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Timestamp: 2020-02-17 15:54:31
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Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 709', '§ 237', '§ 237', '§ 25', '§ 2', '§ 237', '§ 266', '§ 2', '§ 25', '§ 237', '§ 237', '§ 5', '§ 238', '§ 237', '§ 25', '§ 237', '§ 237', '§ 34', '§ 721', '§ 25', '§ 237']

US Supreme Court Decisions On-Line> Volume 277 > KING MANUFACTURING CO. V. AUGUSTA, 277 U. S. 100 (1928)
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the words "statute of any state" are used in their larger sense, including every act, legislative in character, to which the state gives its sanction, no distinction being made between acts of the state legislature and other exertions of the state's lawmaking power. P. 277 U. S. 102. chanrobles.com-red
This is a suit brought in a state court in Georgia to restrain the enforcement of an ordinance of the city of Augusta fixing rates for water power supplied from a canal owned and maintained by the city. The plaintiff is a manufacturing company which operates a mill adjacent to the canal with water power supplied therefrom. The objection urged against the ordinance is that it is repugnant to the contract clause of the Constitution of the United States, and therefore invalid, in that it impairs the obligation of a prior contract whereby the city undertook to supply water power for the plaintiff's mill in perpetuity at a lower rate than that fixed in the ordinance. The court of first instance held the ordinance valid, and accordingly dismissed the suit. This was affirmed by the supreme court of the state, 164 Ga. 306, and the case is chanrobles.com-red
It, of course, rests with each state to determine in what form and by what agencies its legislative power may be exerted. It may legislate little or much in its Constitution, may permit the electorate to make laws by direct vote, may intrust its legislature with wide lawmaking functions, and may delegate legislative authority to subordinate agencies, such as municipal councils and state commissions. chanrobles.com-red
Were the question an open one, these considerations would afford impelling reasons for holding that the jurisdictional provision uses the words "a statute of any state" in their larger sense, and is not intended to make a distinction between acts of a state legislature and other exertions of the state's lawmaking power, but rather to include every act legislative in character to which the chanrobles.com-red
The three provisions -- the third as so amended -- were carried into § 709 of the Revised Statutes of 1873 and into § 237 of the Judicial Code of 1911. By the Act of September 6, 1916, c. 448, 39 Stat. 726, the third provision was chanrobles.com-red
Before coming to decided cases which we deem relevant, it is well to refer to some which, although cited as in point, appear to us not to be so. @ 27 U. S. 463, on the ground that the city's action in adopting the ordinance was the "exercise of an authority'" under the state. Whether the ordinance was a statute of the state was not considered. The other case also involved a municipal chanrobles.com-red
Ford v. Surget, 97 U. S. 594, is much like the case just cited. The plaintiff sued in a state court in Mississippi to recover for cotton belonging to him which the defendant had destroyed in that state during the Civil War in obedience to an enactment of the Confederate States. By special pleas, the defendant set up that enactment in justification of the trespass, and the plaintiff insisted by demurrers that the enactment was contrary to the Constitution. The demurrers were overruled, and judgment was given for the defendant, which the supreme court affirmed. The case was brought to this Court by chanrobles.com-red
and after quoting with approval the statement chanrobles.com-red
In Atlantic Coast Line R. Co. v. Goldsboro, 232 U. S. 548, this Court was asked to review, on writ of error, a judgment of the Supreme Court of North Carolina giving effect to a municipal ordinance over the objection that it was invalid under the Constitution of the United States. Mr. Justice Pitney, speaking for the entire Court, sustained its jurisdiction, and on that point said, p. 232 U. S. 555: chanrobles.com-red
Zucht v. King, 260 U. S. 174, was brought here on writ of error solely on the ground that the state court had upheld a municipal ordinance against the contention that chanrobles.com-red
262 U. S. 683, specifically followed and applied in Northern Pacific Ry. Co. v. Department of Public Works,@ 268 U. S. 39, 268 U. S. 42.
