Source: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/315/698/
Timestamp: 2019-04-25 14:11:50+00:00

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Justia › US Law › US Case Law › US Supreme Court › Volume 315 › Miles v. Illinois Central R. Co.
Miles v. Illinois Central Railroad Co.
Section 6 of the Federal Employers' Liability Act prevents a state court from enjoining, on the ground of the inconvenience or expense to the railroad, a resident citizen of the State from prosecuting or furthering an action under the Act (or receiving the proceeds of any judgment therein) in a state court of another State which has jurisdiction under the Act. P. 315 U. S. 705.
Certiorari, 314 U.S. 602, to review a decree of injunction. The highest court of the State had refused a review by certiorari.
The effect of section 6 of the Federal Employers' Liability Act [Footnote 1] on the power of a state court to enjoin its citizens, on the ground of oppressiveness and inequity to the defendant carrier, from suing on a FELA claim in the state courts of another state, furthering such a suit in any manner, or receiving the proceeds of any judgment so obtained, is before us for decision.
the Tennessee probate court. A Missouri administrator was then appointed at her suggestion, and he instituted another Missouri suit for the same cause of action. The Illinois Central filed an amended and supplemental bill, adding decedent's children, likewise residents of Tennessee, as defendants and enlarging its prayer to forbid furthering the new suit in any manner or receiving the proceeds of any judgment. A new temporary injunction was issued as prayed.
The grounds for the injunction were the inconvenience and expense to the Illinois Central of taking its Memphis employees to St. Louis, and the resulting burden upon interstate commerce. The anticipated extra expense was several hundred dollars per day for an estimated two days of actual trial and whatever additional time might be lost by continuances or delay. Inconvenience was expected through the withdrawal of some twelve to twenty employees and officials from their duties for the same period. The defense relied upon a timely plea that section 6 of the FELA prevented the enjoining of proceedings in the Missouri courts.
of section 6 of the FELA to this situation. 314 U.S. 602. Cf. Payne v. Knapp, 197 Iowa 737, 198 N.W. 62; Peterson v. Chicago, B. & Q. R. Co., 187 Minn. 228, 244 N.W. 823; Baltimore & O. R. Co. v. Kepner, 137 Ohio St. 409, 30 N.E.2d 982, aff'd, 314 U. S. 314 U.S. 44.
The Kepner case dealt with the power of a state court to enjoin a resident from continued prosecution of a suit under the FELA in a distant federal district court on the ground of inequity, vexatiousness, and harassment. The decision denied the power to interfere with the privileges of federal venue "for the benefit of the carrier or the national transportation system."
The real point of controversy here is whether that portion of section 6 of the FELA which holds litigation in the state court where it is instituted prevents the court of another state from enjoining citizens, within its jurisdiction, from continued prosecution of the suit on grounds of inequity. Here, as in Kepner's case, there is no question but what the Missouri court has venue of the proceeding. Here, too, we need to look no farther into Tennessee law than the opinion of the state's highest court in this record to conclude that, under state law, a court of equity may enjoin a resident citizen from attempting to enforce his rights, oppressively and inequitably, [Footnote 4] and that the expense and inconvenience hereinbefore set out resulted in oppressiveness and inconvenience in the eye of the state court.
the land, binding on every citizen and every court and enforceable wherever jurisdiction is adequate for the purpose. Second Employers' Liability Cases, 223 U. S. 1, 223 U. S. 56-59. The Missouri court here involved must permit this litigation. To deny citizens from other states, suitors under FELA, access to its courts would, if it permitted access to its own citizens, violate the Privileges and Immunities Clause. Constitution, Art. IV, § 2; McKnett v. St. Louis & S.F. Ry. Co., 292 U. S. 230, 292 U. S. 233. [Footnote 6] Since the existence of the cause of action and the privilege of vindicating rights under the FELA in state courts spring from federal law, the right to use in state courts of proper venue where their jurisdiction is adequate is of the same quality as the right of sue in federal courts. It is no more subject to interference by state action than was the federal venue in the Kepner case.
This is not to say that states cannot control their courts. We do not deal here with the power of Missouri, by judicial decision or legislative enactment, to regulate the use of its courts generally as was approved in the Douglas or the Chambers cases, note 6 supra. We are considering another state's power to so control its own citizens that they cannot exercise the federal privilege of litigating a federal right in the court of another state.
