Source: http://supreme.nolo.com/us/299/248/case.html
Timestamp: 2019-04-18 14:20:32+00:00

Document:
The controversy hinges upon the power of a court to stay proceedings in one suit until the decision of another, and upon the propriety of using such a power in a given situation.
subsidiary operating companies, these last being engaged as public utilities in supplying gas and electricity to consumers in different states. The other plaintiff, American Water Works & Electric Company, is at the apex of another pyramid including like subsidiaries. The defendants in both suits (petitioners in this Court) are the members of the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Attorney General of the United States, and the Postmaster General.
On November 26, 1935, the Commission filed a bill of complaint in the District Court of the United States for the Southern District of New York to compel other holding companies, members of a different public utility system, to register with the Commission in accordance with the statute. At the beginning, the defendants were the Electric Bond & Share Company, the parent holding company, and five intermediate holding company subsidiaries. Sixteen other holding company subsidiaries were later added as defendants with the Government's consent. All the twenty-two defendants, parties to that suit, appeared and answered the complaint. All joined in a cross-bill contesting the validity of the Act and praying a decree restraining its enforcement. To give opportunity for full relief, the present petitioners appeared as cross-defendants, answering the cross-bill and opposing an injunction.
"to clog the courts, overtax the facilities of the Government, and make against that orderly and economical disposition of the controversy that is the Government's aim."
Accordingly, the court was asked to stay proceedings in the suits at bar "until the validity of said Act has been determined by the Supreme Court of the United States" in the Electric Bond & Share case, "or until that case is otherwise terminated." To that motion, the plaintiffs filed an answer on December 12, 1935, contesting the power of the court to grant the requested stay, asserting that the questions to be passed upon in their suits were not identical with the questions presented in the test one, pointing out that the Act, even if valid as applied to some companies, might be invalid as applied to others, and dwelling upon the loss that they were suffering day by day while the menace of the Act obstructed their business and cast a cloud on its legality.
to reserve any legal or constitutional right and to stipulate that its registration should be void and of no effect in the event that such a reservation should be adjudged invalid or ineffective. Finally, the Attorney General offered to submit to a temporary injunction restraining the enforcement of the Act until the Electric Bond & Share case should be determined by this Court. On the other side, the plaintiffs offered to consolidate their cases, and thus dispose of them as one. They also offered, as we were informed upon the argument, to select a group of suits, not more than three or four, to be tried at the same time, with the understanding that any others would then be held in abeyance. These offers were rejected, and the Government stood upon its motion.
was a possibility, more or less uncertain, that there would be a renewal in that district of the suits begun elsewhere and discontinued or dismissed. Along with the affidavit and stipulation, the Government submitted a copy of the complaint and the cross-bill in the suit against the Bond & Share Company.
"by the Supreme Court in the Electric Bond and Share case, even if it should not dispose of all the questions involved, would certainly narrow the issues in the pending cases and assist in the determination of the questions of law involved."
in the control of its own docket shall find that course expedient. He couples this with a statement that a stay so indefinite as the one before him would be too broad in any case. Nonetheless, much latitude of judgment would have been left to the trial judge if the standards of that opinion had been adopted as a guide. But plainly they were not. The order of the Court of Appeals in each of the two suits reverses the stay order and remands the cause "for further proceedings not inconsistent with the opinion of this Court." Evidently the trial judge was expected to conform to doctrine expounded for his instruction in the course of an opinion, yet he would have difficulty in knowing which opinion to select. He might believe that comity or deference constrained him to submit to the opinion approved by two members of the reviewing court, since none had been accepted by the vote of a majority. At the very least, there was a likelihood, and indeed almost a certainty, of confusion and embarrassment. In such circumstances, the call is plain for a decision that will mark with greater clearness the bounds of power and discretion. We granted certiorari that this result might be attained.
