Source: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/288/52/
Timestamp: 2019-04-25 16:13:55+00:00

Document:
Claiming a perpetual franchise under Oklahoma statutes to maintain and operate a toll bridge constructed by them over a navigable stream, plaintiffs sued state and county officers, in the federal court, to restrain threatened interference. Jurisdiction rested on diversity of citizenship. The case did not involve any claim of federal right, nor the right of the plaintiffs to remove the bridge. It depended on the purely local question whether the franchise was void ab initio under the state constitution.
1. As construed by the Supreme Court of Oklahoma, the provision of the state constitution prohibiting "perpetuities," (Art. II, § 32) includes franchises such as the perpetual franchise to operate a toll bridge. P. 288 U. S. 55.
2. The federal court will follow the clear and unequivocal opinion of the state court to this effect, even though uttered after the date of the franchise and as a considered dictum, rather than a definitive decision. P. 288 U. S. 56.
3. Federal courts are especially reluctant to restrain the activities of state officers where the rights set up by plaintiffs are strictly local and jurisdiction has no other basis than the accident of residence -- the case must be clear. P. 288 U. S. 60.
Certiorari to review the reversal of a decree denying an injunction and dismissing the bill in a suit to restrain state and county officers and other persons from threatened interference with the maintenance and operation of a toll bridge.
The respondents, claiming to be the owners of a perpetual franchise to collect tolls for the use of a bridge across the Canadian river, brought suit in the United States District Court against the members of the state highway commission of Oklahoma, the Attorney General of that state, the county attorneys of McClain and Cleveland counties, and other persons residents of the neighborhood to restrain a threatened interference with the maintenance of the bridge or the collection of tolls. The jurisdiction of the federal court was invoked upon the ground of diversity of citizenship. The defendants (petitioners in this Court) made a motion, without answering, to dismiss the complaint. The complainants moved at the same time for an injunction pendente lite. The District Court denied the motion for an injunction, and granted the motion to dismiss. The Circuit Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit reversed the decree and directed judgment in favor of the complainants for the relief demanded in the complaint. 58 F.2d 41, 47. A writ of certiorari brings the case here.
and to cause the bridge to be kept open for free and unimpeded passage. This suit for an injunction followed.
The District Court held that the county commissioners were without authority to grant a franchise to individuals except in trust for a corporation organized under the bridge law; that the term of the corporate life was also the limit of the duration of the privilege to charge and levy tolls; that a perpetual franchise, if intended, would be void under Article II, § 32, of the Constitution of Oklahoma, prohibiting "perpetuities;" and that the bill should be dismissed. The Circuit Court of Appeals, in reversing this judgment, held that the franchises were not invalid because granted to individuals; that, upon assignment to a corporation organized for a term of twenty years, the franchises were not cut down in respect of their duration, but continued in full force when conveyed by the assignee to others; that the term "perpetuities" as used in Article II, § 32 of the Constitution of Oklahoma had in view the creation of future estates, and did not limit the enjoyment of a privilege or franchise, and that the complainants should have an injunction as prayed for in the bill.
"Perpetuities and monopolies are contrary to the genius of a free government, and shall never be allowed, nor shall the law of primogeniture or entailments ever be in force in this state."
"We do not doubt that the word 'perpetuities' . . . was not intended to mean or be equivalent to perpetual franchises, but was intended to limit the power to pass titles that would vest in futuro."
But the Supreme Court of Oklahoma has not circumscribed the word so narrowly. It has said that a forbidden perpetuity is created when there is granted to an individual or corporation a perpetual privilege or franchise.
It has gone farther; it has said that a privilege or franchise is perpetual if indefinite in duration, though it be subject to revocation at the pleasure of the legislature. The question came before the court in Okmulgee v. Okmulgee Gas Co., 140 Okl. 88, 282 P. 640. The Legislature of Oklahoma had passed an act whereby a public service corporation holding a franchise from a municipality for a fixed term of years was to be at liberty to exchange it for a revocable permit. The court said that such a permit, if viewed as a grant from the municipality, was forbidden by Article XVIII, § 5(a), which provides in effect that no franchise shall be granted by a municipal corporation for a longer term than twenty-five years. On the other hand, if the permit could be viewed as one proceeding directly from the state, the court said that it would then be a perpetuity within the prohibition of Article II, § 32. The permit was not saved by the reservation to the legislature of a power to revoke it. In the view of the court (p. 98), a franchise "not limited in its existence to a fixed and definite period of years" is to be classified as "a perpetual franchise," and hence an unlawful perpetuity. To avoid misapprehension, the court, at the end of its opinion, summarized its conclusions (p. 100).
"Any act of the legislature which provides for issuing a license, revocable permit, indeterminate permit, or other instrument in the nature of a franchise which is not limited as to its time of existence violates § 32 of Article II of our Constitution."
See, to the same effect, In re Okmulgee Gas Co., 141 Okl. 98, 284 P. 70; In re Oklahoma Power Co., 141 Okl. 100, 284 P. 12.
estates or from restraints upon alienation without reasonable limit. The question is one distinctively local in origin and content. The prohibition is embodied in the local constitution. Not only that, but it is designed to give effect to "the genius" of the government, an impalpable existence that can best be apprehended and defined by perceptions and experiences sharpened and developed through the associations of the vicinage.