In no case has phrase "a statute of any state" in the jurisdictional provision been construed otherwise than as shown in the foregoing review. With its use elsewhere -- chanrobles.com-red
The adoption and terms of the ordinance are not in dispute. Nor is it questioned that the city became obligated long before the ordinance to supply water power from its canal for the plaintiff's mill. But it is questioned that there was any engagement for a designated price or rate in perpetuity. Both courts below found for the city of this point. That finding is entitled to respect, but is not conclusive, for it rests with this Court in cases like this, where contract obligations are said to have been impaired by subsequent legislation contrary to the constitutional restriction, to determine whether there was a contract and what obligations arose from it. 181 U. S. 147; Appleby v. New York, 271 U. S. 364, 271 U. S. 379-380. It is admitted that there was here no formal contract. But it is insisted that a contract arose from conversations and correspondence between representatives of the plaintiff and officers of the city, and that it included an engagement for a designated price or rate in perpetuity. The proofs have been considered. It would serve no purpose to review them in this opinion. We think they fall short of showing any engagement respecting the rate, other than that it was to be the established rate for users in general. The rate had been fixed by ordinance when the plaintiff obtained the right to have water power supplied to its mill, but there was, as we construe the proofs, no engagement that that rate should continue indefinitely. The city may be under a duty to supply the power at a reasonable rate (see Millers v. Augusta,@ 63 Ga. 722), but that question is not in this case. The plaintiff's objection is confined to the asserted impairment of a prior contract.
I think that the writ of error should be dismissed. The judgment below was entered after the effective date of the Act of February 13, 1925, c. 229, 43 Stat. 936, 937, 942. That act struck from § 237 of the Judicial Code the Words "or an authority exercised under any state." [Footnote 1] The section as so amended limits the right of review by writ of error to cases where the highest court of a state has denied the validity of a treaty or statute of the United States, or has affirmed the validity of a statute of a state, challenged as repugnant to the Constitution, treaties, or laws of the chanrobles.com-red
The question before us is the interpretation not of the word "laws," used in the Constitution, but the narrower term "statute," employed in the Judiciary Act of 1789, c. 20, § 25, 1 Stat. 73, 85. And our task is to construe not the single word "statute," but the phrase "statute of any state." Laws or regulations adopted by a municipality are called, in common speech, either ordinances or bylaws, not "statutes." [Footnote 2] In some connections, rules established by an institution are referred to as statutes. Thus, the rules adopted by a university or its founder are sometimes spoken of as statutes of the university. But no one would call them statutes of the state under whose law the university is incorporated. Nor would anyone, in referring chanrobles.com-red
Our jurisdiction to review a judgment of a state court sustaining the validity of a municipal ordinance alleged to be repugnant to the federal Constitution was first invoked in @ 27 U. S. 463-464. Section 25 of the Judiciary Act of 1789, which was then in force without amendment, authorized a review by writ of error in any case
The second of the categories mentioned in Home Insurance Co. v. City Council of Augusta was eliminated, so far as the right to review by writ of error was concerned, by the Act of September 6, 1916, c. 448, § 2, 39 Stat. 726. In cases where the showing was merely that a title, right, privilege, or immunity guaranteed by the Constitution had been claimed and denied, that act provided that there could be no review except by certiorari. But, as it left unchanged the clause regarding the validity of an authority on which Mr. Chief Justice Marshall had based the power of this Court of review judgments sustaining municipal ordinances, our jurisdiction over such judgments remained unaffected. When, in 1925, the "authority" clause was chanrobles.com-red
should issue except upon a hearing before three judges as there provided. An unbroken line of decisions, beginning in 1911, has held that a municipal ordinance is not a statute within the meaning of that section. Sperry & Hutchinson Co. v. City of Tacoma, 190 F.6d 2; Cumberland Telephone & Telegraph Co. v. City of Memphis, 198 F.9d 5; Birmingham Waterworks Co. v. City of Birmingham, 211 F.4d 7, aff'd, 213 F.4d 0; Calhoun v. City of Seattle, 215 F.2d 6; City of Des Moines v. Des Moines Gas Co., 264 F.5d 6; City of Dallas v. Dallas Telephone Co., 272 F.4d 0. See also Land Development Co. v. City of New Orleans, 13 F.2d 898, reversed on the merits, 17 F.2d 1016. The principal ground of these decisions, namely, "that the natural meaning of "statute of a state" is a statute or law directly passed by the legislature of the state, and the natural meaning of "any officer of such state" is an officer whose authority extends throughout the state, and is not limited to a small district" (Cumberland Telephone & Telegraph Co. v. City of Memphis, 198 F.9d 5, 957), is, of course, equally applicable to § 237 of the Judicial Code. It cannot have been unknown to Congress. The construction had already been established when the Act of March 4, 1913, c. 160, 37 Stat. 1013, amended § 266 so as to make chanrobles.com-red
