Hansberry v. Lee

Facts

Respondents, landowners in a described area of Chicago, sued in the Circuit Court of Cook County, Illinois, to stop petitioners from breaching an agreement that restricted the use of land in that area. The agreement was alleged to have been entered into by some five hundred landowners. It barred sale, lease or occupancy of the land by Black persons for a specified period. It was not to take effect unless owners of 95 per centum of the frontage signed it. The bill alleged that petitioners Hansberry, who are Black, acquired and occupied land in the area that had belonged to a signer. Petitioners defended on the ground that owners of 95 per cent of the frontage had never signed. Respondents answered that this issue was res judicata (already decided and binding) because of an earlier suit, Burke v. Kleiman. Petitioners were not parties to that suit. No one contended that they were successors in interest to, or in privity with, any party to it. In Burke, a landowner sued for herself and other owners in like situation against four named individuals. The parties stipulated that owners of 95 per cent of the frontage had signed, and the court enforced the agreement.

Issues

1. Did the Supreme Court of Illinois deny petitioners the due process of law guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment when it held them bound, as members of a class, by a judgment in an earlier suit to which they were not parties?
2. Were owners who sued to enforce a restrictive agreement in the earlier suit entitled to stand in judgment for other owners whose interest lay in resisting the agreement?

Holding

Petitioners were not bound by the earlier judgment. Those who sought to enforce the restrictive agreement had interests that could conflict with those resisting it, so they could not stand in judgment for the absent owners. Binding petitioners through res judicata denied them due process of law.