Jones v. Alfred H. Mayer Co.: Ruling, Reasoning, and Section 1982

In Jones v. Alfred H. Mayer Co., decided June 17, 1968, the Supreme Court ruled 7–2 that a Reconstruction-era federal statute, 42 U.S.C. § 1982, bars racial discrimination in the sale or rental of property by anyone, whether a government body or a private seller. The decision revived a law that had been treated for nearly a century as reaching only official conduct, and it gave buyers and renters a federal remedy against private race discrimination with no exemptions built in.¹

What Happened in the Case

Joseph Lee Jones, a Black man, tried to buy a home in the Paddock Woods subdivision in St. Louis County, Missouri. The developer, the Alfred H. Mayer Co., refused to sell to him solely because of his race.²

Jones sued in federal district court under 42 U.S.C. § 1982, a provision of the Civil Rights Act of 1866 guaranteeing all citizens the same right as white citizens to inherit, purchase, lease, sell, hold, and convey real and personal property.³ The district court dismissed the case, and the Eighth Circuit affirmed. Both courts read the 1866 statute as reaching only discriminatory acts by government, not a private developer’s refusal to sell.¹

What the Supreme Court Held

The Supreme Court reversed. Justice Potter Stewart, writing for a 7–2 majority, held that § 1982 forbids “every form of racial discrimination” in property transactions, “whether governmental or private.”¹ A private developer refusing to sell a home to a Black buyer was covered by the statute, and Jones could sue.

How the Court Got There

The reasoning ran through the Thirteenth Amendment. That amendment did more than abolish slavery. It gave Congress the power to identify and eliminate what the Court called the “badges and incidents” of slavery, a phrase drawn from the Civil Rights Cases of 1883 describing disabilities like being unable to hold property or enter contracts.⁴ A Black person’s inability to freely buy a home, the Court reasoned, was exactly that kind of lingering disability, and the 1866 Act was Congress exercising its Thirteenth Amendment authority to root it out.

That constitutional grounding is what lets § 1982 reach private conduct. The Fourteenth Amendment’s equal protection guarantee restricts only government action. The Thirteenth Amendment carries no such limit, so Congress can enforce it against private individuals and companies. A private real estate developer, on that reading, was fair game.

The Dissent

Justice Harlan, joined by Justice White, dissented. He argued the majority’s reading of § 1982 was “almost surely wrong,” pointing to earlier decisions that had treated the 1866 Act as reaching only government-sponsored discrimination and to language in the original statute limiting criminal penalties to acts done “under color of” law. He also thought the case had lost much of its urgency because Congress had just passed the Fair Housing Act of 1968 while Jones was pending, making an aggressive reinterpretation of a century-old law unnecessary.

Why It Still Matters Alongside the Fair Housing Act

The Fair Housing Act, Title VIII of the Civil Rights Act of 1968, and § 1982 both prohibit housing discrimination, but they work differently. The Fair Housing Act covers more categories, prohibiting discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, national origin, familial status, and disability. It also lets complainants file administratively with the Department of Housing and Urban Development.⁵

The Fair Housing Act, though, contains exemptions that § 1982 does not:

Owner-occupied buildings with four or fewer units are exempt from certain provisions.
A private owner who owns no more than three single-family homes and sells without a real estate agent may be exempt.
Non-commercial housing run by a religious organization may be reserved for members of that religion.

Those carve-outs belong to the Fair Housing Act alone.⁶ Section 1982, rooted in the Thirteenth Amendment, has no exemptions when the discrimination is racial. A landlord renting a unit in the four-unit building where she lives, or a homeowner selling without a broker, may sit outside the Fair Housing Act for some claims. If either refuses to deal because of race, § 1982 still applies. That is where Jones has its sharpest practical edge: it closes the gaps the Fair Housing Act leaves open in cases of racial discrimination.¹

One boundary worth naming: § 1982 covers racial discrimination only. It does not reach discrimination based on religion, sex, national origin, disability, or familial status. For those categories, the Fair Housing Act is the primary federal remedy.

Bringing a Claim Under Section 1982

Someone who experiences racial discrimination in a property transaction can sue directly in federal court under § 1982. There is no administrative complaint process; the plaintiff goes straight to court.

The statute has no filing deadline of its own. Federal courts borrow the deadline from the relevant state’s personal injury statute of limitations, typically two to four years depending on the state. A prevailing plaintiff can recover attorney fees, because 42 U.S.C. § 1988 authorizes courts to award reasonable attorney fees in cases brought to enforce § 1982.⁷

Used together, the Fair Housing Act and § 1982 leave essentially no housing transaction small enough or private enough to escape federal law when race is the reason for the refusal. That is the practical inheritance of Jones v. Alfred H. Mayer Co.

1
Justia U.S. Supreme Court Center. Jones v. Alfred H. Mayer Co. – 392 U.S. 409 (1968)
2
Oyez. Jones v. Alfred H. Mayer Company
3
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 42 USC 1982 – Property Rights of Citizens
4
Congress.gov. Defining Badges and Incidents of Slavery
5
Department of Justice. The Fair Housing Act
6
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 42 US Code 3603 – Effective Dates of Certain Prohibitions
7
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 42 USC 1988 – Proceedings in Vindication of Civil Rights