# Burton v. Wilmington Parking Authority > Supreme Court of the United States · April 17, 1961 · 365 U.S. 715 URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9422175 ## Case - **Full name:** BURTON v. WILMINGTON PARKING AUTHORITY Et Al. - **Court:** Supreme Court of the United States - **Decided:** April 17, 1961 - **Citations:** 365 U.S. 715; 81 S. Ct. 856; 6 L. Ed. 2d 45; 1961 U.S. LEXIS 1297 - **Precedential status:** Published - **Opinion:** Concurrence by Stewart - **Judges:** Clark, Stewart, Frankfurter, Harlan, Whittaker - **Cited by:** 1,604 later opinions in the Frix Law Library ## Citator (automated) - **Yellow flag:** Reported overruled — as noted by 2 later courts — not on the Supreme Court's list. - Negative treatments: 2 - Distinguished by: 4 - Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9422175 ## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction) - holding that a privately owned restaurant's refusal to serve a black patron was state action for purposes of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment because the restaurant premises were leased from a state agency and were located in a public building maintained… - holding that fourteenth amendment is implicated when state is “a joint participant in the challenged action,” and noting that “[ojnly by sifting facts and weighing circumstances can the nonobvious involvement of the State in private conduct be attributed its true significance” - finding a symbiotic relationship and holding that a privately owned restaurant’s refusal to serve an African American patron constituted state action where the restaurant leased space in a garage that was financed by public funds and owned by a state agency - holding that Temple is a private institution despite its designation as part of the Commonwealth system of higher education - finding it significant that “profits earned by discrimination not only contribute to, but also are indispensable elements in, the financial success of a government agency” when holding that restaurant was state actor (emphasis added) ## Opinion text Mr. Justice Stewart, concurring. I agree that the judgment must be reversed, but I reach that conclusion by a route much more direct than the one traveled by the Court. In upholding Eagle’s right to deny service to the appellant solely because of his race, the Supreme Court of Delaware relied upon a statute of that State which permits the proprietor of a restaurant to refuse to serve “persons whose reception or entertainment by him would be offensive to the major part of his customers . . . .” * There is no suggestion in the record that the appellant as an individual was such a person. The highest court of Delaware has thus construed this *727 legislative enactment as authorizing discriminatory classification based exclusively on color. Such a law seems to me clearly violative of the Fourteenth Amendment. I think, therefore, that the appeal was properly taken, and that the statute, as authoritatively construed by the Supreme Court of Delaware, is constitutionally invalid. 24 Del. Code, § 1501. The complete text of the statute is set out in the Court opinion at note 1. --- Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9422175. Public record. Not legal advice.