Wrong Side of the Tracks

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

In the past, Americans seeking equal public services in poor neighborhoods have argued for them on constitutional grounds (rights to equal protection of the laws) in federal courts. Such efforts, note the authors, have often required deprived citizens to prove discrimination on racial grounds, which is difficult to do. In this well-researched study, Haar and Fessler propose that a more effective remedy for municipal service discrimination lies in Anglo-American common law, which for centuries has held that a provider of public services has a ``duty to serve.'' The bulk of their book examines this common-law doctrine in detail as it has evolved in court decisions (involving millers, ferries, railroads, etc.) from the 15th century to the present. The authors argue that the doctrine can become a ``compelling'' alternative in the state courts for advocates seeking to improve living conditions on the ``wrong side of the tracks.'' For specialists. Haar and Fessler teach law at Harvard and the University of California respectively. Photos not seen by PW. (April)

Library Journal

This important study chronicles the ancient common law doctrine that private monopoly has a duty to serve equally all members of the community. The authors, distinguished legal scholars, take us from Edward I's Kings Bench to the state court decisions that made equality of service the legal litmus test in post-bellum railroad caseslater extending such criteria to natural monopolies like gas and water works. Eventually, state courts reaffirmed such common law criteria in civil rights cases. Drawing on fiction and poetry as well as the law, this book offers a humane, powerful argument for the ancient egalitarian ideal, which it would have judges use today, toward the goal of urban equality: city governments have the duty to provide all residents, on both sides of the tracks, with equal, nondiscriminatory public service. A fresh approach that will interest anyone concerned with justice in modern America. Milton Cantor, History Dept., Univ. of Massachusetts, Amherst