right of occupancy

In February 1911, thirty out of thirty-nine owners of property fronting both sides of Labadie Avenue between Taylor Avenue and Cora Avenue in St. Louis signed a recorded agreement. The agreement restricted the use and occupancy of the properties for fifty years to persons of the Caucasian race. It excluded occupancy by people of the Negro or Mongolian race. The district included fifty-seven parcels of land. The signers held title to forty-seven parcels. At the time, five parcels were owned by Negroes, with one occupied by Negro families since 1882. On August 11, 1945, the Shelley petitioners, who are Negroes, purchased one parcel from Fitzgerald by warranty deed for valuable consideration without knowledge of the restriction. On October 9, 1945, respondents sued in the Circuit Court of St. Louis to restrain the Shelleys and divest title. The trial court denied relief, but the Supreme Court of Missouri reversed and directed enforcement. In June 1934, Ferguson and his wife executed a contract restricting their Detroit property to Caucasian occupancy. The restriction was effective only if at least eighty percent of the lots in the block were subjected to similar restrictions. The restrictions were to remain in effect until January 1, 1960. Similar agreements covered eighty percent of the lots. By deed dated November 30, 1944, the McGhee petitioners, who were Negroes, acquired and occupied the Detroit property. On January 30, 1945, respondents sued in Wayne County Circuit Court. The court ordered them to move within ninety days and enjoined future occupancy. The Supreme Court of Michigan affirmed. Petitioners claimed that judicial enforcement violated the Fourteenth Amendment.

In 1928 General Motors Corporation leased a one-story warehouse building in Chicago for a term of twenty years for the storage and distribution of automobile parts and fitted the premises for this use. In 1942 the United States became subtenants of a portion of the floor space, leaving General Motors in possession of some 93,000 square feet. On June 8, 1942 the United States filed a petition in the District Court seeking condemnation of the temporary use of the remaining space for a term ending June 30, 1943 pursuant to the Second War Powers Act. The court entered an order declaring the property condemned and granting the United States immediate possession, use, and improvement. General Motors removed its personal property from the area and dismantled bins and fixtures so that the space was available for government use by June 19. At the trial for compensation the Government called a real estate expert who testified that the fair rental value of the space was 35 cents per square foot per year. General Motors called expert witnesses who testified that the fair rental value was 43 cents per square foot. It also introduced evidence that the rent it paid its landlord had varied from 41.9 to 43.24 cents per square foot during 1940 to 1942. General Motors then offered to prove items of cost caused by removal of the contents, including salaries of employees engaged in the work, compensation due employees put out of work, wages of janitors and watchmen, shipping costs, freight and haulage charges, rental of storage space, the value of bin equipment destroyed, and the estimated original cost of installation of fixed equipment lost, but the court sustained an objection to the offer. The jury awarded compensation in a lump sum at a rate of approximately 40 cents per square foot for the term of one year. General Motors appealed to the Circuit Court of Appeals, which reversed the judgment by a vote of 2 to 1. The Supreme Court granted review of the ruling on the elements that may be considered in arriving at just compensation.

Buchanan brought an action in the Chancery Branch of Jefferson Circuit Court of Kentucky for the specific performance of a contract for the sale of certain real estate situated in the City of Louisville at the corner of 37th Street and Pflanz Avenue. The offer in writing to purchase the property contained a proviso that the purchaser would not be required to accept a deed or pay for the property unless he had the right under the laws of the State of Kentucky and the City of Louisville to occupy the property as a residence. This offer was accepted by the plaintiff. To the action the defendant by way of answer set up that he is a colored person. He also set up that under the ordinance of the City of Louisville, approved May 11, 1914, he would not be allowed to occupy the lot as a place of residence. On the block of which the lot in controversy is part there are ten residences. Eight of them were occupied by white people and only two by colored people. In reply the plaintiff set up that the ordinance was in conflict with the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. In the court of original jurisdiction and in the Court of Appeals of Kentucky the case was made to turn upon the constitutional validity of the ordinance. The Court of Appeals held the ordinance valid and of itself a complete defense to the action. The title of the ordinance states its purpose to prevent conflict and ill-feeling between the white and colored races in the City of Louisville and to preserve the public peace and promote the general welfare by making reasonable provisions requiring as far as practicable the use of separate blocks for residences by white and colored people respectively. By the first section of the ordinance it is made unlawful for any colored person to move into and occupy as a residence any house upon any block upon which a greater number of houses are occupied as residences by white people than by colored people. Section 2 provides a corresponding prohibition for white persons. Section 4 provides that nothing in the ordinance shall affect the location of residences made previous to its approval and includes exceptions for servants, existing rights, and continuing leases under specified conditions. The assignments of error attack the ordinance upon the ground that it violates the Fourteenth Amendment in that it abridges the privileges and immunities of citizens of the United States to acquire and enjoy property, takes property without due process of law, and denies equal protection of the laws. An objection was made that the writ of error should be dismissed because the plaintiff in error is a white person and the ordinance affects the rights of colored persons.

John K. Yee and Irene Yee own the Friendly Hills and Sunset Terrace Mobile Home Parks in Escondido, California. In 1988 the voters of Escondido approved Proposition K, a rent control ordinance that reset rents to 1986 levels and barred increases without city council approval after consideration of eleven enumerated factors such as the Consumer Price Index, comparable pad rents, capital improvements, property taxes, and operating expenses. A few months after the ordinance took effect the Yees filed suit in San Diego County Superior Court, alleging that the ordinance deprived them of all use and occupancy of their property and granted tenants and their successors the right to occupy it permanently; they sought six million dollars in damages, a declaratory judgment, and an injunction. The complaint was filed against the background of California's Mobilehome Residency Law, enacted in 1978, which restricts the grounds on which a park owner may terminate a tenancy, prohibits requiring removal of a mobile home upon sale, bars transfer fees, and prevents disapproval of a purchaser who can pay the rent. Eleven other park owners filed identical suits against the city; by stipulation the twelve cases were consolidated for appeal and submitted on the briefs and argument in the Yee case alone. The Superior Court sustained the city's demurrer and dismissed all complaints. The California Court of Appeal affirmed the dismissals. The California Supreme Court denied review. Eight of the park owners, including the Yees, petitioned for certiorari, which the United States Supreme Court granted in 1991 to address a conflict between the decision below and holdings of the Third and Ninth Circuits in similar mobile-home rent-control cases. The Yees' complaint and opposition to the demurrer relied on the Ninth Circuit's decision in Hall v. Santa Barbara. They asserted that the combined state and local measures transferred to tenants the right to occupy pads indefinitely at below-market rents while preventing park owners from selecting incoming tenants or changing the use of their land without extended notice.