Source: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/220/191/
Timestamp: 2019-04-21 14:27:56+00:00

Document:
Prohibition is an extraordinary writ which will issue against a court which is acting clearly without any jurisdiction whatever, and where there is no other remedy; but where there is another legal remedy, by appeal or otherwise, or where the question of jurisdiction is doubtful or depends on matters outside the record, the granting or refusal of the writ is discretionary. In re Rice, 155 U. S. 396. Mandamus cannot perform the office of an appeal or writ of error, and is only granted as a general rule where there is no other adequate remedy. Re Atlantic City R. Co., 164 U. S. 633.
Where, in an action to enjoin state officer from enforcing a state statute against articles in interstate commerce, the interlocutory injunction can be corrected in the Circuit Court of Appeals, and there is a direct appeal on the question of jurisdiction to this Court after final decree, an adequate remedy is provided and the writ of prohibition could only be granted on the ground of absolute right and this Court in this case decline to allow it to issue.
There is an identity of the principles which govern mandamus and prohibition, and the latter writ is also refused in this case, as there is a remedy by review in this Court after final judgment. Ex Parte Nebraska, 209 U. S. 436.
On March 24, 1908, the Legislature of Oklahoma enacted a statute, known as the Billups Bill, providing for a state agency for the dispensing of liquors under certain circumstances, but not for use as a beverage, and prohibiting generally the manufacture, sale, bartering, giving away or otherwise furnishing liquor within the state. Session Laws Oklahoma, 1907-1908, ch. 69, p. 605; §§ 4180 et seq. Comp.Laws of 1909. Sections 5 and 6 of Art. 3 of the statute, §§ 4184 and 4185 Comp.Laws of 1909, provide in substance that any judge of a district or county court or justice of the peace, upon a showing of probable cause, may issue search and seizure warrants directed to any officer of the county to seize liquors under the circumstances therein mentioned, and provide for a hearing as to whether such liquors are being unlawfully held, etc. The statute also makes provision for the forfeiture of liquors and other personal property employed in unlawfully trafficking in liquors.
"The Circuit Court of the United States for the Eastern District of Oklahoma and Ralph E. Campbell, the District Judge of said District, sitting as Judge of said Circuit Court, have, in direct violation of the Eleventh Amendment to the Constitution of the United States and contrary to and in direct violation of § 720 of the Revised Statutes of the United States, assumed jurisdiction"
"from prosecuting any action in its said courts, under and pursuant to said §§ 4184 and 4185, supra, of petitioner's said laws, against any intoxicating liquors, in all cases where it may become necessary to try and determine any one or more"
"that said acts of said respondents constitute and are an unlawful and unwarranted interference with petitioner, the Oklahoma, in the exercise of its governmental functions and sovereign powers in connection with the enforcement of petitioner's said prohibition laws. . . ."
In substance, it was prayed in the petition that the further prosecution of the suits and the enforcement of the various restraining orders and temporary injunctions entered therein should be prohibited, as well as any further interference with the prosecution in the state courts of search and seizure process under the law in question.
rights protected by the Constitution of the United States, the unlawfulness of these seizures and the irreparable character of the injury done and likely to be occasioned by further threatened seizures, the railway company commenced, on September 9, 1908, the first of the equity suits referred to in the petition. Twelve persons were made defendants, as having been concerned either in the obtaining of the various search warrants and their service, or because in possession of property seized, or on account of advising and encouraging the commission of the alleged trespasses. A decree for the restoration of eighteen specified consignments, alleged to have been unlawfully seized, was prayed, as also an injunction against future seizures. A temporary restraining order was granted; and, ultimately, a stipulation was entered into for the return of the property seized, and for its redelivery to the defendants on the payment to them of its value in the event the litigation should terminate adversely to the railway company. On September 16, 1908, the temporary restraining order was, by agreement of the parties, continued in force until a time to be fixed by consent for the hearing of an application for a temporary injunction. No further proceedings were had in the case.
"and that the relief prayed for is sought in direct violation of the Seventh and Eleventh Amendments of the Constitution of the United States, and in direct violation of § 720 of the Revised Statutes of the United States,"
and that the bill of complaint "is wholly without equity." These demurrers have not been passed upon.
"That it appears from said complainants' bill of complaint that their business operations, which they seek to have protected by decree of this Honorable Court, are carried on and conducted in direct violation of the penal laws of the United States of America, to-wit, in violation of §§ 238, 239 and 240 of an Act of Congress of March 4, 1909. 35 Stat. 1136-7."
"from entering the cars, depots or other premises of the complainant, Missouri, Kansas and Texas Railway Company, and from taking therefrom intoxicating liquors shipped from points outside of the Oklahoma to points and consigned to persons within the Eastern District of the Oklahoma, and that said defendants, and each of them, their agents and employees be restrained from in anywise interfering with complainant in its handling and delivery of such interstate shipments of intoxicating liquors and from inciting, aiding, abetting or advising other persons so to do."
The defendants were also enjoined from taking any steps looking to the forfeiture of the seized property.
the Eastern District of the Oklahoma while the same is in the possession of the common carrier, and before the same have been delivered, either actually or constructively, to such consignees."
"Provided, however, that this order shall not apply to any liquors shipped in violation of Sec. 3449 of the Revised Statutes of the United States, or to liquors shipped in violation of Sections 238, 239 and 240, of the Act of Congress of March 4, 1909, 35 Stat. 1136-7, or to any such liquors which are adulterated or misbranded within the meaning of the Act of Congress of June 30, 1906, ch. 3915, 34 Stat. 768, commonly known as the Pure Food and Drug Act, or to any such liquors shipped in violation of any other Act of Congress."
