The Case

Homer Plessy sued the train company on the grounds of the 13th and 14th amendments. The case was lost in the lower courts but Plessy's lawyers brought the case all the way to the Supreme Court. The case was called Plessy v. Ferguson because the judge who had called the Separate Car Act constitutional in the lower court had the name Ferguson. He had declared it constitutional because the train had never left the state of Louisiana, therefore the laws of the state could be in effect. If it had left the state, the case would have been different.