LAST REQUEST: SEGREGATION

ABAJournal.com ^ | WEDNESDAY, MAY 8, 2002 | BY BRIAN WITTE

[gd124]

LAST REQUEST: SEGREGATION Court Strikes Down Will Requiring Money Be Spent on White Patients

A Maryland appeals court has ended a legal battle over a doctor’s will that left millions of dollars to a home for the elderly but required that the money be spent on a building for "white patients."

The Maryland Court of Appeals ruled Monday that such provisions are illegal and cannot be enforced by the state’s courts.

The ruling addressed the 1962 will of Dr. Jesse Coggins. He left money to the Keswick Multi-Care Center in Baltimore, but attached the stipulation that the money go to white patients who need physical rehabilitation.

The Court of Appeals said the center was entitled to about $30 million.

The ruling overturned a 1999 Circuit Court decision that went against the care center, which contended that it should not lose the money simply because it does not discriminate on the basis of race.

The will provided that if the center failed to follow the provisions, the money should go to the University of Maryland Medical System.

Judge John Eldridge wrote that the condition attached to the will is "clearly illegal and violates a strong public policy."

He said "the illegal portion of the condition should be excised and the bequest enforced without regard for the illegal condition."

Coggins, who had worked in a segregated medical system, died at age 88 in 1963. The money in the will first went into a trust for his family members, but the trust ended with the death of his widow in 1998.

When the trust ended, trustees went to court to find out how the racial provisions in the will should be handled.

John F. Morkan III, Keswick’s attorney, praised the decision, calling it "a victory for Keswick individually and a great victory in our country’s continuing battle against racism and discrimination."

Keswick is a nursing home and assisted-living facility that has been around for more than a century.

Edmond P. Nolley Jr., president of Keswick’s board, said the facility doesn’t have specific plans for the money.

The facility went ahead without the money left by Coggins and started the rehab building in 1970. The center named the building after Coggins, and became fully integrated.

[gd124]

What do you all think of this court's decision?

[mississippi red-neck]

It's wrong.

[leadpenny]

What do you all think of this court's decision?

Hopefully, unintended consequences. I'd like to hear from some good legal minds on the possibility of this decision having an impact on other issues of the day, ie., Reparations and the extorsionist activities of jj and the Rainbow/Push Coalition.

[HiTech RedNeck]

It's only Maryland. What sayeth the SCOTUS?

[lavaroise]

Unless the building is semi-public and falls on public jurisdiction, it is wrong and wrong again. THe dead person has a jurisdictional right through a will to ask whatever private cult or building for his cult must benefit.

If this guy is struck down, then why do we have Black Entertainment TV???? Why do we have black cultural centers at universities??? OK, we have to give the black skin the benefit of the doubt that they are not Nazies, but the white skin receives no benefit of the doubt? Sounds to me like segregation and that this court is supporting seggregation.

[Roscoe]

Shelley v. Kraemer, 334 U.S. 1 (1948)

[HiTech RedNeck]

Which said the state can't enforce racially discriminatory private agreements. But this bequest isn't robbing non-caucasians of anything; this only proposes to give a specific benefit to caucasians. The NAACP could endow a similar benefit for black people and there would be no outrage. (Oh, but that's affirmative action. That's OK.)

[Salman]

Whatever you may think of this particular case, it's a well established principle that a will is not binding if contrary to public policy. The classic case would be a will that stipulated that an heir not have children.

[Roscoe]

Which said the state can't enforce racially discriminatory private agreements.

"The Maryland Court of Appeals ruled Monday that such provisions are illegal and cannot be enforced by the state’s courts."

[sneakypete]

it's a well established principle that a will is not binding if contrary to public policy.

I dunno about all that. What I do know is that if I lived in Maryland and had college age children,I'd be sueing the United Negro College Fund for MY share of all the money left to THEM in wills.

[leadpenny]

That's the kind of unintended consequences I was referring too. I love it.

[Salman]

I dunno about all that. What I do know is that if I lived in Maryland and had college age children,I'd be sueing the United Negro College Fund for MY share of all the money left to THEM in wills.

You'd probably be on shaky ground because the money goes to "Negro" colleges rather than to individuals. "Negro" colleges these days do admit white people, as many as they can get in fact (not many). The more PC term is "historically African-American colleges".

[gunnedah]

Look at your local NAACP ACT SO Program.It is funded by tax payer dollars and the Bi-Laws restrict its use for scholarships to apply only to African American Descendants.Also the NAACP has numerous programs that apply and are spelled out to be only used by African Americans.

[gunnedah]

Look at your local NAACP ACT SO Program.It is funded by tax payer dollars and the Bi-Laws restrict its use for scholarships to apply only to African American Descendants.Also the NAACP has numerous programs that apply and are spelled out to be only used by African Americans.

[leadpenny]

Bump

[Movemout]

"The more PC term is "historically African-American colleges". "

Actually the term I have read the most is HBCU, Historically Black Colleges and Universities. I am concerned that "strong public policies" seem to smile on gender (read female) and race based coalitions and organizations as long as they do not include caucasians in general, and males in particular. Policy is policy and law is law. Common sense would seem to dictate that the fallback provision in the will should be applicable since the primary provision has been thwarted by strong public policy.

I guess I'm just waiting for additional strong public policies which force more restrictions on us all to the point where we have reached the point of saturation and turn the PC bastards out of elected office or have ourselves a Tea Party.

[Non-Sequitur]

The center named the building after Coggins, and became fully integrated.

That rumbling you feel is no doubt Dr. Coggins spinning in his grave.

[Hillarys Gate Cult]

I can't remember the specifics on this but I think some of his relatives were going after the money. I still don't see how the court can take parts away from his bequest. It seems to me that since the hospital couldn't deliver due to the law, the money should go to the next legal beneficiaries in line.

[mhking]

Black conservative ping

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