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Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 41', '§ 42', '§ 256', '§ 468', '§ 3', '§ 5391', '§ 289', '§ 38', '§ 1350']

Johnson v. Yellow Cab Transit Co. :: 321 U.S. 383 (1944) :: Justia U.S. Supreme Court Center Log In
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Johnson v. Yellow Cab Transit Co. 321 U.S. 383 (1944)
U.S. Supreme CourtJohnson v. Yellow Cab Transit Co., 321 U.S. 383 (1944)Johnson v. Yellow Cab Transit Co.No. 447Argued January 6, 7, 1944Decided March 13, 1944321 U.S. 383CERTIORARI TO THE CIRCUIT COURT OF APPEALS
137 F.2d 274 affirmed. Page 321 U. S. 384
The carrier filed a complaint in the federal District Court alleging that the seizure constituted an unlawful interference with its authorized interstate transportation, and praying that the Court order the officials to return the liquors so that it might deliver them to the consignee at Fort Sill. The answer to the complaint, in substance, admitted the material facts relative to the shipment and seizure of the liquors, but denied the allegation of the complaint that the seizure was unlawful. The answer did not allege that judicial proceedings concerning the seized liquor were pending, or were to be commenced, in an Page 321 U. S. 385 Oklahoma state court. After a trial on stipulated facts, the District Court ordered the liquors returned to the carrier and forbade the officials to interfere with completion of the shipment. 48 F.Supp. 594. The Circuit Court of Appeals, one Judge dissenting, affirmed. 137 F.2d 274.
Petitioners do not claim, nor could they claim, that either of these two separate questions should be decided in their favor on the ground that Oklahoma has power to control liquor transactions on the Fort Sill Reservation. With certain minor exceptions not here material, Oklahoma ceded to the United States in 1913 whatever authority it ever could have exercised in the Reservation. [Footnote 1] The Oklahoma Supreme Court has recognized that the general power to govern the Fort Sill area is vested in the United States, not in Oklahoma, [Footnote 2] and our decisions lead to the same conclusion. [Footnote 3] Page 321 U. S. 386
Okla.Stat. 1941, Title 37, § 41. The argument is that the Oklahoma legislature intended this statute to apply to liquor imported into the Fort Sill Reservation because the latter is located within the exterior boundaries of Oklahoma. Were this statute intended to do no more than provide a means whereby the state could protect itself from illegal liquor diversions within the area which Oklahoma has power to govern, the interpretation asked might well be an acceptable one. Duckworth v. Arkansas, 314 U. S. 390; Carter v. Virginia, 321 U. S. 131. But the statute has no such limited purpose. No permit to transport liquor into Oklahoma can be obtained at all except for scientific, mechanical, medicinal, industrial, or sacramental purposes. Okl.Stat. 1941, Title 37, § 42. To construe the state statute in the manner urged would be to say that, although Oklahoma admittedly has no power directly to regulate the liquor traffic on the Reservation, the Oklahoma legislature intended practically to exclude from the Reservation liquor which might be put to legal uses under controlling United States laws. Neither the words nor Page 321 U. S. 387 the scheme of the statute in question, nor any other relevant material pointed out to us indicates that the Oklahoma legislature had such a purpose. Had the legislature expressed such a purpose, questions would be raised which we need not here consider. See Collins v. Yosemite Park & Curry Co., 304 U. S. 518, 304 U. S. 533; Pacific Coast Dairy, Inc. v. Department of Agriculture, 318 U. S. 285, 318 U. S. 295. Consequently, we find no justification for the seizure in Oklahoma law.
We may assume that, because of the clean hands doctrine, a federal court should not, in an ordinary case, lend its judicial power to a plaintiff who seeks to invoke that power for the purpose of consummating a transaction in clear violation of law. [Footnote 4] But this does not mean that courts must always permit a defendant wrongdoer to retain the profits of his wrongdoing merely because the plaintiff himself is possibly guilty of transgressing the law in the transactions involved. [Footnote 5] The maxim that he who comes into equity must come with clean hands is not applied by way of punishment for an unclean litigant, but "upon considerations that make for the advancement of right and justice." Keystone Driller Co. v. General Excavator Co., 290 U. S. 240, 290 U. S. 245. It is not a rigid formula which "trammels the free and just exercise of discretion." Ibid., 290 U. S. 245-246. Page 321 U. S. 388 Therefore, before deciding the applicability of the maxim to the case at hand, we must examine the particular transactions and circumstances involved, together with the federal laws which are alleged to taint these transactions with illegality.