The permission granted by Congress to sue in state courts may be exercised only where the carrier is found doing business. If suits in federal district courts at those points do not unduly burden interstate commerce, suits in similarly located state courts cannot be burdensome. As Congress has permitted both the state and federal suits, its determination that the carriers must bear the incidental burden is a determination that the state courts may not treat the normal expense and inconvenience of trial in permitted places, such as the one selected here, as inequitable and unconscionable.
The judgment below is reversed, and the cause is remanded to the Court of Appeals of Tennessee for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.
"SEC. 6. That no action shall be maintained under this Act unless commenced within two years from the day the cause of action accrued."
"Under this Act, an action may be brought in a district court of the United States, in the district of the residence of the defendant, or in which the cause of action arose, or in which the defendant shall be doing business at the time of commencing such action. The jurisdiction of the courts of the United States under this Act shall be concurrent with that of the courts of the several States, and no case arising under this Act and brought in any State court of competent jurisdiction shall be removed to any court of the United States."
Judicial Code § 237(b). Southern Ry. Co. v. Painter, 314 U. S. 155, 314 U. S. 159-160: "If a state court proceeds as the Chancery Court of Tennessee acted, the ultimate vindication of any federal right lies with this Court." Baltimore & Ohio R. Co. v. Kepner, 314 U. S. 44, 314 U. S. 52.
Hoffman v. Missouri ex rel. Foraker, 274 U. S. 21. Cf. International Milling Co. v. Columbia Co., 292 U. S. 511, limiting Davis v. Farmers' Cooperative Co., 262 U. S. 312; Atchison Ry. Co. v. Wells, 265 U. S. 101, and Michigan Central R. Co. v. Mix, 278 U. S. 492, to the rule that suits upon extra-state causes of action under FELA burden commerce and will not be permitted in courts of states where the defendant carriers do no more than maintain facilities for solicitation of business. The three cases last mentioned and the Foraker case were all written by the same justice within the space of a few years.
Cf. Chambers v. Baltimore & Ohio R. Co., 207 U. S. 142, 207 U. S. 149.
House Resolution 17263, 61st Congress,2d Session, which eventually became the Act of 1910, contained no prohibition or restriction upon removal of suits from state courts when it passed the House, and was reported to the Senate by the Senate Committee on the Judiciary. Sen.Rep. No. 432, 61st Cong., 2d Sess., March 22, 1910. Upon the floor of the Senate, several amendments were proposed, varying in terms, but all seeking to achieve some such limitation. 45 Cong.Rec. 3995, 3998, 4051. Senator Paynter's second version was the amendment eventually adopted. 45 Cong.Rec. 4093. The House concurred in the Senate amendment without modification. 45 Cong.Rec. 4159.
"I offer an amendment which will give to the plaintiff the right to select the forum in which his case shall be tried. He can select the federal or the state court, as he may prefer, to try his case arising under the act in question."
"If this amendment is adopted, the Congress has not conferred by the act under consideration the exclusive jurisdiction upon state courts. The plaintiff can choose either the federal or state court in which to prosecute his action. The effect of my amendment is to prevent the removal of the action from the state courts when brought there."
Chambers v. Baltimore & Ohio R. Co., 207 U. S. 142, or Douglas v. New York, N.H. R. Co., 279 U. S. 377, do not impinge upon this principle. In the former case, an Ohio statute forbade suits in its courts for wrongful death occurring in another state unless the decedent was a citizen of Ohio. This Court saw no discrimination against personal representatives of any decedent, since their right to sue did not depend upon their citizenship, but upon the citizenship of their decedent. In the latter case, a statute of New York which gave only discretionary jurisdiction to suits by nonresidents but compulsory jurisdiction to suits by residents was held valid because it treated citizens and noncitizens alike, and tested their right to maintain an action by their residence or nonresidence.
This is not the position of the federal courts. Connelly v. Central R. Co., 238 F. 932; Schendel v. McGee, 300 F. 273, 278; Chesapeake & Ohio Ry. Co. v. Vigor, 90 F.2d 7.
