Posted on 04/22/2005 10:54:48 PM PDT by freepatriot32
The modest brick house, with its yard full of wilting tulips and rusted old cars, isn't a candidate for the pages of Better Homes and Gardens.
But on a spring day in 2002, it was just what Nealie Pitts had in mind. She approached the owner, Rufus T. Matthews, and asked the price.
According to court documents, Matthews said the house was selling for $83,000 - but that a deed restriction meant only whites were eligible to buy it.
"I was hurt and angry, like he had slapped me in the face," Pitts, who is black, said in an e-mail.
Nearly three years later, the Virginia Office of the Attorney General said it will soon take Matthews to court for the alleged fair housing law violation.
It's a bittersweet victory for fair housing proponents, who wonder how many other people are turned away by racially restrictive deed covenants.
"We very rarely encounter anybody who believes they can be enforced," said Connie Chamberlin, president of Housing Opportunities Made Equal (HOME). "We are aware they're certainly out there."
In milder forms, covenants can be used to control things like the color homeowners can paint their houses.
But in the Jim Crow South, they were often used to keep neighborhoods white. Racially restrictive covenants were ruled illegal by the Supreme Court in 1948.
"Many people don't even know they're in their deeds," Chamberlin said, adding would-be homebuyers can ask to have the racist language removed. "That can't be used as a reason to stop a sale."
According to court documents, Matthews told Pitts his house in suburban Richmond was "not for colored. We decided we are going to keep this area right here all white."
The next day she contacted HOME, which sent out a black test buyer.
"Precisely the same thing happened," Chamberlin said. "We have it on tape."
On Thursday, Matthews told The Associated Press that he would sell his home only to a white buyer. But he denied the house was for sale, saying a sale sign he had was for items in his yard. "The house has never been for sale," he said.
Matthews is accused of violating the Virginia Fair Housing Law. The same code says officials can attempt an out-of-court settlement in cases where the law has been violated.
At an April 13 meeting, the Virginia Fair Housing Board rejected a settlement offer. Board Chairman David Rubinstein declined to detail why it refused the proposal from the attorney general's office.
But Thomas Wolf, an attorney representing Pitts, said the offer would have required Matthews take two hours of class on fair housing law, at taxpayer expense.
"That is not a serious settlement proposal given the facts of the case," Wolf said. "Were they planning to pass out Happy Meals with little Confederate flags?"
Emily Lucier, a spokeswoman for Attorney General Judith Williams Jagdmann, could not explain how the proposal was formulated, but said settlement is not unheard of in discrimination cases.
Pitts is seeking $100,000 in damages in a separate case against Matthews. Lucier said because Pitts has gotten her own lawyer, the office cannot legally seek monetary damages in the civil matter.
Instead, she said, the office will continue pressing for injunctive relief and education. A court date has not been set
Assuming the accuracy of their side of the story, they were the initial victims enticed into stopping at his place by his "for sale" sign, only to be told that they could not buy because of the color of their skin. In my book, that is cause enough to afford them civil damages for their suffering (inconvenience).
That's worth 100 grand? Gee, if I got one tenth of that every time my feelings were hurt..... they have Ana Ayala written all over them
The point seems to be that he ought to have been equally willing to sell to blacks, as he was willing to sell to whites. So what if he hates them afterwards -- tell me, when DO the opposing parties in a lawsuit end the affair as friends?
Now maybe cbg has a legal point, that he can't get a court finding that the seller ought to have violated his contract, so therefore he will have no standing to sue. But it kind of bamboozles me, how can any private contract to do any old thing be inviolate? What if I (hypothetically) take a contract out on your life, is that inviolate?
I'm struggling to understand your point. Dr Levy is wrong for stating that the IOC prohibition in the federal consitution doesn't apply to the state of virginia. I showed him a case that said just the opposite, and also discovered that virginia also has a prohibition against IOC.
Is it suffering? Inconvenience? or simply an insult?
Whoa .......this lady wanted to dump her home in the pic behind her and her hubby for the shack that rufus is near ?
BS Alert after reading the few posts !!
Amish electricians are hard to find to wire the place !
I cannot know what he was thinking.
It isn't hard for someone not associated with the law to remain oblivious to it.
If he had withdrawn the home from the market, then everyone had an equal opportunity to buy (none).
My beef is that it isn't right to sue the poor slob, no matter how hateful he may have been, for more than the value of his home because he brought up that covenant in the deed.
To not mention the covenant, if he thought it were in effect, would have far more malicious import.
I do not believe a contract to do something illegal can be upheld in court (though most folks who take up those sort of arrangments have other, extralegal means of enforcement of the terms thereof). But the question exists of what applies if the contract was legal at the time it was written, and the law has changed? (Something which seems to be more likely by the day, any more.)
That said, what will be the result? The man may lose his home to an apparently successful (and exploitative) couple who were 'offended'.
By the time it is done, Racists--of any ilk--will hold the case up as an object lesson on why their beliefs are correct.
That is why this situation is a loser for everyone.
Even though the language of the contract clause is unambiguous and appears absolute, it is not "the Draconian provision that its words might seem to imply." Allied Structural Steel Co. v. Spannaus, 438 U.S. 234, 240 (1978). The proscription against enacting statutes that impair the obligation of contracts does not prevent the State from exercising power that is vested in it for the common good, even though contracts previously formed may be affected thereby.
There are restrictions like this here as well, though they are not talked about openly. A friend has a ren housse out back but the retrictions forbid him to rent to a black man.
Caught between a rock and a hard place, which side is going to sue no matter which way you go.
First off, I do not see any insult here in the slightest. But what I might call an insult, another person might not consider an insult. And vice versa. At any rate, no just person or society in my opinion would consider an insult cause for legal action.
The suffering was all the inconvenience involved in being a victim of false (incomplete) advertising. I have already set this out with my qualifiers in my replies #76, 89, 91(to include 93), 111, 149, and 156.
I have yet to neet one single Christian American who has not cowered and knelt in reverence before the Evil Demigod of Secularism and his enforcers "Diversity" and "Tolerance"
Your right there Hildy. Over the past few months the true colors here have begun to show in more ways then one and there not Red White and Blue.............
I have found that avoiding these threads have done wonders for my mental health.
White people who whine and b-tch about being "oppressed" are even more annoying to me than other groups, because as a relatively successful white male I find them to be an embarassment.
"Most people should use a _competent_ realtor.--For some reason that profession attracts a significant number of idiots and con artists."
That's because it's a potentially high paying sales profession that requires only a minimal education and expense to join.
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