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58 Planning & Envtl. L. 3 (2006)
Village of Euclid v. Ambler: The Bettman Amicus Brief

handle is hein.journals/planevirw58 and id is 63 raw text is: American Planning Association Planning & Environmental Law March 2006 Vol. 58, No. 3 | p.3 Commentary Village of Euclid v Ambler: The Bettman Amicus Brief Editor's Note: Alfred Bettman (1873-1945) is generally credited with saving zoning from constitutional defeat in Village of Euclid v. Ambler Realty Co., 272 U.S. 365 (1926). As the story goes, he drafted the amicus brief on behalf of the National Conference on City Planning and others but then sat on it and missed the deadline for filing the brief After oral argument, with the Court leaning towards invalidating zoning, Bettman wrote his friend, Chief Justice William Howard Taft, also from Cincinnati, and asked permission to file his amicus brief Permission was granted, and a second oral argument was scheduled the following term. Justice George Sutherland, who was not at the first oral argument, participated the second time and wrote the opinion for the majority finding the zoning scheme in Euclid was constitutional. Bettman was asked to serve on Herbert Hoover' Blue Ribbon Committee to draft the Standard City Planning and Zoning Enabling Acts (in 1924 and 1928). He also drafted the Tennessee Zoning and Planning Enabling Statutes (1935). Bettman served as the first president of the American Society of Planning Officials (1934-1938), thepredecessor to the American Planning Association. In honor of Alfred Bettman, the importance of his amicus argument, and the 80th anniversary of the Village of Euclid v. Ambler decision, C;.,,M,,yoft. Diii,, 4R- Id M ... saipCoIicoo. portions of Bettman ' amicus brief are reprinted below. Cle Ur i iy Lib,Hr dod ouhc Pgi.p phes f #h f -lm d BShh, p-, #3698 Supreme Court of the United States October Term, 1925 The Village of Euclid and Harry W Stein, Inspector of Buildings, Appellants v. The Ambler Realty Company, Appellee. Appeal from the District Court of the United States for the Northern District of Ohio, Eastern Division. MOTION FOR LEAVE TO FILE BRIEF, AMICI CURIAE AND BRIEF ON BEHALF OF THE NATIONAL CONFERENCE ON CITY PLANNING, THE NATIONAL HOUSING ASSOCIATION AND THE MASSACHUSETTS FEDERATION OF TOWN PLANNING BOARDS, AMICI CURIAE. -Alfred Bettman This brief is designed to discuss solely the question of the constitutionality of comprehensive zoning. We do not intend to argue any issues of either fact or law which may have been raised by the parties to the case, except as they relate themselves to this matter of the constitutionality of zoning. The attor- neys for appellee suggest that this case may turn upon the reasonableness or arbitrariness of that detail of the ordi- nance which placed appellee's land in a residential rather than an industrial zone. We would agree that the decision in this or any other case may turn upon the reasonableness, that is, the general appropriateness of the specific district- ing involved in the case. In so far as the contentions of the parties relate to the reasonableness or arbitrariness of the Euclid Village ordinance itself in its districting of the particular property of the appellee, that is, in so far as the issues of this case relate themselves specially to this ordinance and its provi- sions for this piece of property, we do not feel it within our province to pres- ent any statement whatever. The attor- neys of the appellee, however, have not chosen to restrict themselves to an attack upon a particular provision of this particular ordinance or the special nature of its effect upon the particular piece of property of the appellee, but have attacked the constitutionality of zoning of the general type of the ordi- nance in this case. As they have sought to support that attack by what we deem to be fallacious arguments on constitu- tional law, as well as entirely mistaken citation of authorities, and as many gen- eral expressions in the opinion of the District Judge may be and are being interpreted as adverse to the validity of zoning, and as we deem zoning to be a vital necessity to the welfare of that