In one of the shippers' cases, the injunction order also contained a provision prohibiting action by the defendants looking to the forfeiture of any of the liquors referred to in the complaint as having been seized by such defendants.
search and seizure laws referred to, the legislature intended that they should apply to such interstate commerce, then the answer is that, to that extent, the law is invalid, because it is made to apply to a subject within the exclusive jurisdiction of Congress. If, on the other hand, it is contended that such was not the intention of the legislature, then the state courts are exceeding the law in issuing such search and seizure warrants. They are, in my judgment, no protection to the officer who seeks by them to justify his acts thereunder, and to enjoin him from executing them is not a violation of § 720 of the Revised Statutes. The authority of the state does not attach to shipments of the character involved in this case until the delivery to the consignee."
"If these seizures are permitted, complainants will either have to abandon their property so seized or defend a multiplicity of suits, the number of which will be determined only by the zeal of the enforcement officers in their interference with interstate commerce. As the record now stands, the complainants, of course, must eventually win in such suits, for upon a showing to the state court that the property seized was still interstate commerce, undelivered to the consignee, it would have to be ordered returned to the complainants. It is not conceived, however, that such a course presents that adequate legal remedy which precludes the action of a court of equity. Nor is it conceived that in granting the temporary injunctions complained of, respondent is violating the 11th Amendment to the Constitution, or § 720 of the Revised Statutes of the United States, because the injunction may prevent one or more of the defendants from thereafter causing such warrants of search and seizure to issue, or from executing such warrants after issuance."
"the effect of the injunctions here complained of is to prevent and prohibit the 'judicial power' of the State of Oklahoma being invoked, even by the state itself, for the purpose of judicially determining the status of any particular quantity of intoxicating liquor found within its borders, insofar as questions touching its status as interstate commerce are concerned."
"any officer or person seeking to seize or cause to be seized intoxicating liquors under the provisions of said act, before their arrival at destination and delivery to consignee, acts entirely outside of and beyond the scope of said law and is a naked trespasser, and may be enjoined."
because we are of the opinion that, consistently with the orderly course of judicial proceeding, we may not pass upon them, since we cannot do so without disregarding the plain statutory provisions providing means for reviewing the action of the court which is complained of and which, if availed of, would afford complete and adequate remedy.
"It is firmly established that, where it appears that a court whose action is sought to be prohibited has clearly no jurisdiction of the cause originally, a party who has objected to the jurisdiction at the outset and has no other remedy is entitled to a writ of prohibition as a matter of right. But where there is another legal remedy by appeal or otherwise, or where the question of the jurisdiction of the court is doubtful, or depends on facts which are not made matter of record, the granting or refusal of the writ is discretionary. In re Rice, 155 U. S. 396. And that the writ of mandamus cannot be used to perform the office of an appeal or writ of error, and is only granted as a general rule where there is no other adequate remedy. In re Atlantic City Railroad Company, 164 U. S. 633."
court below as a federal court over the respective causes; third, because even if these remedies were not resorted to and the cases had gone to final decrees against the defendants and they had chosen to appeal the whole case to the circuit court of appeals, and that court had decided against them, there would be either a right in this Court to review by appeal, or discretionary power, if it was deemed that the questions involved warranted such action, to bring the whole case up for review by the writ of certiorari. Bearing these considerations in mind, it results that relief by the extraordinary remedy of prohibition, if here granted, could not possibly rest upon the ground that there was otherwise no adequate means of relief, but would have to be placed upon the assumption that there was a right to the writ, even although the party invoking it had declined to avail himself of the otherwise complete and adequate measures of relief which would have been afforded by following the orderly and regular course of judicial proceeding.
U.S. 436. That case was this. The State of Nebraska was one of the plaintiffs in a cause removed from a state court into a Circuit Court of the United States on the ground that there was a separable controversy between the other plaintiffs in the cause and the defendant. The Circuit Court having denied a motion to remand, the State of Nebraska applied to this Court for a writ of mandamus to compel the remanding of the cause, averring that it was plain from the record that it was the real and in substance the only party plaintiff in the removed cause. The application for the writ, however, was denied upon the ground that the order overruling the motion to remand was subject after final judgment to be reviewed by appeal, and therefore was not properly reviewable by the writ of mandamus.
Rule discharged and prohibition denied.
"(a) The issue as to whether or not the particular intoxicating liquor in question was at the time of its seizure, a bona fide shipment made to a person within petitioner's borders from a place outside of petitioner's borders, which said shipment had not been delivered by the interstate carrier under the contract of interstate shipment to the consignee at the place of destination."
"(b) The issue as to whether or not the particular intoxicating liquor in question had been shipped from a point outside of petitioner's borders to a place within petitioner's borders in violation of § 3449 of the Revised Statutes of the United States."
"(c) The issue as to whether or not the particular intoxicating liquor in question had been shipped from a place outside of petitioner's borders to a place within petitioner's borders in violation of any one or more of §§ 238, 239, and 240 of the Act of Congress of March 4, 1909 (35 Stat. 1136-7)."
"(d) The issue as to whether or not the particular intoxicating liquor in question, although shipped from a place outside of petitioner's borders to a place within petitioner's borders and in the possession of the interstate carrier, undelivered under the contract of interstate shipment at the time the seizure was made, is 'adulterated' or 'misbranded' within the meaning of the Act of Congress of June 30, 1906, chapter 3915, 34 Stat. 768, commonly known as the Pure Food and Drug Act."

References: Art. 3
 § 720
 § 720
 § 720
 § 720
 § 3449