Adickes v. S. H. Kress & Co., 398 U.S. 144 (1970), was a United States Supreme Court case where the majority ruling, written by Justice Harlan, asserted that the burden of showing a lack of factual controversy rests upon the party asserting the summary judgment.

[1] While the issue before the Supreme Court was a fairly technical matter, the subject matter regarded the violation of white teacher Sandra Adickes' civil rights in the segregated South, after being refused service at a restaurant because she wished to eat with her black students.

Despite its large black population, its white residents had been on a prolonged offensive of harassment and intimidation, especially against supposed Northern agitators.

Throughout Mississippi, a campaign of church bombings and killings had marked the last few years; just the summer before Medgar Evers had been assassinated.

[2] With the passage of the Civil Rights act and the nominal end of segregation, Adickes's black students were very excited to finally engage in such simple pleasures as being able to see a movie, visit the library, and go to the local Holiday Inn.

Lunch counters had proved a previously explosive topic of the Civil Rights movement, such as in the Greensboro sit-ins.

The manager believed mob violence was imminent, and claims that was why he refused to serve Adickes.

[2] Adickes filed a lawsuit in federal court in New York, alleging two counts: (1) Kress had deprived her of the right under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment not to be discriminated against on the basis of race, and (2) that both the refusal of service and her subsequent arrest were the product of a conspiracy between Kress and Hattiesburg police.