Board of Trustees of Scarsdale v. McCreary
Headline: Local government dispute affirmed after a tied Supreme Court, leaving the lower-court result in place and affecting the village board and the opposing local parties.
Holding: The Justices were equally divided and therefore affirmed the court of appeals’ judgment, leaving the lower-court decision in place and noting that Justice Powell did not take part in the decision.
- Leaves the lower-court judgment in place for the parties involved.
- Case decided by an evenly divided Court; no Supreme Court majority rule issued.
Summary
Background
The case involved the Village of Scarsdale’s Board of Trustees on one side and McCreary and other local parties on the other, with the dispute reaching the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit before the Supreme Court took up the case. The case was argued on February 20, 1985, and decided on March 27, 1985. Lawyers for the village and for the opposing parties presented oral arguments, and multiple briefs were filed in support of both sides.
Reasoning
The Supreme Court issued a brief per curiam statement that “the judgment is affirmed by an equally divided Court.” Because the Justices split evenly, the Court did not announce a majority opinion resolving the legal question presented, and Justice Powell took no part in the decision. The written notes show significant outside interest: civil liberties groups, Jewish organizations, and the Anti-Defamation League filed briefs urging reversal, while the United States, through the Solicitor General and other Justice Department officials, filed a brief urging affirmance; the Catholic League also filed a brief.
Real world impact
As a practical matter, the judgment of the lower court—the Second Circuit—remains in effect for the parties in this dispute. The Supreme Court’s evenly divided vote left the earlier decision in place without producing a controlling Supreme Court majority opinion on the underlying issue, so the broader legal question was not resolved at the national level. Because the opinion text does not describe the substantive subject decided below, the case’s wider effect beyond these parties is unclear.
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