Yick Wo v. Hopkins
Supreme Court of the United States Official seal of the Supreme Court of the United States File links The following pages link to this file: Marbury v. ...
Argued April 14, 1886 Decided May 10, 1886
Full case name: Yick Wo v. Hopkins, Sheriff; Wo Lee v. Hopkins, Sheriff Citations: 118 U.S. 356; 6 S. Ct. 1064; 30 L. Ed. 220; 1886 U.S. LEXIS 1938 Prior history: In re Yick Wo, writ of habeas corpus denied, 9 P. 139 (Cal. 1885); In re Wo Lee, writ of habeas corpus denied, 26 F. 471 (D. Cal. 1886) Subsequent history:
Holding
Racially discriminatory application of a facially neutral statute violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Supreme Court of California and Circuit Court for the District of California reversed.
Court membership
Chief Justice Morrison R.Waite Associate Justices Samuel Blatchford, Horace Gray, William B. Woods, Samuel F. Miller, Joseph Bradley, Stanley Matthews, John Marshall Harlan, Stephen J. Field
Case opinions
Majority by: Matthews Joined by: unanimous court
Laws applied
U.S. Const. amend. XIV

Yick Wo v. Hopkins 118 U.S. 356 (1886) was the first case where the United States Supreme Court ruled that a law that was race-neutral on its face that was administered in a prejudicial manner was an infringement of the Equal Protection Clause in the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Court citation is a standard system used in common law countries such as the United States, United Kingdom, Canada and Australia to uniquely identify the location of past court cases in special series of books called reporters. ... 1886 is a common year starting on Friday (click on link to calendar) // Events January 18 - Modern field hockey is born with the formation of The Hockey Association in England. ... The Supreme Court Building, Washington, D.C. The Supreme Court Building, Washington, D.C., (large image) The Supreme Court of the United States, located in Washington, D.C., is the highest court (see supreme court) in the United States; that is, it has ultimate judicial authority within the United States... The Equal Protection Clause is a part of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, providing that no state shall. ... Amendment XIV (the Fourteenth Amendment) of the United States Constitution is one of the post-Civil War amendments and includes the due process and equal protection clauses (Section 1). ... Page I of the Constitution of the United States of America Page II of the United States Constitution Page III of the United States Constitution Page IV of the United States Constitution The Syng inkstand, with which the Constitution was signed The Constitution of the United States is the supreme...

Facts

In the 1880s, Chinese immigrants to California faced many legal and economic hurdles, including discriminatory provisions in the California constitution. As a result, they were excluded, either by law or by bias, from many professions. As a result, many turned to the laundry business and in San Francisco about 89% of the laundry workers were of Chinese descent. // Events and Trends Technology Development and commercial production of electric lighting Development and commercial production of gasoline-powered automobile by Karl Benz, Gottlieb Daimler and Maybach First commercial production and sales of phonographs and phonograph recordings. ... Immigration is the act of moving to or settling in another country or region, temporarily or permanently. ... State nickname: The Golden State Other U.S. States Capital Sacramento Largest city Los Angeles [[List of Governors of California|Governor]] Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) Official languages English Area 410,000 km² (3rd)  - Land 404,298 km²  - Water 20,047 km² (4. ... Laundry hung out for drying Man and woman washing linen in a brook, from William Henry Pynes Microcosm, 1806. ... This page is a candidate for speedy deletion. ...

In 1880, the City of San Francisco passed an ordinance that persons could not operate a laundry in a wooden building without a permit from the board of supervisors. At the time, about 95% of the city's 320 laundries were in wooden buildings. Approximately two-thirds of those laundries were owned by Chinese persons. Although most of the city's wooden building laundry owners applied for a permit, none were granted to any Chinese owner, while only one non-Chinese owner was denied a permit. 1880 was a leap year starting on Thursday (see link for calendar). ...

Yick Wo, who had lived in California and had operated a laundry in a wooden building for many years, continued to operate his laundry and was convicted and fined $10.00 for violating the ordinance. He sued for a writ of habeas corpus when he refused to pay the fine and was imprisoned in default of the fine. Ordinance can mean: A law made by a non-sovereign body such as a city council or a colony. ... In English Common Law habeas corpus is the name of several writs which may be issued by a judge ordering a prisoner to be brought before the court. ...

Issue before the Court

The state argued that the ordinance was strictly one out of concern for safety, as laundries of the day often needed very hot stoves to boil water for laundry, and indeed laundry fires were not unknown and often resulted in the destruction of adjoining buildings as well.

However, the petitioner pointed out that prior to the new ordinance, the inspection and approval of laundries in wooden building had been left up to fire wardens. Yick Wo's laundry had never failed an inspection for fire safety. Moreover, the application of the prior law focused only on laundries in crowded areas of the city, while the new law was being enforced on isolated wooden buildings as well. The law also ignored other wooden buildings where fires were common - even cooking stoves posed the same risk as those used for laundry.

Opinion of the Court

The Court, in a unanimous opinion written by Justice Matthews, noted that it was clear that the administration of the law was discriminatory even if the ordinance was not. Even though the Chinese laundry owners were usually not American citizens, the court ruled they were still entitled to equal protection under the Fourteenth Amendment. He also noted that the court had previously ruled that it was acceptable to hold administrators of the law liable when they abused their authority. He denounced the law as a blatant attempt to exclude Chinese from the laundry trade in San Francisco, and the court struck down the law, ordering dismissal of all charges against other laundry owners who had been jailed. Thomas Stanley Matthews (July 21, 1824 - March 22, 1889) was a Republican politician and jurist from Ohio. ... Citizenship is membership in a political community (originally a city but now a state), and carries with it rights to political participation; a person having such membership is a citizen. ...

Yick Wo had little application shortly after the decision. In fact, it was not long after that the Court developed the "separate but equal" doctrine in Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U.S. 537 (1896), in practice allowing discriminatory treatment of African Americans. Yick Wo was never applied at the time to Jim Crow laws which, although also facially neutral, were in practice discriminatory against blacks. However, by the 1950s, the Warren Court used the principle established in Yick Wo to strike down several attempts by states and municipalities in the deep south to limit the political rights of blacks. Yick Wo has been cited in well over 150 Supreme Court cases since it was decided. Plessy v. ... Court citation is a standard system used in common law countries such as the United States, United Kingdom, Canada and Australia to uniquely identify the location of past court cases in special series of books called reporters. ... 1896 was a leap year starting on Wednesday (see link for calendar). ... African Americans, also known as Afro-Americans or black Americans, are an ethnic group in the United States of America whose ancestors, usually in predominant part, were indigenous to Sub-Saharan and West Africa. ... A depiction of T.D. Rices Jim Crow In the United States, the so-called Jim Crow laws were made to enforce racial segregation, and included laws that would prevent African Americans from doing things that a white person could do. ... // Events and trends The 1950s in Western society was marked with a sharp rise in the economy for the first time in almost 30 years and return to the 1920s-type consumer society built on credit and boom-times, as well as the height of the baby-boom from returning... Earl Warren Earl Warren (March 19, 1891 – July 9, 1974) was a California district attorney and 30th Governor of California, but is best known as the 14th Chief Justice of the United States from 1953-1969. ...

Miscellanious

In San Francisco there is a public school named Yick Wo Alternative Elementary School in honor of Yick Wo. This page is a candidate for speedy deletion. ... Yick Wo Alternative Elementary School is a public school located on San Franciscos Russian Hill near North Beach. ...

See also: Chinese American A Chinese American is an American who is of ethnic Chinese descent. ...

External links

• Background [1]
• Case at Findlaw [2]