Gale Encyclopedia Of American Law 3Rd Edition Volume 7 P54 pptx

Pledged property must be in the possession
of a pledgee. This can be accomplished in one of
two ways. The property can be in the pledgee’s
actual possession, meaning physical possession
(for example, Mary keeps John’s stereo at her
house). Otherwise, it can be in the constructive
possession of the pledgee, meaning that the
pledgee has some control over the property,
which typically occurs when actual possession
is impossible. For example, a pledgee has
constructive possession of the contents of a
pledgor’s safety deposit box at a bank when
the pledgor gives the pledgee the only keys
to the box.
In pledges both parties have certain rights
and liabilities. The contract of pledge represents
only one set of these: the terms under which
the debt or obligation will be fulfilled and the
pledged property returned. On the one hand,
the pledgor’s rights extend to the safekeeping
and protection of his property while it is in
possession of the pledgee. The property cannot
be used without permission unless use is
necessary for its preservation, such as exercising
a live animal. Unauthorized use of the property
is called conversion and may make the pledgee
liable for damages; thus, Mary should not use
John’s stereo while in possession of it.
For the pledgee, on the other hand, there is
more than the duty to care for the pledgor’s
property. The pledgee has the right to the

possession and control of any income accruing
during the period of the pledge, unless an
agreement to the contrary exists. This income
reduces the amount of the debt, and the pledgor
must account for it to the pledgee. Additionally,
the pledgee is entitled to be reimbursed for
expenses incurred in retaining, caring for, and
protecting the property. Finally, the pledgee
need not remain a party to the contract of
pledge indefinitely. She can sell or assign her
interest under the contract of the pledge to a
third par ty. However, the pledgee must notif y
the ple dgor that the contract of pledge has been
sold or reassigned; otherwise, she is guilty of
conversion.
PLESSY V. FERGUSON
An 1896 dec ision by the U.S. SUPREME C OURT,
Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U.S. 537, 16 S. Ct. 1138,
41 L. Ed. 256, upheld the constitutionality of
an 1890 Louisian a statute requiring white and
“colored” persons t o be furnished “separate
but equal” accommodations on railway pas-
senger cars.
The
PLAINTIFF, Homer Adolph Plessy, who
was seven-eights Caucasian and one-eighth
African, paid for a first-class seat on a Louisiana
railroad. He took a seat in the coach that was
reserved for white passengers, but the conduc-
tor told him to leave the “white” car and go to

the “colored” coach under threat of being
expelled from the train and arrested. When
Plessy refused, he was ejected from the train and
imprisoned. He was prosecuted for violating the
law, which he asserted was unconstitutional and
violated the
THIRTEENTH AMENDMENT to the U.S.
Constitution, which abolished
SLAVERY, and the
FOURTEENTH AMENDMENT to the Constitution,
which prohibited certain restrictive
LEGISLATIVE
ACTS
by the states.
The Supreme Court agreed to decide the
constitutionality of the law. It reasoned that,
although the Thirteenth Amendment intended
to abolish slavery, it was insufficient to protect
the “colored” people from certain harsh state
laws that treated them unequally. The Four-
teenth Amendment was enacted “to enforce
the absolute equality of the two races before
the law (but) it could not have been
intended to abolish distinctions based upon
color or to enforce social as distinguished from
political equality. ” The Court decided that
the law establi shing
SEPARATE BUT EQUAL public
accommodations and facilities was a reasonable
exercise of the

POLICE POWER of a state to
promote the public good. “If the two races are
to meet upon terms of social equality, it must
be the result of voluntary consent of the
individuals.”
Only Justice
JOHN MARSHALL HARLAN dis-
sented, on the ground that such a law “inter-
feres with the personal freedom of citizens”
under the guise of legal equality. He maintained
that the constitutional guarantees in this
country were to be color-blind.
In 1954 the Court overruled this decision
and recognized that separate but equal educa-
tional facilities were inherently unequal in
BROWN V. BOARD OF EDUCATION OF TOPEKA, KANSAS,
347 U.S. 483, 74 S. Ct. 686, 98 L. Ed. 873
(1954). Subsequent U.S. Supreme Court deci-
sions prohibited racial
SEGREGATION in any public
facilities and accommodations.
GALE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN LAW, 3RD E DITION
518 PLESSY V. FERGUSON
FURTHER READINGS
Anderson, Wayne. 2004. Plessy v. Ferguson: Legalizing
Segregation. New York: Rosen.
Medley, Keith Weldon. 2003. We as Freemen: Plessy v.
Ferguson. Gretna, La.: Pelican.
Postema, Gerald J., ed. 1997. Racism and the Law: The Legacy
and Lessons of Plessy. Boston: Kluwer Academic.

Thomas, Brook, ed. 1997. Plessy v. Ferguson: A Brief History
with Documents. Boston: Bedford.
CROSS REFERENCES
Civil Rights; Civil Rights Movement; Integration; Jim
Crow Laws; “Plessy v. Ferguson” (Appendix, Primary
Document).
PLURALITY
The opinion of an appellate court in which more
justices join than in any concurring opinion.
The excess of votes cast for one candidate over
those votes cast for any other candidate.
Appellate panels are made up of three or
more justices. In some cases the justices disagree
over the outcome of the case to such an extent
that a majority opinion cannot be achieved. (A
majority opini on is one in which the number of
justices who join is larger than the number of
justices who do not.) To resolve such disagree-
ments and reach a final decision, two or more
justices publish opinions called concurring
opinions, and the other justices decide which
of these concurring opinions they will join. The
concurring opinion in which more justices join
than any other is called a plurality opinion.
Plurality decisions can reflect a disagreement
among the justices over a legal issue in a case or
can reveal deeper ideological differences among
the members of the court.
The term plurality is also used to describe
the outcome of an election that involves more

than two candidates. The candidate who
receives the greatest number of votes is said to
have received a plurality of the votes. In
contrast, the term majority is used to describe
the outcome of an election involving only two
In Plessy v. Ferguson
(1896), the Supreme
Court maintained
that the Fourteenth
Amendment was not
intended to enforce
social equality for
races, a decision that
stood for 58 years.
CORBIS-BETTMANN.
GALE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN LAW, 3
RD E DITION
PLURALITY 519
candidates; the winner is said to have received a
majority of the votes.
A candidate who has a plurality of the votes
can also have a majority of the votes, but only if
she receives a number of votes greater than that
cast for all the other candidates combined.
Mathematically, a candidate with a plurality has
a majority if she receives more than one-half
of the total number of votes cast. If candidate
JOHN DOE has a plurality, he has earned more
votes than any other candidate, but whether he
has a majority depends on how many votes

he won.
CROSS REFERENCE
Court Opinion.
GALE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN LAW, 3RD E DITION
520 PLURALITY