Buchanan v. Warley

Buchanan v. Warley
Argued April 10–11, 1916
Reargued April 27, 1917
Decided November 5, 1917
Full case nameBuchanan v. Warley
Citations245 U.S. 60 (more)
38 S. Ct. 16; 62 L. Ed. 149; 1917 U.S. LEXIS 1788
Holding
Bans on the sale of real estate to black people violate freedom of contract as protected under the Fourteenth Amendment. Kentucky Court of Appeals reversed.
Court membership
Chief Justice
Edward D. White
Associate Justices
Joseph McKenna · Oliver W. Holmes Jr.
William R. Day · Willis Van Devanter
Mahlon Pitney · James C. McReynolds
Louis Brandeis · John H. Clarke
Case opinion
MajorityDay, joined by unanimous
Laws applied
U.S. Const. amend. XIV

Buchanan v. Warley, 245 U.S. 60 (1917), is a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States addressed civil government-instituted racial segregation in residential areas. The Court held unanimously that a Louisville, Kentucky, city ordinance prohibiting the sale of real property to blacks in white-majority neighborhoods or buildings and vice versa violated the Fourteenth Amendment's protections for freedom of contract. The ruling of the Kentucky Court of Appeals was thus reversed.

Previous state court rulings had overturned racial zoning ordinances on grounds of the "takings clause" because of their failures to grandfather land that had been owned before enactment. The Court, in Buchanan, ruled that the motive for the Louisville ordinance—separation of races for purported reasons—was an inappropriate exercise of police power, and its insufficient purpose also made it unconstitutional.[1]

  1. ^ Silver, Christopher (1997). "The Racial Origins of Zoning in American Cities". In Thomas, J. M.; Ritzdorf, M. (eds.). Urban Planning & the African American Community: In the Shadows. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publ. ISBN 0803972334.[page needed]