Congress did not include in the amendment any reference to municipal ordinances. The fact that it did not is significant. [Footnote 5] chanrobles.com-red
Prior to the Act of 1925, the difference, for purposes of appellate review, between a statute and a law enacted by a subordinate legislative body had been called to the attention of Congress also by the cases which settled that the enactments of the legislatures and other lawmaking bodies of the territories and of the District of Columbia are not statutes of the United States within the meaning of legislation governing the jurisdiction of this Court. The question appears to have arisen first under the Act of March 3, 1885, c. 355, § 2, 23 Stat. 443. The phraseology of this statute was similar to that of § 25 of the Judiciary Act of 1789, and this Court has always recognized that decisions under it and its later reenactments are authoritative with regard to the construction of § 237 of the Judicial Code. [Footnote 6] It permitted chanrobles.com-red
The right to review on appeal a judgment involving the validity of an ordinance or regulation of the District of Columbia was rested upon the same ground in Smoot v. Heyl, 227 U. S. 518, 227 U. S. 522, although the statute authorizing the District Commissioners to make regulations provided that they should "have the same force and effect within the District of Columbia as if enacted by Congress." Act chanrobles.com-red
Commissioners of the District of Columbia, and the Philippine statutes and ordinances bear a relation to acts of Congress that is wholly comparable to that borne by municipal ordinances to the statutes passed by the legislature of a state. Congress cannot have intended that, in the Act of 1925, the phrase "statute of any state" should be read as including municipal ordinances within a state, while, under like circumstances, the phrase "statute of the United States" does not include chanrobles.com-red
Moreover, if municipal ordinances are deemed to be statutes of a state within the meaning of § 237(a) of the Judicial Code, legislative orders of state commissions, boards, and officials must be also. Prior to the Act of 1925, judgments sustaining the validity of such orders were reviewable on writ of error as fully as judgments sustaining the validity of statutes and ordinances. Between the effective date of the Act of 1916 and that of the Act of 1925, this Court wrote opinions in 21 cases in which a judgment of the highest court of a state involving the validity of an order of a commission was reviewed on writ of error. [Footnote 7] In none of the opinions was it stated that jurisdiction existed because an order is a statute of state. [Footnote 8] On the other hand, in @ 267 U. S. 430, where our jurisdiction was invoked to review, on writ of error, the judgment of a state court denying the validity of an order of the Interstate Commerce Commission, the jurisdiction was sustained on the ground that the order
The difference between a statute and an ordinance for purposes of appellate review -- a difference which rests wholly on expediency -- had been acted upon by Congress half a century earlier, when it undertook to deal with the congestion of business in this Court by regulating the chanrobles.com-red
priority of hearings in revenue cases. Act of June 30, 1870, c. 181, 16 Stat. 176; 82 U. S. 392. [Footnote 10] It was reaffirmed when Congress, in 1925, withdrew the right to a direct appeal from the district court in cases involving the validity of municipal ordinances, though allowing such an appeal in certain cases involving the validity of statutes and orders of commissions. On the other hand, the essential identity of statutes, ordinances, and orders, where the question concerns substantive rights, has always been recognized. Since all regulations established by competent authority are laws, the comprehensive term "laws" has been used when it was desired to include all forms of legislative action. [Footnote 11] Thus, as the enactments of a subordinate body exercising legislative authority are a part of the laws of a state, an ordinance or an order is a law within the meaning of the contract clause, and is state action within the prohibitions of the Fourteenth Amendment. 211 U. S. 313; Grand Trunk Ry. Co. v. Railroad Commission, 221 U. S. 400, 221 U. S. 403; Ross v. Oregon, 227 U. S. 150, 227 U. S. 162-163; Lake Erie & Western R. Co. v. Public Utilities Commission, 249 U. S. 422, 249 U. S. 424; Standard Scale Co. v. Farrell, 249 U. S. 571, 249 U. S. 577. For, as this Court has pointed out in New Orleans Water Works Co. v. Louisiana Sugar Refining Co., 125 U. S. 18, 125 U. S. 30-31:
