Jarvis v. Kansas Commission on Civil Rights

The opinion of the court was delivered by This appeal is brought by the defendant, Kansas Commission on Civil Rights, hereinafter referred to as Commission, to set aside an order of the district court granting a declaratory judgment and an injunction against the Commission from continuing or persisting in its efforts to require the respondent to pay moneys to the complainant either in a conciliation conference or at a public hearing. The Commission's principal argument before this court requires us to reexamine the doctrine of exhaustion of administrative remedies and consider its application to the facts of the instant case. The present controversy arose from an allegation of housing discrimination. Complainant Joyce Haskins, a white woman with three children from her marriage with a black man, moved into an apartment owned by respondent Albert Jarvis, on February 19, 1971. Prior to the expiration of her six months' lease, however, Jarvis served Mrs. Haskins with a thirty-day eviction notice requiring her to vacate the premises by July 19, 1971. On August 16, 1971, Jarvis obtained a judgment in the magistrate court evicting the complainant and she subsequently moved her family out of the apartment.