Moore v. East Cleveland 1977

Appellant: Inez Moore

Appellee: City of East Cleveland, Ohio

Appellant's Claim: That restrictions in an East Cleveland housing ordinance concerning which family members could occupy the same household violates a basic liberty of choice protected by the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

Chief Lawyers for Appellant: Edward R. Stege, Jr.

Chief Lawyers for Appellee: Leonard Young

Justices for the Court: Harry A. Blackmun, William J. Brennan, Jr., Thurgood Marshall, Lewis F. Powell, Jr., Potter Stewart,

Justices Dissenting: Chief Justice Warren E. Burger, William H. Rehnquist, John Paul Stevens, Byron R. White

Date of Decision: May 31, 1977

Decision: Ruled in favor of Moore by finding that government through zoning restrictions cannot prohibit an extended family from living together merely to prevent traffic problems and overcrowding.

Significance: The Court determined that the protection of the "sanctity of the family" guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution extended beyond the nuclear family consisting of a married couple and dependent children. Also protected are extended families that can include various other related family members. The right of relatives to live under the same roof was recognized.

"T his Court has long recognized that freedom of personal choice in matters of marriage and family life is one of the liberties protected by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment." Written by the U.S. Supreme Court in Cleveland Board of Education v. LaFleur (1974).

Families

The family is one of the oldest and most basic aspects of human societies. The family provides protection and training for children. It also provides emotional and economic support for all its members. Most families are based on kinship ties established through birth, marriage, or adoption. About sixty-six million families lived in the United States in the 1990s.

Various types of families exist. Extended families have been historically common in many societies through time. These families include various combinations of grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, or grandchildren sharing the same household with a married couple and their dependent children. However, the industrial revolution of the nineteenth century dramatically changed patterns of family life. Americans began to think of families being restricted to a husband, wife, and one or two children, known as the nuclear family.

Faced with scientific, economic, and social changes in the 1960s and 1970s, family relationships began to once more change away from the ideal nuclear family pattern, to a much more diverse grouping including many single parent families. By 1970 only half of American households met the earlier twentieth century ideal. By 1998 only one-fourth of households had a husband, wife, and child.

The East Cleveland Housing Ordinance

Concerned about the livability of their community as its population increased, the city of East Cleveland, a suburb of Cleveland, Ohio, passed a zoning ordinance (city law) in 1966 describing who may occupy individual residences. Rather than drawing a line simply to include only persons related by blood, marriage, or adoption, the city chose to draw a tighter, more complicated line. The city established that only certain combinations of relatives could occupy a residence. Besides a husband and wife, the household could also include unmarried dependent children, but only one dependent child having a spouse and dependent children themselves, and only one parent of either the husband or wife. The ordinance gave the city's Board of Building Code Appeals authority (power) to grant variances (deviations) "where practical difficulties and unnecessary hardships shall result from the strict compliance with or the enforcement of the . . . ordinance." Violation of the ordinance was a misdemeanor criminal offense subject to a maximum of six months in prison and a fine not to exceed $1,000. Each day the ordinance was violated could be considered a separate offense. The ordinance essentially selected what types of kin could live together.

Inez Moore

In the early 1970s Inez Moore owned a two and a half story wood frame house in East Cleveland. The house was split into two residences in which Moore lived in one side with an unmarried son, Dale Moore, Sr., and his son Dale, Jr., and John Moore, Jr., another grandson of Inez. John had joined the household following the death of his mother. John and Dale, Jr., were, therefore, cousins. In January of 1973 a city housing inspector issued a violation notice to Inez Moore for occupying the residence with a combination of family members not allowed by the city ordinance. John could not legally live in his grandmother's household as long as his uncle and cousin lived there. The notice directed Moore to correct the situation.

As the city continued to complain of the violation, Moore resisted changing the situation or applying for a variance. Sixteen months after the notice was first issued, Moore was brought before a city court. She filed a motion to dismiss the charge claiming the restrictions on family choice in the city ordinance violated the U.S. Constitution. The city court rejected her claim and found Moore guilty. She was sentenced to five days in jail and fined $25. Moore appealed to the Ohio Court of Appeals which ruled in favor of the city. After the Ohio Supreme Court refused to hear the case, Moore appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court which accepted her case.