Prior to the Act of 1925, final judgments of a District or Circuit Court involving the constitutional validity of a municipal ordinance could be brought directly to this Court by writ of error or appeal under § 5 of the Court of Appeals Act, Act of March 3, 1891, c. 517, 26 Stat. 826, 827, 828, and § 238 of the Judicial Code, because such review was authorized "in any case that involves the construction or application of the Constitution of the United States," and "in any case in which the constitution or law of a state is claimed to be in contravention of the Constitution of the United States." Davis & Farnum Manufacturing Co. v. City of Los Angeles, 189 U. S. 207, 189 U. S. 216; Boise Artesian Water Co. v. Boise City, 230 U. S. 84, 230 U. S. 90. See Standard Scale Co. v. Farrell, 249 U. S. 571, 249 U. S. 577. And likewise, a case involving the constitutional validity of an chanrobles.com-red
When it is borne in mind that the severe limitations upon the right of review by this Court -- imposed by the Act of 1925 -- were made solely because the increase of the Court's business compelled, the reasons why Congress should have taken away the right to a review by writ of error to the highest court of a state in cases involving the validity of ordinances, while leaving unaffected the right in cases involving the validity of statutes, becomes clear. There are only 48 states. In 1920, there were 924 municipalities in the United States of more than 8,000 inhabitants. [Footnote 13] The validity of ordinances of even smaller municipalities had come to this Court for adjudication. [Footnote 14] chanrobles.com-red
If, by striking out from § 237 of the Judicial Code the clause, "or an authority exercised under any state," Congress did not exclude from review by writ of error cases involving the validity of municipal ordinances and commission orders, it wholly failed to accomplish what, in view of the statements made to it in regard to the chanrobles.com-red
effect of the amendment, [Footnote 16] must be deemed to have been its purpose in so amending the section -- that is, to relieve this Court, in many cases, of the burden of obligatory review. For, other than these, there had been considered by this Court, in the nine years between the effective dates of the Jurisdictional Acts of 1916 and 1925, and decided with opinions, not more than eight cases involving the validity of an authority exercised under a state or under the United States. [Footnote 17] On the other hand, the forty cases in which judgments of state courts sustaining municipal ordinances or commission orders had been reviewed on writ of error had entailed a burden out of all proportion to their number. The evidence introduced to establish the facts in cases involving the validity either of orders or of municipal ordinances is often both voluminous chanrobles.com-red
From the decision of 27 U. S. 463-464, in which Mr. Chief Justice Marshall rested the jurisdiction of this Court to review the judgments of state courts involving the validity of municipal ordinances upon the clause "or an authority exercised under any state," to the passage of the Act of 1925, ninety-six years elapsed. During that period, the Court wrote opinions in a multitude of cases in which that specific jurisdiction was exercised. In only two of them has there been found any statement that the jurisdiction could be sustained on the ground that a municipal ordinance is a statute of a state within the meaning of § 25 of the Judiciary Act of 1789 or its later reenactments. chanrobles.com-red
These two opinions were written at successive terms by the same member of the Court. Atlantic Coast Line R. Co. v. Goldsboro, 232 U. S. 548, 232 U. S. 555; Reinman v. Little Rock, 237 U. S. 171, 237 U. S. 176. An examination of the record and briefs in the two cases seems to make it clear that the statements were obiter, and were made inadvertently. No question of the jurisdiction of this Court under § 237 of the Judicial Code was raised or discussed by counsel in either case, and this Court could not, under the legislation then in force, have entertained a doubt as to the existence of the jurisdiction. Neither opinion of the Court refers to 27 U. S. 463-464, or to Home Insurance Co. v. City Council of Augusta, 93 U. S. 116, 93 U. S. 121 -- the cases which, on full consideration, had settled that the basis of our jurisdiction was the clause relating to the validity of an authority. Neither refers to New Mexico ex rel. McLean v. Denver & Rio Grande R. Co., 203 U. S. 38, 203 U. S. 47-48, or to Smoot v. Heyl, 227 U. S. 518, 227 U. S. 522 -- the cases which had recently confirmed that ruling. There was obviously no intention to overrule these cases.