Petitioners next argue that the liquor transactions here involved were in violation of the assimilative crimes statute. [Footnote 7] This statute, it is said, adopts all of the various Page 321 U. S. 389 penal statutes of Oklahoma relating to liquor and makes them the federal law applicable to the Fort Sill Reservation. Cf. United States v. Press Publishing Co., 219 U. S. 1; Franklin v. United States, 216 U. S. 559. Petitioners' argument as to the applicability of the assimilative crimes statute raises at least three distinct questions, no one of which is easily resolved: (1) which, if any, of the Oklahoma penal statutes are so designed that they could be adopted by the assimilative crimes statute and applied to Fort Sill? [Footnote 8] See opinions of Circuit Court of Appeals, supra; cf. Murray v. Joe Gerrick & Co., 291 U. S. 315. (2) If there are Oklahoma statutes which could be so adopted, are Page 321 U. S. 390 all or any of them in conflict with federal policies as expressed by Acts of Congress other than the assimilative crimes statute or by valid Army Regulations [Footnote 9] which have the force of law? [Footnote 10] Cf. Stewart & Co. v. Sadrakula, 309 U. S. 94, 309 U. S. 99-104. (3) Assuming that certain Oklahoma statutes are adaptable, and are not inconsistent with federal policies, would such statutes make penal the liquor transactions here stipulated to have taken place? Inextricably involved in each of the three questions is the further problem of whether certain of the Oklahoma liquor statutes may be inconsistent with Oklahoma's constitution as interpreted by the Oklahoma Supreme Court. See opinions of the Circuit Court of Appeals, supra; Ex parte Wilson, 6 Okl.Cr. 451, 119 P. 596; Morse v. State, 63 Okl.Cr. 445, 77 P.2d 757.
Considering the difficulty and importance of a correct decision of the novel issues which an attempt to construe this federal criminal statute would present, together with the other circumstances of the present case, we are convinced that, in the interest of sound administration of justice, we should refrain from a complete exploration of these issues in this proceeding, especially since these issues Page 321 U. S. 391 are only collateral to the principal issue of the legality of the seizure of the liquor. Were we to decide that the assimilative crimes statute is not applicable to this shipment of liquors, we would, in effect, be construing a federal criminal statute against the United States in a proceeding in which the United States has never been represented. And, on the other hand, should we decide the statute outlaws the shipment, such a decision would be equivalent to a holding that more than 200 Army Officers, sworn to support the Constitution, had participated in a conspiracy to violate federal law. Not only that, it would, for practical purposes, be accepted as an authoritative determination that all army reservations in the State of Oklahoma must conduct their activities in accordance with numerous Oklahoma liquor regulations, some of which, at least, are of doubtful adaptability. And all of this would be decided in a case wherein neither the Army Officers nor the War Department nor the Attorney General of the United States has been represented, and upon a record consisting of stipulations between a private carrier and the legal representatives of Oklahoma.
Nor is it any answer to say that the carrier should be compelled to sue in the Oklahoma state courts to reclaim the liquors in order to give the Oklahoma courts the opportunity collaterally to pass upon the question of whether these liquor transactions violate the federal assimilative crimes statute. That broad question, though some parts of it involve a consideration of the proper scope of the state law adopted by the federal government, is, in the final analysis, a question of the correct interpretation of a federal criminal statute, and therefore an issue upon which federal courts are not bound by the rulings of state courts. Puerto Rico v. Shell Co., 302 U. S. 253, 302 U. S. 266. Indeed, Congress has vested in the federal courts exclusive jurisdiction over the trial of all federal crimes. Judicial Code § 256 as amended. And so, even if the carrier Page 321 U. S. 392 could bring suit in an Oklahoma state court to reclaim the liquor, a point which is itself subject to some doubt, [Footnote 11] the federal District Court should not for that reason refuse relief in the present suit.
If the carrier's delivery of these liquors on the Fort Sill Reservation would violate any federal law, federal agencies Page 321 U. S. 393 exist which are charged with responsibilities to institute appropriate proceedings against the carrier in federal tribunals. In such proceedings, the parties would be the United States, and the carrier and the issue of violation of federal laws would be directly, and not collaterally, presented. The complicated federal questions involved, concerning various federal statutes as well as Army rules and regulations, could be answered upon an adequate presentation of all factors essential to a right and just determination.
The ultimate issue in this case is whether a federal court should, by issuing an injunction, aid in the consummation of what appears to be a violation of the Criminal Code of the United States. For it must not be forgotten that a mandatory injunction, the relief sought in this suit, "is Page 321 U. S. 394 an extraordinary remedial process, which is granted not as a matter of right, but in the exercise of a sound judicial discretion." Morrison v. Work, 266 U. S. 481, 266 U. S. 490.
