Source: https://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-supreme-court/247/214.html
Timestamp: 2019-04-20 23:20:25+00:00

Document:
LOONEY v. EASTERN TEXAS R. CO.
Mr. Luther Nickels, of Austin, Tex., for appellant. [247 U.S. 214, 215] Mr. J. W. Terry, of Galveston, Tex., for appellees.
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 o 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.
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.
An application for a temporary injunction, on the issues thus joined, was heard on April 4, 1917, by three judges, and resulted in an order as prayed for. The court, in arriving at its announced conclusion, expressly disclaimed passing on the merits of the controversy, and granted the injunction because, as is variously stated in the opinions rendered, it deemed it necessary to prevent a multiplicity of destructive suits against the carriers; because the order of the Commission could not be held void on a preliminary hearing; and because the Texas rate situation involved was at the time in process of re- [247 U.S. 214, 217] -examination 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 modifica ion 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.
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 similiar 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.
From this temporary injunction the Attorney General appeals to this court, and the case has been heard on the motion of the appellees to dismiss the appeal for want of jurisdiction. One ground, among others, urged for sustaining this motion is that the federal District Court having acquired, and having entered upon the exercise of jurisdiction over the parties to and the subjectmatter of the suit in that court, prior to the commencement of [247 U.S. 214, 219] 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 section 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 section 266 of the Judicial Code (Act March 3, 1911, c. 231, 36 Stat. 1162 [Comp. St. 1916, 1243]).
The use of the writ of injunction, by federal courts first acquiring jurisdiction ovre 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, 163 , 164 S., 19 Sup. Ct. 119, in a rate case, Missouri v. Chi., Bur. & Quincy R. R. Co., 241 U.S. 533, 543 , 36 S. Sup. Ct. 715. 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 section 265 of the Judicial Code, Revis d Statutes, section 720, Act of March 2, 1793, c. 22, 1 Stat. L. 334 (Comp. St. 1916, 1242), has repeatedly been held not applicable to such an injunction. Julian v. Central Trust Co., 193 U.S. 93, 113 , 24 S. Sup. Ct. 399; Simon v. Southern Ry. Co., 236 U.S. 115 , 35 Sup. Ct. 255.

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