Freedom to Make Family Decisions

Before the Court in November of 1976, East Cleveland claimed its housing ordinance was designed to protect the city's quality of life by preventing overcrowding, minimizing traffic and parking congestion, and limiting the financial burden on the city's school system. The city argued that the Court had supported a similar ordinance in Village of Belle Terre v. Boraas (1974). Moore argued that the ordinance deprived her of a basic liberty (freedom) without due process of law (fair legal hearing). The Fourteenth Amendment specifically states that no state may "deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law." More specifically, the zoning ordinance denied her the right to make important family choices about where and with whom her grandson could live.

First, the Court sought to determine if such a family choice is a constitutionally protected liberty. Justice Lewis F. Powell, Jr., in writing for the Court, reviewed the history and tradition of family life in American society. Powell noted that extended families, ordinarily consisting of close relatives and family friends, would come together to raise children and care for the elderly and disabled. This tradition, strongly founded in America's agricultural society in its early history, was reinforced by the waves of immigrants in the late nineteenth century. Powell noted that such a drawing together has been "virtually a means of survival . . . for large numbers of the poor and deprived minorities of our society (involving the) . . . pooling of scant resources" and has been critical "to maintain or rebuild a secure home life." Powell concluded,

Ours is by no means a tradition limited to respect for the bonds uniting the members of the nuclear family. The tradition of uncles, aunts, cousins, and especially grandparents sharing a household along with parents and children has roots equally venerable [ancient] and equally deserving of constitutional recognition.

Powell concluded the right to live in an extended family household is recognized in the Fourteenth Amendment's freedom of personal choices. Other private family life freedom include the right to marry, to bear and raise children, and the right to education. Extended families were entitled to the same constitutional protections as nuclear families. Inez's choice to raise John, Jr. was a private family matter.

Finding that indeed living in extended families is a constitutional right, Lewis next examined the ordinance to determine if it served an important government purpose. If so, then the ban on certain family households would be valid. Powell quickly concluded the ordinance was ineffective in achieving its goals. If John and Dale had been brothers they both could have lived in the residence, but as cousins they could not. East Cleveland did not show a substantial relationship of the ordinance to protecting public health, safety, or general welfare. Powell added that the ordinance supported in the Belle Terre decision affected only unrelated individuals, not kinship ties.

By a 5–4 decision, the Court ruled the housing ordinance unconstitutional. The Court concluded,

the zoning power is not a license for local communities to enact senseless and arbitrary restrictions which cut deeply into private areas of protected family life . . . [T]his ordinance displays a depressing insensitivity toward the economic and emotional needs of a very large part of our society.

A Closer Look

The decision expanded the liberties enjoyed under the Fourteenth Amendment. The government could not unreasonably intrude in decisions concerning family living arrangements. This meant family choices would come under closer review (strict scrutiny) in future cases involving such issues. A family of any type would be protected by the right to due process of law.

MAKING FAMILY CHOICES

I nterpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment's Due Process Clause has expanded through the years to include fundamental rights and liberties not specifically identified in the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights but considered essential to freedom in a democracy. Deeply rooted in U.S. legal and social traditions, these include the right to privacy in maintaining certain family relations. The 1977 decision in Moore v. East Cleveland expanded on these liberties. Earlier, the Court recognized a right to an education in Meyer v. Nebraska (1923) and a right to bear children in Skinner v. Oklahoma (1942). Later, in Griswold v. Connecticut (1965) the Court described "zones of privacy" created by these liberties. In Loving v. Virginia (1967) the Court upheld the right to freely choose a marriage partner. The landmark case of Roe v. Wade (1973) extended the zone of privacy to include the right to abortions. Shortly after the Moore decision, the Court ruled parents had the right to commit children to mental hospitals without a hearing in Parham v. J.R. (1979). Later in 1990 the Court ruled in Cruzan v. Director, Missouri Department of Health that competent individuals could refuse medical treatment, even if their death might result.

In sum, the Court has determined that personal choice in almost all family matters is a fundamental right. The Due Process Clause serves to protect these basic liberties. Consequently, any law or regulation that limits such choices must be shown to have a highly important (compelling) government purpose and be designed to affect as few people as need be (narrowly tailored).

Suggestions for further reading

Coontz, Stephanie. The Way We Never Were: American Families and the Nostalgia Trap. New York: Basic Books, 1992.

Eshleman, J. Ross. The Family: An Introduction. Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1997.

Skolnick, Arlene. Embattled Paradise: The American Family in an Age of Uncertainty. New York: Basic Books, 1991.

Stacey, Judith. Brave New Families: Stories of Domestic Upheaval in Late Twentieth Century America. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1998.