994). The United States Supreme Court granted certiorari in 1995 and heard argument on October 10, 1995.

Hugo Tunkl brought this action to recover damages for personal injuries alleged to have resulted from the negligence of two physicians in the employ of the University of California Los Angeles Medical Center. The hospital was operated and maintained by the Regents of the University of California as a nonprofit charitable institution. Mr. Tunkl died after suit was brought, and his surviving wife, as executrix, was substituted as plaintiff. The University of California at Los Angeles Medical Center admitted Tunkl as a patient on June 11, 1956. The Regents maintain the hospital for the primary purpose of aiding and developing a program of research and education in the field of medicine. Patients are selected and admitted if the study and treatment of their condition would tend to achieve these purposes. Upon his entry to the hospital, Tunkl signed a document setting forth the “Conditions of Admission.” The crucial condition number six reads as follows: “Release: The hospital is a nonprofit, charitable institution. In consideration of the hospital and allied services to be rendered and the rates charged therefor, the patient or his legal representative agrees to and hereby releases The Regents of the University of California, and the hospital from any and all liability for the negligent or wrongful acts or omissions of its employees, if the hospital has used due care in selecting its employees.” Plaintiff stipulated that the hospital had selected its employees with due care. The trial court ordered that the issue of the validity of the exculpatory clause be first submitted to the jury and that, if the jury found that the provision did not bind plaintiff, a second jury try the issue of alleged malpractice. When, on the preliminary issue, the jury returned a verdict sustaining the validity of the executed release, the court entered judgment in favor of the Regents. Plaintiff appeals from the judgment.

In 1970, Teleprompter Manhattan CATV Corp. obtained a permit from New York City to operate a cable television system in Manhattan. It entered into an agreement with the prior owner of a five-story apartment building at 303 West 105th Street to install cables on the roof in exchange for a flat fee of $50 per year. The installation included a cable slightly less than one-half inch in diameter and approximately 30 feet in length running along the roof about 18 inches above the surface. It also included directional taps measuring approximately 4 inches by 4 inches by 4 inches on the front and rear of the roof. Two large silver boxes were placed along the roof cables. Additional cable was extended another 4 to 6 feet. All components were attached by screws or nails penetrating the masonry at approximately two-foot intervals. In 1971, Jean Loretto purchased the building. At the time of purchase the cable installation was already in place as part of a larger network serving adjacent buildings, though Loretto did not discover its existence until after she took possession. Two years later Teleprompter connected a noncrossover line by dropping a cable down the front of the building to serve Loretto's own tenants. In 1973 the New York Legislature enacted section 828 of the Executive Law, effective January 1, 1973, which prohibited landlords from interfering with cable television installations on their property, barred landlords from demanding payment from tenants for permitting service, and limited any payment from a cable company to an amount the State Commission on Cable Television determined to be reasonable; the Commission later set the presumptive fee at a one-time $1 payment. In 1976 Loretto filed a class action against Teleprompter in New York Supreme Court on behalf of all owners of real property in the state on which Teleprompter had placed cable components, alleging trespass and a taking without just compensation and seeking damages and injunctive relief; the City of New York, which had granted Teleprompter an exclusive franchise for parts of Manhattan, intervened as a defendant. The Supreme Court, Special Term, granted summary judgment to Teleprompter and the city. The Appellate Division affirmed without opinion. The New York Court of Appeals upheld the statute. The Supreme Court of the United States noted probable jurisdiction.

Respondents Glen Theatre, Inc. and Kitty Kat Lounge, Inc. operate establishments in South Bend, Indiana, that provide adult entertainment including live performances by nude or seminude dancers viewed through glass panels or on stage. Darlene Miller worked at the Kitty Kat Lounge on commission and sought to dance totally nude to increase her earnings. Gayle Ann Marie Sutro performed at Glen Theatre after a professional career in dancing and modeling. In 1985 the city enacted an ordinance banning public nudity, defined as the showing of genitals, pubic area, buttocks, or female nipples with less than full opaque covering, which required dancers to wear pasties and G-strings. Respondents filed suit in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Indiana alleging that the ordinance violated the First Amendment by prohibiting totally nude dancing. The District Court originally granted respondents' prayer for an injunction, finding that the statute was facially overbroad. On remand after the Seventh Circuit's initial reversal, the District Court concluded that the type of dancing these plaintiffs wish to perform is not expressive activity protected by the Constitution of the United States. It rendered judgment in favor of the defendants. The case was again appealed to the Seventh Circuit, and a panel of that court reversed the District Court, holding that the nude dancing involved here was expressive conduct protected by the First Amendment. The Supreme Court granted certiorari to resolve a conflict among the Courts of Appeals on the question whether nude dancing is expressive conduct protected by the First Amendment.