Missouri-Kansas-Texas R Co. v. Ball, 126 Kan. 745, 271 P. 313; Mobile & Ohio R. Co. v. Parrent, 260 Ill.App. 284; Lancaster v. Dunn, 153 La. 15, 95 So. 385.
am not able to sublimate the conflict that underlies this case to the level of either of the conflicting opinions. Realistically considered, the issue is earthy and unprincipled. So viewed, the real issue is whether a plaintiff with a cause of action under the Federal Employers' Liability Act may go shopping for a judge or a jury believed to be more favorable than he would find in his home forum. An advantage which it is hoped will be reflected in a judgment is what makes plaintiffs leave home and incur burdens of expense and inconvenience that would be regarded as oppressive if forced upon them. And that is what makes railroads seek injunctions such as this one.
The judiciary has never a favored this sort of shopping for a forum. It has sought to protect its own good name, as well as to protect defendants by injunctions against the practice of seeking out soft spots in the judicial system in which to bring particular kinds of litigation. But the judges, with lawyerly indirection, have not avowed the interest of the judiciary in orderly resort to the courts as a basis for their decision, and have cast their protective doctrines in terms of sheltering defendants against vexatious and harassing suits. This judicial treatment of the subject of venue leads Congress and the parties to think of the choice of a forum as a private matter between litigants, and, in cases like the present, obscures the public interest in venue practices behind a rather fantastic fiction that a widow is harassing the Illinois Central Railroad. If Congress had left us free to consult the ultimate public interest in orderly resort to the judicial system, I should agree with MR. JUSTICE FRANKFURTER's conclusion. But the plaintiffs say that they go shopping not by leave of the courts themselves, but by the authority of Congress. Whether the Congress has granted such latitude is our question.
dependents may choose from the entire territory served by the railroad any place in which to sue, and in which to choose either a federal or a state court of which to ask his remedy. There is nothing which requires a plaintiff to whom such a choice is given to exercise it in a self-denying or large-hearted manner. There is nothing to restrain use of that privilege as all choices of tribunal are commonly used by all plaintiffs to get away from judges who are considered to be unsympathetic, and to get before those who are considered more favorable; to get away from juries thought to be small-minded in the matter of verdicts, and to get to those thought to be generous; to escape courts whose procedures are burdensome to the plaintiff and to seek out courts whose procedures make the going easy.
the choice of venue than that it intended to leave him in a position where the railroad could force him to try one lawsuit at home to find out whether he would be allowed to try his principal lawsuit elsewhere. This latter would be a frequent result if we upheld the contention made in this case and in the Kepner case. I think, therefore, that the petitioner had a right to resort to the Missouri court under the circumstances of this case for her remedy.
I do not, however, agree with the statement in MR. JUSTICE REED's opinion that "the Missouri court here involved must permit this litigation." It is very doubtful if any requirement can be spelled out of the Federal Constitution that a state must furnish a forum for a nonresident plaintiff and a foreign corporation to fight out issues imported from another state where the cause of action arose. It seems unnecessary to decide now whether this litigation could be imposed on the Missouri court, for it appears to have embraced the litigation. Even if Missouri, by reason of its control of its own courts, might refuse to open them to such a case, it does not follow that another state may close Missouri's courts to one with a federal cause of action. If Missouri elects to entertain the case, the courts of no other state can obstruct or prevent its exercise of jurisdiction as conferred by the federal statute or its right to obtain evidence and to distribute the proceeds, if any, in accordance with the Federal Employers' Liability Act. I therefore favor reversal.
"duty to safeguard and enforce the right of every citizen without reference to the particular exercise of governmental power from which the right may have arisen."
Minneapolis & St. Louis R. v. Bombolis, 241 U. S. 211, 241 U. S. 222.
This is a conventional provision. There is nothing novel or distinctive about it. Recognition of concurrent jurisdiction in the state courts to vindicate federal rights is found in the First Judiciary Act of 1789. 1 Stat. 73, 77.
