Adickes v. S. H. Kress & Co.

Mr. Justice Harlan delivered the opinion of the Court.

Petitioner, Sandra Adickes, a white school teacher from New York, brought this suit in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York against respondent S. H. Kress & Co. (“Kress”) to recover damages under 42 U. S. C. § 1983[1] for an alleged violation of her constitutional rights under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The suit arises out of Kress’ refusal to serve lunch to Miss Adickes at its restaurant facilities in its Hattiesburg, Mississippi, store on August 14, 1964, and Miss Adickes’ subsequent arrest upon her departure from the store by the Hattiesburg police on a charge of vagrancy. At the time of both the refusal to serve and the arrest, Miss Adickes was with six young people, all Negroes, who were her students in a Mississippi “Freedom School” where she was [*147] teaching that summer. Unlike Miss Adickes, the students were offered service, and were not arrested.

Petitioner’s complaint had two counts,[2] each bottomed on § 1983, and each alleging that Kress had deprived her of the right under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment not to be discriminated against on the basis of race. The first count charged that Miss Adickes had been refused service by Kress because she was a “Caucasian in the company of Negroes.” Petitioner sought, inter alia, to prove that the refusal to serve her was pursuant to a “custom of the community to segregate the races in public eating places.” However, in a pretrial decision, 252 F. Supp. 140 (196.6), the District Court ruled that to recover under this count, Miss Adickes would have to prove that at the time she was refused service, there was a specific “custom ... of refusing service to whites in the company of Negroes” and that this custom was “enforced by the State” under Mississippi’s criminal trespass statute.[3] Because petitioner was unable to prove at the trial that there were other instances in Hattiesburg of a white person having been refused service while in the company of Negroes, [*148] the District Court directed a verdict in favor of respondent. A divided panel of the Court of Appeals affirmed on this ground, also holding that § 1983 “requires that the discriminatory custom or usage be proved to exist in the locale where the discrimination took place, and in the State generally,” and that petitioner’s “proof on both points was deficient,” 409 F. 2d 121, 124 (1968).