The facts establish that which was done, if it had been done in Oklahoma proper, would, under its laws, have constituted a misdemeanor. Delivery of the liquor on the Reservation would therefore be an offense under the federal criminal law by virtue of the Act of June 6th, 1940, 54 Stat. 234, whereby Congress made applicable to the Reservation the penal laws of Oklahoma in existence on February 1, 1940, 18 U.S.C. § 468. But even if there were doubt that the importation of the liquor into the Reservation under the circumstances of this record would offend the Criminal Code of the United States, on the ground that the act if committed within the jurisdiction of Oklahoma "by the laws thereof in force on February 1, 1940, . . . would be penal," equity should resolve the Page 321 U. S. 395 doubt in favor of law by denying the extraordinary remedy of injunction, instead of resolving it against law by granting the injunction.
The opinion of Judge Phillips recognizes that this Act of 1917 penalizes the Page 321 U. S. 396 transaction before us within Oklahoma, but rejects its bearing when a federal court is asked to grant an injunction involving this law by suggesting that this statute is "unconstitutional." He bases this suggestion on the argument that, inasmuch as the Oklahoma Supreme Court has held that a statute making mere possession of over one quart of spirituous liquors unlawful is not "a reasonable exercise of the police powers," and therefore beyond the power of the legislature to make unlawful, Ex parte Wilson, 6 Okl.Cr. 451, 475, 119 P. 596, 606, "it must likewise be beyond its power to make unlawful the possession of intoxicating liquor for personal use received from a common carrier." 137 F.2d at 277. [Footnote 2/2] In other words, it is argued that, because the Oklahoma Supreme Court held that the mere possession of liquor cannot be made a crime by Oklahoma, Oklahoma cannot prohibit the receipt of liquor from a carrier. On such reasoning, a law that has been on the Oklahoma statute books for more than twenty-five years, and during that period actively enforced and never questioned, is thrown into discard when a federal court is asked to exercise its duty of discretion in granting the extraordinary relief of an injunction. I am unable to follow such reasoning, because Oklahoma law makes it baseless. The validity of this provision, as already indicated, has been taken for granted by the Oklahoma courts. It was the subject of litigation in De Hasque v. Atchison, T. & S.F. R. Co., 68 Okl. 183, 173 P. 73, and Crossland v. State, 74 Okl. 58, 176 P. 944, and a conviction under this Section was sustained Page 321 U. S. 397 in Walker v. State, 18 Okl.Cr. 661, 197 P. 520. This is a specific statute, the continuing validity of which is wholly unaffected by speculative doubts regarding other and irrelevant liquor legislation of Oklahoma. The dissenting judge was justified in reading the Act of 1917 as conclusively condemning the transaction which the carrier was seeking to consummate as an offense, were it subject to Oklahoma law. [Footnote 2/3]
But the shipment of liquor in controversy was for delivery on the Fort Sill Reservation -- that is, a place within the physical boundaries of Oklahoma but beyond its jurisdiction. It was stipulated between the parties that the purpose of the suit was to enable the Transit Company to transport and deliver the shipment to its destination in the Reservation. Such was the basis of the District Court's decree requiring the return of the shipment and enjoining interference with "delivery of said shipment to its destination," and no place else. This brings us to the second half of the question in this case: may the Transit Company, according to the law that rules such matters on the Reservation, lawfully deliver this liquor at Fort Sill? Of course, all transactions on the Reservation are subject to regulation by Congress. Constitution, Art. IV, §§ 3, Page 321 U. S. 398 par. 2; see Collins v. Yosemite Park Co., 304 U. S. 518; Penn Dairies v. Milk Control Comm'n, 318 U. S. 261; Pacific Coast Dairy v. Department of Agriculture, 318 U. S. 285. If it chooses, Congress may provide a rule of law which runs counter to the expressed dry policy of Oklahoma, and it may do so either specifically for Fort Sill or generally for all federal reservations. Congress has not done so. It has done the opposite. For more than a hundred years, most of the rules of life on national reservations have been controlled by the laws of the States in which these reservations are located. By the Act of March 3, 1825, 4 Stat. 115, Congress provided that, when something is done on a federal reservation which is not made penal by the laws of Congress but which, under State law, if the State had jurisdiction, would be punishable, the act should be equally punished as wrongful if committed on the reservation. In thus adopting the penal laws of the States as its code for lawful conduct on federal reservations within the States, Congress did not give to the States a free hand to impose the continuing process of State lawmaking on places over which the United States has jurisdiction. Only the laws of the States existing at the time when the Act of March 3, 1825, was enacted became operative on the reservations. United States v. Paul, 6 Pet. 141. And so, in view of the inevitable modifications and additions in the penal laws of the States, Congress has accommodated its adoption of those state laws, as the governing federal law, by bringing up to date from time to time its adoption for enforcement on federal reservations of the policies of the States which have penal sanctions. Accordingly, the Act of March 3, 1825, was in substance reenacted on April 5, 1866, 14 Stat. 12, 13, was carried forward in § 5391 of the Revised Statutes of 1878, was again reenacted on July 7, 1898, 30 Stat. 717, and became § 289 of the Federal Penal Code of 1910, 35 Stat. 1088, 1145. Since then, and in relatively quick succession, Page 321 U. S. 399 Congress has three times brought still nearer the effective date of state penal laws applicable on federal reservations, to-wit, by the amendments of June 15, 1933, 48 Stat. 152; June 20, 1935, 49 Stat. 394, and June 6, 1940, 54 Stat. 234. The last Amendment now controls, whereby