And the statute books are replete with instances in which Congress has acknowledged the existence of this jurisdiction in the state courts unless explicitly withheld from them. See the discussion of Mr. Justice Bradley in Claflin v. Houseman, 93 U. S. 130, 93 U. S. 139, 93 U. S. 143. The essence of Section 6 is merely that the state courts are open to a plaintiff suing under the Act, and that, if he chooses to bring suit in a state court, the defendant may not remove the cause to a federal court. So far as language conveys ideas , the Act affords no intimation that Congress intended anything more.
achieving justice which the states customarily employ in similar cases. Specifically, the question for decision is this: has Congress, by providing explicitly that state courts shall have concurrent jurisdiction of suits under the Act, withdrawn from each state its recognized power to enjoin persons within its jurisdiction from bringing a suit under the Act "contrary to equity and good conscience" in the courts of another state? This question was wholly outside the scope of the Kepner case. It was not presented, and was therefore not decided, by that case.
The relevant circumstances here are these. A resident of Tennessee was killed in a railroad accident occurring in Tennessee. The railroad, an Illinois corporation, has its principal offices in Tennessee. All of the witnesses reside in Tennessee, as do the deceased's legal representatives. But suit was brought in a state court of Missouri, where the railroad does some business. Finding that the Missouri suit was "oppressive and inequitable," the Tennessee Court of Appeals sustained the power of the chancellor to restrain the further prosecution of that suit. The finding that the Missouri suit was "oppressive and inequitable" was challenged by the petitioners neither before us nor in the courts of Tennessee, and the propriety of the action taken by the Tennessee court, as a matter of equitable discretion, is not here in issue. We are called upon to decide only whether Congress has deprived Tennessee of the power which it has asserted in this case.
had the power to do what she has done here. For, while the Privileges and Immunities Clause, Art. IV, § 2, secures to citizens of other states such right of access to the courts of state as that state gives to its own citizens, Chambers v. Baltimore & Ohio R. Co., 207 U. S. 142, 207 U. S. 148; McKnett v. St. Louis & S.F. Ry. Co., 292 U. S. 230, 292 U. S. 233, it does not take away from a state its historic power to prevent unjust resort to the courts of another state. Cole v. Cunningham, 133 U. S. 107. Moreover, the Constitution would not prevent Missouri from declining to entertain a suit to vindicate a federal right, such as was brought here, if an action to enforce a similar nonfederal right would also not lie in her courts. The availability of state courts for the enforcement of federal rights has not resulted in putting federal rights on any different footing from state rights. "A state may not discriminate against rights arising under federal laws," McKnett v. St. Louis & S.F. Ry. Co., supra, at 292 U. S. 234, but neither the Constitution nor Congress has compelled the states to discriminate in favor of federal rights. And this Court has expressly held that the rights created by the Federal Employers' Liability Act are not different, in this respect, from other federal rights.
"As to the grant of jurisdiction in the Employers' Liability Act, that statute does not purport to require State Courts to entertain suits arising under it, but only to empower them to do so, so far as the authority of the United States is concerned."
Douglas v. New York, N.H. & H. R. Co., supra, at 279 U. S. 387.
The utilization of state courts for the vindication of federal rights does not require that their established procedures be remodeled, or that their customary modes for administering justice be restricted.
existence of a concurrent power and duty of both Federal and state courts to administer the rights conferred by the statute in accordance with the modes of procedure prevailing in such courts."
Minneapolis & St. Louis R. v. Bombolis, 241 U. S. 211, 241 U. S. 218, and see Second Employers' Liability Cases, 223 U. S. 1, 223 U. S. 56. The mere fact that a federal right is the basis of suit cannot, therefore, deprive the state courts of the power to use their customary procedures for the achievement of justice. In simply taking advantage of the facilities afforded by the courts of the states, Congress cannot be deemed to have altered the settled jurisprudence of the states so as to operate more favorably for federal rights than for similar rights created by the states themselves. Such drastic inroads upon the authority of the states should be made only upon clear Congressional mandate.
The Court finds such a plain command in the Act because Congress has explicitly provided in Section 6 that the jurisdiction of the state courts "shall be concurrent" with that of the federal courts. But Congress thereby merely spelt out what has always been unquestioned constitutional doctrine.
"It is a general rule that the grant of jurisdiction to one court does not, of itself, imply that the jurisdiction is to be exclusive. . . . Upon the state courts, equally with the courts of the Union, rests the obligation to guard and enforce every right secured by the Constitution and laws of the United States whenever those rights are involved in any suit or proceedings before them."
