Moore v. East Cleveland 1977
| Author | Daniel Brannen, Richard Hanes, Elizabeth Shaw |
| Pages | 349-355 |
Page 349
Appellant: Inez Moore
Appellee: City of East Cleveland, Ohio
Appellant's Claim: That restrictions in an East Cleveland housing ordinance concerning which family members could occupy the same household violates a basic liberty of choice protected by the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
Chief Lawyers for Appellant: Edward R. Stege, Jr.
Chief Lawyers for Appellee: Leonard Young
Justices for the Court: Harry A. Blackmun, William J. Brennan, Jr., Thurgood Marshall, Lewis F. Powell, Jr., Potter Stewart,
Justices Dissenting: Chief Justice Warren E. Burger, William H. Rehnquist, John Paul Stevens, Byron R. White
Date of Decision: May 31, 1977
Decision: Ruled in favor of Moore by finding that government through zoning restrictions cannot prohibit an extended family from living together merely to prevent traffic problems and overcrowding.
Significance: The Court determined that the protection of the "sanctity of the family" guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution extended beyond the nuclear family consisting of a married couple and dependent children. Also protected are extended families that can include various other related family members. The right of relatives to live under the same roof was recognized.
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"This Court has long recognized that freedom of personal choice in matters of marriage and family life is one of the liberties protected by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment." Written by the U.S. Supreme Court in Cleveland Board of Education v. LaFleur (1974).
The family is one of the oldest and most basic aspects of human societies. The family provides protection and training for children. It also provides emotional and economic support for all its members. Most families are based on kinship ties established through birth, marriage, or adoption. About sixty-six million families lived in the United States in the 1990s.
Various types of families exist. Extended families have been historically common in many societies through time. These families include various combinations of grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, or grandchildren sharing the same household with a married couple and their dependent children. However, the industrial revolution of the nineteenth
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century dramatically changed patterns of family life. Americans began to think of families being restricted to a husband, wife, and one or two children, known as the nuclear family.
Faced with scientific, economic, and social changes in the 1960s and 1970s, family relationships began to once more change away from the ideal nuclear family pattern, to a much more diverse grouping including many single parent families. By 1970 only half of American households met the earlier twentieth century ideal. By 1998 only one-fourth of households had a husband, wife, and child.
Concerned about the livability of their community...
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