Although the Court had been briefed regarding whether the Equal Protection and Due Process Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment were applicable to the restaurant, the majority opinion noted that both the City of Baltimore and Maryland had passed laws against racial discrimination by an owner or operator of a place of public accommodation.

The state antidiscrimination statute went further and forbade discrimination in public accommodations for sleeping or eating on the basis of race, creed, color, or national origin.

The dissenting opinion by Justice Black would affirm the decision of the Maryland Court of Appeals that the Fourteenth Amendment did not apply to the convictions for criminal trespass on private property.

[2] The decisions were announced two days after the United States Senate ended a filibuster and passed the bill that would become the Civil Rights Act of 1964,[2] which outlawed segregation in public accommodations.

The Supreme Court later answered this question affirmatively in Hamm v. City of Rock Hill, 379 U.S. 306 (1964), for prosecutions for activities protected by the Civil Rights Act of 1964.