States, save in exceptional instances where the jurisdiction has been restricted by Congress to the federal courts."
"I hold that the State courts will be divested of no part of their primitive jurisdiction, further than may relate to an appeal, and I am even of opinion that, in every case in which they were not expressly excluded by the future acts of the national legislature, they will, of course, take cognizance of the causes to which those acts may give birth. This I infer from the nature of judiciary power, and from the general genius of the system. The judiciary power of every government looks beyond its own local or municipal laws, and, in civil cases, lays hold of all subjects of litigation between parties within its jurisdiction, though the causes of dispute are relative to the laws of the most distant part of the globe. . . . When, in addition to this, we consider the State governments and the national governments, as they truly are, in the light of kindred systems, and as parts of one whole, the inference seems to be conclusive that the State courts would have a concurrent jurisdiction in all cases arising under the laws of the Union, where it was not expressly prohibited."
provision in order to cut down the normal powers of state courts. The concurrent jurisdiction of the state courts was explicitly defined in order to dissipate an unwarranted doubt as to the right and duty of state courts to entertain suits arising under the Act. Congress wanted to avoid an implication of denial to the state courts of power to entertain cases under the Act, and not to create an implication of denial to the state courts of their traditional powers in dealing with such cases.
"This Act shall not be construed as excluding the exercise of a concurrent jurisdiction of cases arising under the Act by the courts of the several States."
"It is proposed to further amend the act by making the jurisdiction of the courts of the United States 'concurrent with the courts of the several States.'"
"This is proposed in order that there shall be no excuse for courts of the States to follow in the error of Hoxie v. N.Y. N.H. & H.R. Co., [82 Conn. 352] (73 A. 754), in which the court declined jurisdiction upon the ground, inter alia, that Congress did not intend that jurisdiction of cases arising under the act should be assumed by state courts."
there is no intent on the part of Congress to confine remedial actions brought under the employers' liability act to the courts of the United States."
H.Rep. No.513, 61st Cong., 2d Sess., p. 7.
The Committee also recommended that the wording of the provision be changed to read as follows: "The jurisdiction of the courts of the United States under this act shall be concurrent with that of the courts of the several States." This language was embodied in the Act.
"The second change in the law provides that the federal courts and the state courts shall have concurrent jurisdiction. I am very sure that they have concurrent jurisdiction as the law is now, but, on account of a decision of one of the state courts of Connecticut, where one judge declined to take jurisdiction in a case because it was under a federal statute, the committee thought best to expressly provide in the law that the federal courts and the state courts should have concurrent jurisdiction to avoid the possibility of such a construction in the future."
In reply to a question as to the Committee's purpose in recommending this provision, "Did you intend to limit the state courts in any way in this matter?" the answer was, "Oh, no; just the contrary." 45 Cong.Rec. 2254.
"The amendment which has been proposed in the latter portion of section 6 was necessitated, if that term can properly be used, by reason of a decision of the Supreme court of the Connecticut. My individual view is that the law is now as the amendment attempts to make it -- that is to say, that both the federal and state courts have jurisdiction of this matter -- concurrent jurisdiction. . . . As I understand the law, unless there is a clause prohibiting or inhibiting the state court, it always has concurrent jurisdiction with the federal courts in such a subject matter as this. The report cites a number of authorities to this effect. But the supreme court of Connecticut refused to assume jurisdiction or to take jurisdiction of the matter, though the well established legal principle seems to be absolutely different. I do not believe this amendment is necessary. I believe it is thoroughly established that the federal courts and the state courts have concurrent jurisdiction. But, in order to avoid courts' being misled upon this proposition, this specific provision is thought to be necessary in the law."
45 Cong.Rec. 3995. See also his remarks at 45 Cong.Rec. 4034, 4035.
certainly more so than the other two, is to add . . . these words:"
" And no case arising under this act and brought in any state court of competent jurisdiction shall be removed to any court of the United States."
"And the gentleman, being, as I am, a states-rights Democrat, will certainly say that is a decided improvement upon the bill as it originally passed the House. Furthermore, I say that this amendment will tend to relieve the federal courts of some litigation which can be as well, if not better, determined in the courts of the States."