The only authority cited in support of the statement in the Goldsboro and Little Rock cases, Williams v. Bruffy, 96 U. S. 176, 96 U. S. 183, furnishes no basis for them. That case involved an act of the Congress of the Confederate States -- a body whose legislation would obviously be described in common speech as "statutes." It was conceded that the particular act was a "statute." The question was whether it was a statute "of any state." [Footnote 19] The Court chanrobles.com-red
The dicta concerning our jurisdiction in Atlantic Coast Line R. Co. v. Goldsboro and in Reinman v. Little chanrobles.com-red
Rock have never been repeated in any later case dealing with municipal ordinances, even where the decisions in the two cases have been relied upon. Some care seems to have been taken not to repeat the expression that a municipal ordinance was a statute of a state. See Thomas Cusack Co. v. Chicago, 242 U. S. 526, 242 U. S. 529; Zucht v. King, 260 U. S. 174, 260 U. S. 176. To construe the phrase "statute of any state" as applying to a municipal ordinance disregards the common and appropriate use of the words ignores decisions which, for nearly a century, have governed our jurisdiction to review judgments of state courts sustaining the validity of such ordinances, and tends to defeat the general purpose of the Act of 1925 "to relieve this Court by limiting further the absolute right to a review by it." Moore v. Fidelity & Deposit Co., 272 U. S. 317, 272 U. S. 321; Smith v. Wilson, 273 U. S. 388, 273 U. S. 390. [Footnote 20] It completely frustrates the particular purpose which Congress must have had is striking from § 237 the clause "or an authority exercised under any state." [Footnote 21] The trivial character of the substantive chanrobles.com-red
@ 75 U. S. 246.
In procedural matters -- which, like jurisdiction, rest upon considerations of expediency -- the difference between statutes and ordinances has been observed, in some instances, even when in the legislation the more comprehensive term "laws" was used. Such was the case in Davenport City v. Dows, supra. Again, while municipal ordinances are "laws of the several states" within the meaning of § 34 of the Judiciary Act of 1789, 1 Stat. 73, 92, and § 721 of the Revised Statutes, they will not be judicially noticed in the federal courts; for "an ordinance is not a public statute, but a mere municipal regulation." Robinson v. Denver Tramway Co., 164 F.1d 4, 176. Compare Garlich v. Northern Pacific Ry. Co., 131 F.8d 7, 839; Choctaw, O. & G. R. Co. v. Hamilton, 182 F.1d 7, 121.
The case cited by Mr. Maury, 46 U. S. 376, held that the statutes of an unorganized political body were not statutes "of a state" within the meaning of § 25 of the Judiciary Act, although that body later became a state. In 53 U. S. 603-604, and Stevens v. Griffith, 111 U. S. 48, 111 U. S. 50, also makes clear the exact point of the decision in Williams v. Bruffy.
Since the effective date of the Act of 1925, judgments of state courts sustaining the validity of municipal ordinances have been reviewed on writ of error in a number of cases. Beery v. Houghton, 273 U.S. 671 (per curiam); Ohio ex rel. Clarke v. Deckebach, 274 U. S. 392; Angelo v. Winston-Salem, 274 U.S. 725 (per curiam); Bloecher & Schaaf v. Baltimore, 275 U.S. 490 (per curiam); Kresge Co. v. Dayton, No. 109, 275 U.S. 505 (per curiam). Compare Natchez v. McNeeley, 275 U.S. 502 (per curiam). But in none of them did counsel question the jurisdiction of this Court, or call to our attention the significance of the amendment of § 237 made by the Act of 1925. It is well settled that the exercise of jurisdiction under such circumstances is not to be deemed a precedent when the question is finally brought before us for determination. 7 U. S. 172; Snow v. United States, 118 U. S. 346, 118 U. S. 354; Cross v. Burke, 146 U. S. 82, 146 U. S. 86; Louisville Trust Co. v. Knott, 191 U. S. 225, 191 U. S. 236; Arant v. Lane,@ 245 U. S. 166, 245 U. S. 169.