weigh competing interests and maintain an even balance. Kansas City Southern Ry. Co. v. United States, 282 U. S. 760, 282 U. S. 763; Enelow v. New York Life Ins. Co., 293 U. S. 379, 293 U. S. 382. True, the suppliant for a stay must make out a clear case of hardship or inequity in being required to go forward, if there is even a fair possibility that the stay for which he prays will work damage to some one else. Only in rare circumstances will a litigant in one cause be compelled to stand aside while a litigant in another settles the rule of law that will define the rights of both. Considerations such as these, however, are counsels of moderation, rather than limitations upon power. There are indeed opinions, though none of them in this Court, that give color to a stricter rule. Impressed with the likelihood or danger of abuse, some courts have stated broadly that, irrespective of particular conditions, there is no power by a stay to compel an unwilling litigant to wait upon the outcome of a controversy to which he is a stranger. Dolbeer v. Stout, 139 N.Y. 486, 489, 34 N.E. 1102; Rosenberg v. Slotchin, 181 App.Div. 137, 138, 168 N.Y.S. 101; cf. Wadleigh v. Veazie, Fed.Cas.No.17,031; Checker Cab Mfg. Co. v. Checker Taxi Co., 26 F.2d 752; Jefferson Standard Life Ins. Co. v. Keeton, 292 F. 53. Such a formula, as we view it, is too mechanical and narrow. Kansas City Southern Ry. v. United States, supra; Friedman v. Harrington, 56 F. 860; Amos v. Chadwick, L.R. 9 Ch.Div. 459; L.R. 4 Ch.Div. 869, 872. All the cases advancing it could have been adequately disposed of on the ground that discretion was abused by a stay of indefinite duration in the absence of a pressing need. If they stand for more than this, we are unwilling to accept them. Occasions may arise when it would be "a scandal to the administration of justice" in the phrase of Jessel, M.R. (Amos v. Chadwick, L.R. 9 Ch.Div. 459, 462), if power to coordinate the business of the court efficiently and sensibly were lacking altogether.
We must be on our guard against depriving the processes of justice of their suppleness of adaptation to varying conditions. Especially in cases of extraordinary public moment, the individual may be required to submit to delay not immoderate in extent and not oppressive in its consequences if the public welfare or convenience will thereby be promoted. In these Holding Company Act cases, great issues are involved -- great in their complexity, great in their significance. On the facts, there will be need for the minute investigation of intercorporate relations, linked in a web of baffling intricacy. On the law, there will be novel problems of far-reaching importance to the parties and the public. An application for a stay in suits so weighty and unusual will not always fit within the mould appropriate to an application for such relief in a suit upon a bill of goods. True, a decision in the cause then pending in New York may not settle every question of fact and law in suits by other companies, but, in all likelihood, it will settle many and simplify them all. Even so, the burden of making out the justice and wisdom of a departure from the beaten track lay heavily on the petitioners, suppliants for relief, and discretion was abused if the stay was not kept within the bounds of moderation.
decision in the suit selected as a test, laying to one side the question whether it should even go so far. How the District Court in New York will decide the issues in that case is not to be predicted now. The Act may be held valid altogether, or valid in parts and invalid in others, or void in its entirety. Whatever the decision, the respondents are to be stayed by the terms of the challenged order until this Court has had its say. They are not even at liberty, in case of an adjudication of partial invalidity, to bring themselves within the class adjudged to be exempt, though their membership in such a class may be uncertain or contested. Relief so drastic and unusual overpasses the limits of any reasonable need at least upon the showing made when the motion was submitted.
We think the answer is inadequate that, in the contingencies suggested, the respondents will be at liberty to move to vacate the stay, and will prevail upon that motion if they can satisfy the court that its restraints are then oppressive. To drive them to that course is to make them shoulder a burden that should be carried by the Government. The stay is immoderate, and hence unlawful unless so framed in its inception that its force will be spent within reasonable limits, so far, at least, as they are susceptible of prevision and description. When once those limits have been reached, the fetters should fall off. To put the thought in other words, an order which is to continue, by its terms, for an immoderate stretch of time is not to be upheld as moderate because conceivably the court that made it may be persuaded at a later time to undo what it has done. Disapproval of the very terms that have already been approved as reasonable is, at best, a doubtful outcome of an application for revision. If a second stay is necessary during the course of an appeal, the petitioners must bear the burden, when that stage shall have arrived, of making obvious the need. Enough for present purposes that they have not done so yet.
& Co. v. Unione Austriaca, 248 U. S. 9, 248 U. S. 21. Benefit and hardship will be set off, the one against the other, and upon an ascertainment of the balance discretionary judgment will be exercised anew.
In each suit, the decree of the Court of Appeals is reversed, the order of the District Court vacated, and the cause remanded to the District Court to determine the motion for a stay in accordance with the principles laid down in this opinion.
* Together with No. 222, Landis et al. v. American Water Works & Electric Co., Inc. Certiorari to the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia.

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