Such a restriction against removal of litigation normally arising in the state courts is not unique in the history of legislation dealing with the business of the lower federal courts. Thirty years earlier, Congress had begun to limit the right of removal to the federal courts. See, e.g., Act of July 12, 1882, § 4, 22 Stat. 162, 163; Act of March 3, 1887, 24 Stat. 552, corrected by Act of August 13, 1888, 25 Stat. 433. The removal prohibition of the 1910 Act must be regarded as a phase of the movement to ease the pressure upon the lower federal courts by curtailing access to them, rather than by multiplying unduly the number of federal judges. Nothing warrants the inference that thereby Congress intended a reversal of the historic relation of state courts to one another.
as the authority of the United States is concerned."
279 U.S. at 279 U. S. 387. And again, in McKnett's case, 292 U.S. at 292 U. S. 233, the Court emphasized that "Congress has not attempted to compel states to provide courts for the enforcement of the Federal Employers' Liability Act." In short, every time the question has arisen, this Court has recognized that, by the 1910 amendment, Congress did not write a new chapter in judicial history, nor did it modify the historic function of state courts as agencies for the enforcement of federal rights employing the same instruments for achieving justice as they employ when enforcing rights having their source in state law.
vexatious suits in other state courts. This is to say that, in all these cases over a period of years, this Court disregarded the jurisdictional requirements of the Federal Employers' Liability Act. Yet the Act was constantly before the Court, and, it may not be amiss to recall, no member of this Court, in modern times, at least, was more familiar with and more mindful of jurisdictional requirements than Mr. Justice Brandeis, who spoke for a unanimous Court in both the Davis and Mix cases.
The Court does not now overrule these decisions. They stand as unchallenged authorities that, in giving the state courts concurrent jurisdiction of suits under the Act, Congress did not thereby preclude the application of principles of equity and justice to such suits. These decisions show clearly that Section 6 did not give the state courts compulsive jurisdiction; it merely conferred authority to be administered in the context of existing law.
"all the bar was of another opinion. It was said the injunction did not lie for foreign jurisdictions, nor out of the king's dominions. But to that it was answered, the injunction was not to the court, but to the party."
apply to a Court within this country, which no order of this Court ever affects to bind, our orders being only pointed at the parties to restrain them from proceeding. Accordingly, this case of Love v. Baker has not been recognized or followed in later times."
3 Myl. & K. at 107. See Wharton v. May, 5 Ves.Jr. 27; Kennedy v. Earl of Casillis, 2 Swans. 313; Harrison v. Gurney, 2 Jac. & W. 563; Bushby v. Munday, 5 Madd. 184; Beauchamp v. Marquis of Huntley, Jac. 546; Eden on Injunctions (1822 Ed.) pp. 3 et seq., 101-102.
This doctrine of equitable power has been universally accepted by American courts. See, e.g., Dehon v. Foster, 4 Allen, Mass. 545, 550; Cole v. Young, 24 Kan. 435, 438; Bigelow v. Old Dominion Co., 74 N.J.Eq. 457, 473, 71 A. 153. And the power has been exercised by the state courts generally to enjoin oppressive suits brought under the Act in other state courts. See Reed's Adm'x v. Illinois Central R. Co., 182 Ky. 455, 206 S.W. 794; Chicago, M. & St.P. R. Co. v. McGinley, 175 Wis. 565, 185 N.W. 218; State ex rel. New York, C. & St.L. R. Co. v. Nortoni, 331 Mo. 764, 55 S.W.2d 272; Kern v. Cleveland, C., C. & St.L. R. Co., 204 Ind. 595, 185 N.E. 446. Of course, since a federal right is involved, no state court can screen denial of or discrimination against a federal right under the guise of enforcing its local law. Davis v. Wechsler, 263 U. S. 22; Southern Ry. Co. v. Painter, 314 U. S. 155, 314 U. S. 159-160.
The power of equity to restrain the prosecution of unconscionable suits has been part of the very fabric of the state courts as we have known them in our whole history. And nothing in the Federal Employers' Liability Act, its language, its history, or its policy warrants a denial of this power to the states.
THE CHIEF JUSTICE, MR. JUSTICE ROBERTS, and MR. JUSTICE BYRNES, join in this dissent.

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