Citizens to Preserve Overton Park v. Volpe
Encyclopedia
Citizens to Preserve Overton Park
Citizens to Preserve Overton Park
Citizens to Preserve Overton Park is a nonprofit advocacy group founded in Memphis, Tennessee, in 1957. CPOP is best known for its success at preventing the extension of Interstate 40 through Overton Park adjacent to the Memphis Zoo, through the landmark 1971 Supreme Court case Citizens to...

 v. Volpe
, 401 U.S. 402 (1971), is a decision by the Supreme Court of the United States
Supreme Court of the United States
The Supreme Court of the United States is the highest court in the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all state and federal courts, and original jurisdiction over a small range of cases...

 that established the basic legal framework for judicial review of the actions of administrative agencies. It also stands as a notable example of the power of litigation by grassroots citizen movements to block government action.

Background

The case concerned the decision by the Secretary of Transportation
United States Department of Transportation
The United States Department of Transportation is a federal Cabinet department of the United States government concerned with transportation. It was established by an act of Congress on October 15, 1966, and began operation on April 1, 1967...

 John A. Volpe
John A. Volpe
John Anthony Volpe was the 61st and 63rd Governor of Massachusetts and a U.S. Secretary of Transportation.-Early life and education:Volpe was born in 1908 in Wakefield, Massachusetts. He was the son of Italian immigrants Vito and Filomena , who had come from Abruzzo to Boston's North End in 1905;...

 to construct Interstate 40
Interstate 40
Interstate 40 is the third-longest major east–west Interstate Highway in the United States, after I-90 and I-80. Its western end is at Interstate 15 in Barstow, California; its eastern end is at a concurrency of U.S. Route 117 and North Carolina Highway 132 in Wilmington, North Carolina...

 through Overton Park
Overton Park
Overton Park is a large, public park in Midtown Memphis, Tennessee. The park grounds contain the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, Memphis Zoo, a 9-hole golf course, Memphis College of Art, Rainbow Lake, Veterans Plaza, Greensward, and other features...

 in Memphis, Tennessee
Memphis, Tennessee
Memphis is a city in the southwestern corner of the U.S. state of Tennessee, and the county seat of Shelby County. The city is located on the 4th Chickasaw Bluff, south of the confluence of the Wolf and Mississippi rivers....

.

During the interstate highway system's late 1950s and early 1960s building boom, public parks had been viewed as a desirable path. Building through them didn't require the federal government to use the power of eminent domain
Eminent domain
Eminent domain , compulsory purchase , resumption/compulsory acquisition , or expropriation is an action of the state to seize a citizen's private property, expropriate property, or seize a citizen's rights in property with due monetary compensation, but without the owner's consent...

. That changed in the mid-1960s, under § 4(f) of the Department of Transportation Act of 1966, a federal statute commonly called "Section 4(f)." It required the government to demonstrate that there were no "feasible and prudent" alternatives to building through public lands.

Procedural history

After Secretary Volpe approved the Tennessee Department of Highways
Tennessee Department of Transportation
The Tennessee Department of Transportation is a multimodal agency with statewide responsibilities in aviation, public transit, waterways and railroads...

 proposal to construct the highway through Overton Park, a group called Citizens to Preserve Overton Park brought suit against him in the Western District of Tennessee. They claimed that the Secretary had not complied with §4(f) of the Department of Transportation Act. The Secretary responded by filing a summary judgment motion, which was granted by the court. On appeal, the 6th Circuit affirmed the district court's decision.

Decision

On March 3, 1971, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on Citizens to Preserve Overton Park v. Volpe, upholding the "feasible and prudent" clause. The Court held that summary judgment was improperly granted. While the Secretary was not required to make formal findings, the Secretary's sole reliance on litigation affidavit
Affidavit
An affidavit is a written sworn statement of fact voluntarily made by an affiant or deponent under an oath or affirmation administered by a person authorized to do so by law. Such statement is witnessed as to the authenticity of the affiant's signature by a taker of oaths, such as a notary public...

s was inadequate. The Secretary's decision did not fall into the Administrative Procedure Act
Administrative Procedure Act
The Administrative Procedure Act , , is the United States federal law that governs the way in which administrative agencies of the federal government of the United States may propose and establish regulations. The APA also sets up a process for the United States federal courts to directly review...

's exception for action "committed to agency discretion."

In the decision, Justice Thurgood Marshall
Thurgood Marshall
Thurgood Marshall was an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court, serving from October 1967 until October 1991...

 stated that Section 4(f) "is a plain and explicit bar to the use of federal funds for construction of highways through parks; only the most unusual situations are exempted." The court recognized the place of cost, directness of route, and community disruption in highway routing, but the existence of the statute "indicates that protection of parkland was to be given paramount importance."

Concurrence

Justice Black
Hugo Black
Hugo Lafayette Black was an American politician and jurist. A member of the Democratic Party, Black represented Alabama in the United States Senate from 1927 to 1937, and served as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1937 to 1971. Black was nominated to the Supreme...

, joined by Justice Brennan, concurred. Black and Brennan would have remanded the case to the Secretary of Transportation, rather than the district court.

External links

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