"while the statute leaves no doubt where acts are done on reservations which are expressly prohibited and punished as crimes by a law of the United States, that law is dominant and controlling, yet, on the other hand, where no law of the United States has expressly provided for the punishment of offenses committed on reservations, all acts done on such reservations which are made criminal by the laws of the several states are left to be punished under the applicable state statutes. When these results of the statute are borne in mind, it becomes manifest that Congress, in adopting it, sedulously considered the two-fold character of our constitutional government, and had in view the enlightened purpose, so far as the punishment of crime was concerned, to interfere as little as might be with the authority of the states on that subject over all territory situated within their exterior boundaries, and which hence would be subject to exclusive state jurisdiction Page 321 U. S. 400 but for the existence of a United States reservation. In accomplishing these purposes, it is apparent that the statute, instead of fixing by its own terms the punishment for crimes committed on such reservations which were not previously provided for by a law of the United States, adopted and wrote in the state law, with the single difference that the offense, although punished as an offense against the United States, was nevertheless punishable only in the way and to the extent that it would have been punishable if the territory embraced by the reservation remained subject to the jurisdiction of the State."
Act of February 2, Page 321 U. S. 401 1901, § 38, 31 Stat. 748, 758, 10 U.S.C. § 1350. Plainly, the purpose of this legislation is not to supplant social policies in regard to alcoholic liquor in the various States within which the many federal enclaves are located except to the extent of providing minimum regulations to restrict the free dealing in liquor at all Army posts, including those within wet States. The specific barrier thus erected by Congress against the liberal liquor policies of some States should not now be used as a qualification of the generality of the Assimilative Crimes Statute in order to serve as a barrier against the prohibitory laws of other States. No such policy can be drawn from the Act of 1901 -- quite the opposite is implied. And, assuming that the military could assert such a policy in the interest of Army morale, there is wholly lacking any manifestation that the Army deems it necessary for the morale of its officers that at Fort Sill conduct should be permitted which, if committed in the surrounding territory of Oklahoma, would offend its penal laws. So far as the War Department has indicated a policy, its policy, like that of the Assimilative Crimes Statute, is to adopt on military reservations the laws of their respective States. Thus, in reference to A.G. 250.1, § VI, par. 4 (1-20-43) of Circular No. 29 of the War Department, Jan. 25, 1943, provides:
Even if there were more hypothetical doubt than the laws and decisions of Oklahoma make manifest as to the Page 321 U. S. 402 validity and vitality of the Act of 1917 and its applicability to the importation of the liquor shipment involved in this case, if the importation were into Oklahoma proper, such a contingency should be left for determination by appropriate proceedings in the state court to recover the liquor, and not be made the basis for an injunction against the state law in the federal court. Since federal law here, too, turns on state law by adoption through the Assimilative Crimes Statute, the basis of our decision in Penn Dairies v. Milk Control Comm'n, supra, becomes relevant. Here, as in that case, there is an "absence of some evidence of an inflexible Congressional policy," 318 U.S. at 318 U. S. 275, opposed to the policy expressed by the State. In this case, as in that, we should therefore be slow to strike down state legislation by elaborate implications. The discretionary powers of equity particularly counsel against it. And even if there were more doubt than appears regarding the adoption of the Act of 1917 by the Assimilative Crimes Statute, whereby the delivery of the liquor by the Transit Company on the Reservation would constitute a misdemeanor, that doubt too should not be resolved against the law in such a proceeding as this for an injunction. That question, although federal, may also be litigated as part of the indicated state court suit, where the Attorney General may intervene and then come here if he chooses to assert whatever position the Government deems it appropriate to press.
In my view, therefore, it was an inequitable exercise of discretion to issue this injunction. Of course, "Equity does not demand that its suitors shall have led blameless lives." Loughran v. Loughran, 292 U. S. 216, 292 U. S. 229. But where the relief sought is not as to something past and collateral, but where it is the very means, as is the case here, for completing an outlawed transaction, a court of equity should withhold its aid, and not become the promoter of wrongdoing. The possible illegality of the seizure Page 321 U. S. 403 of the liquor by the Oklahoma enforcement officers is quite irrelevant to our problem. "A question of public policy is presented -- not a mere adjudication of adversary rights between the two parties." Weil v. Neary, 278 U. S. 160, 278 U. S. 171. The abstention which equity exercises, as it should here, under the shorthand phrase of the "clean hands doctrine" is not due to any desire to punish a litigant for his uncleanliness.