"In a case involving local history, as this does, we should be slow to overrule the decision of courts steeped in the local tradition even if we saw reason for doubting it."
Jackman v. Rosenbaum Co., 260 U. S. 22, 260 U. S. 32. Cf. Diaz v. Gonzalez, 261 U. S. 102, 261 U. S. 105-106. To define a "perpetuity" for a young and developing community, there must be recourse to something more than the pages of a dictionary. The word to be defined, in common with words generally, will have a color and a content that will vary with the setting. Towne v. Eisner, 245 U. S. 418, 245 U. S. 425; International Stevedoring Co. v. Haverty, 272 U. S. 50; Surace v. Danna, 248 N.Y. 18, 21, 161 N.E. 315. It comes down to its interpreters freighted with subtle implications, with the "tacit assumptions," the "unwritten practices," the "thousand influences" and "values" that "logic and grammar never could have gotten from the books." Diaz v. Gonzalez, supra. Out of two or more meanings that were possible and plausible, the State of Oklahoma has picked the one comporting best in the thought of her official spokesmen with the "genius" of her history. The mists of our own uncertainties are scattered when pierced by this authentic evidence of the law of the locality. Chicago, M., St. P. & P. R. v. Risty, 276 U. S. 567, 276 U. S. 570; Sioux County v. National Surety Co., 276 U. S. 238. Cf. Porter v. Investors' Syndicate, 287 U. S. 346.
law which has come to be spoken of as general. Cf. Burgess v. Seligman, 107 U. S. 20. The power, we are told, exists because, at the grant of these franchises in 1911, the courts of Oklahoma had not yet spoken as to the meaning of the constitution by defining the "perpetuities" within the zone of its restraints. Kuhn v. Fairmont Coal Co., 215 U. S. 349; Moore-Mansfield Construction Co. v. Electrical Installation Co., 234 U. S. 619, 234 U. S. 625; Edward Hines Yellow Pine Trustees v. Martin, 268 U. S. 458, 268 U. S. 463. Obedience is due to the courts of the state if the decisions claiming fealty are so many and unequivocal as to make out a "rule of property." Edward Hines Yellow Pine Trustees v. Martin, supra at pp. 268 U. S. 463-464. As to this, there is no denial. The argument is that the fetters of obedience are released when there is only a single state decision, and this subsequent to the transaction out of which rights and duties have developed. Kuhn v. Fairmont Coal Co., supra; Edward Hines Yellow Pine Trustees v. Martin, supra. One hurdle, it is said, will be overleaped if there are no barriers beyond.
the privilege of the complainants, while maintaining an obstruction of navigable waters, to exact payments from the public. The statutes of Oklahoma are explicit that tolls may never be collected unless permitted by a franchise (Wagon Road Act, Compiled Oklahoma Statutes, § 5627; Toll Bridge Corporations Act, Compiled Oklahoma Statutes, § 5367). In controversies so purely local, little gain is to be derived from drawing nice distinctions between dicta and decisions. Disagreement with either, even though permissible, is at best a last resort, to be embraced with caution and reluctance. The stranger from afar, unacquainted with the local ways, permits himself to be guided by the best evidence available, the directions or the counsel of those who dwell upon the spot.
their official duty to take possession of the bridge, and purpose to act accordingly. The Attorney General of the state is about to institute proceedings at law and in equity to vindicate the public rights, or what he believes to be such rights. The County Attorneys of McClain and Cleveland Counties propose to sue for fines and penalties. All these activities the respondents ask us to enjoin. Indeed, all have been enjoined by the decree under review. Only a case of manifest oppression will justify a federal court in laying such a check upon administrative officers acting colore officii in a conscientious endeavor to fulfill their duty to the state. A prudent self-restraint is called for at such times if state and national functions are to be maintained in stable equilibrium. Reluctance there has been to use the process of federal courts in restraint of state officials though the rights asserted by the complainants are strictly federal in origin. Massachusetts State Grange v. Benton, supra; Stratton v. St. Louis S.W. Ry. Co., 284 U. S. 530; Matthews v. Rodgers, 284 U. S. 521. There must be reluctance even greater when the rights are strictly local, jurisdiction having no other basis than the accidents of residence. The need is claimant in such circumstances for cautious hesitation. If there were to be a concession arguendo that the meaning of "perpetuities" is still an unsettled question after the decisions in Oklahoma, there is surely no room for a contention that a meaning in opposition to those decisions is reasonably free from doubt. Our process does not issue unless the path is clear.
to be removed. There would still remain the uncertainty whether the franchise granted by the county was to the grantees for their own use or for the use of a corporation to be organized thereafter; whether the corporation was to be one under the "Wagon Road" Law, with an indeterminate duration, or under the "Bridge Companies" Act, with a duration of twenty years, and whether the public policy of Oklahoma, disclosed by her statutes and decisions, and irrespective of decisions elsewhere, sets a limit upon the toll right, or what is known as the secondary franchise, coterminous with the primary franchise to exist and engage in business in a corporate capacity. By the statement of these questions, we convey no hint as to the answer. We do no more than emphasize the complexities of law as well as of policy in which the respondents' title is involved, and the unwisdom of superseding the official acts and powers of the agents of the vicinage by writ out of a federal court.
The decree of the Circuit Court of Appeals must be reversed, and the judgment of the District Court dismissing the complaint affirmed.

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