Source: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/247/214/
Timestamp: 2019-04-20 10:58:32+00:00

Document:
Justia › US Law › US Case Law › US Supreme Court › Volume 247 › Looney v. Eastern Texas R. Co.
In a suit by carriers to restrain the attorney general of a state from instituting suits against them for damages and penalties for complying with an order of the Interstate Commerce Commission respecting rates, the district court issued a preliminary injunction (not appealed from) pending further proceedings by the Commission and until final hearing by the court. Held that a further order in the case restraining the defendant from prosecuting a suit of the character complained of which he subsequently began in a state court was in exercise of the power of the district court to protect its existing jurisdiction, and was not appealable under Jud.Code, § 266.
This case presents for decision a motion by appellees to dismiss the appeal for want of jurisdiction, and it involves the consideration of the latest chapter in a litigation which was commenced in 1911, when the Railroad Commission of Louisiana filed with the Interstate Commerce Commission a complaint charging various railroad companies with maintaining unreasonable rates on traffic from Shreveport, Louisiana, to points in Texas, and with maintaining rates which unjustly discriminated in favor of traffic moving wholly within the State of Texas as against that between Louisiana and Texas.
A hearing resulted in an order by the Commission which was assailed by the railroad companies as invalid, but which this Court sustained in Houston, East & West Texas Ry. Co. v. United States, 234 U. S. 342, in a decision rendered in 1913 which has come to be widely referred to as the "Shreveport case."
by reason of water competition along the Gulf of Mexico or waters contiguous thereto."
Immediately after this order was entered, the Attorney General of Texas declared that it was void and that he would institute suits under the Texas laws for damages and penalties against any carrier which should comply with it. Thereupon, the carriers filed a bill in the United States District Court for the Western District of Texas in which they averred the validity of the order, the necessity for their obeying it, their intention to obey it, the threat of suits by the Attorney General, and, attaching a copy of the tariff they had compiled to comply with the order (designated as Texas Lines Tariff 2-B), they prayed for an injunction restraining the Attorney General from executing the threat which he had made. A temporary restraining order was granted, and on November 1, 1916, the tariffs were duly filed.
Issue was joined on this bill, and elaborate pleadings were filed by both parties such that there can be no doubt that the Attorney General challenged the validity of the order as arbitrary, unreasonable, unsupported by the evidence and void, and especially as being inapplicable, in the terms and for want of power, to the western part of Texas, which, for ratemaking purposes, is designated "differential territory."
by the Interstate Commerce Commission. No appeal was taken from this order.
Between the time of the filing of the bill for the injunction and the hearing on April 4th, the Interstate Commerce Commission had entered two orders in the proceeding in which the order of July 7, 1916, had been granted, one that the tariff filed by the carriers on November 1st, Texas Lines Tariff 2-B, slightly modified, should be permitted to remain effective until further order, and another reopening the proceeding to give to the Texas authorities an opportunity to introduce new and material evidence, which they asserted should lead to a modification or vacating of the order, and might bring about a just and reasonable settlement of the controversy.
Immediately after the granting of the preliminary injunction, the taking of testimony in the reopened inquiry was commenced by the Interstate Commerce Commission, the Attorney General participating, and went forward until in May, when it was continued to the following October for the filing of briefs and for oral argument.
"It is necessary to protect the jurisdiction of this court already acquired over the subject matter and in order to afford these plaintiffs [the carriers] full and complete relief."
The Attorney General answered this bill, denying that the rates complained of in the state court were warranted by the order of July 7, 1916, or by the proper construction of the Texas Lines Tariff 2-B, and then went forward and again assailed the validity of the order of July 7, 1916, on substantially the same grounds stated in answers filed by him in the case prior to the granting of the injunction in the preceding April, and he prayed that the order be declared to be null and void in whole or in part.
On this supplemental bill, an injunction was granted, to continue until final hearing or until further order of the court, enjoining the Attorney General and his assistants from prosecuting the suit thus commenced by him in the Texas court, and from instituting or prosecuting any similar suits in any court other than the United States District Court for the Western District of Texas and from in any way interfering with the carriers in charging the rates published in Texas Lines Tariff 2-B and supplements thereto.
the suit in the state court, the injunction issued against the Attorney General was granted in aid of, and was necessary to protect, that jurisdiction until a conclusion should be reached completely disposing of the case and controversy, and is therefore not an appealable order within § 266 of the Judicial Code.
The theory upon which the Attorney General seeks to sustain his appeal is that the injunction of September 22d is one restraining him in his capacity as a state officer from enforcing statutes of the State of Texas and orders by the Railroad Commission of that state entered pursuant thereto, on the ground that the statutes are unconstitutional and that the orders are unlawful, and therefore, it is claimed, an appeal direct to this Court is warranted under § 266 of the Judicial Code.
"Because the state court is without jurisdiction of the subject matter and because it is necessary to protect the jurisdiction of this court already acquired over the subject matter and in order to afford these plaintiffs the full and complete relief contemplated by the opinions of the circuit judges and in the order made by them granting the injunction herein."
"The subject matter of the state suit is a part of that involved in this case. The jurisdiction of this Court with reference thereto has been invoked by the parties plaintiff and defendant and by interveners; the jurisdiction has been exercised by this court in granting an injunction at the prayer of plaintiffs and refusing one asked by defendants, and by considering and determining an application for a continuance. . . . Jurisdiction having been conferred by law, having been invoked by all the parties, and having been exercised by the court, its protection is a right and duty not limited by § 266, Judicial Code. The injunction prayed for by complainants is granted. . . ."
an additional reason for our conclusion. The relief asked by defendants is refused."
The use of the writ of injunction by federal courts first acquiring jurisdiction over the parties or the subject matter of a suit for the purpose of protecting and preserving that jurisdiction until the object of the suit is accomplished and complete justice done between the parties is familiar and long established practice, Freeman v. Howe, 24 How. 450; Harkrader v. Wadley, 172 U. S. 148, 172 U. S. 163-164; in a rate case, Missouri v. Chicago, Burlington & Quincy R. Co., 241 U. S. 533, 241 U. S. 543. So important is it that unseemly conflict of authority between state and federal courts should be avoided by maintaining the jurisdiction of each free from the encroachments of the other that § 265 of the Judicial Code, Rev.Stats. § 720, Act of March 2, 1793, c. 22, 1 Stat. 334, has repeatedly been held not applicable to such an injunction. Julian v. Central Trust Co., 193 U. S. 93, 193 U. S. 113; Simon v. Southern Ry. Co., 236 U. S. 115.

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