Court Opinion

ID: 9419799
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 22:51:32.242763+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:22:20.655467
License: Public Domain

Mr. Chief Justice Stone,
dissenting.
I think the suit should be dismissed for want of jurisdiction in equity.
A criminal prosecution or other litigation conducted in state courts by a. state official, within the scope of his authority as such, may, it is true, cause apprehension on the part of those who are alleged to be lawbreakers. Such apprehensions and those of others may lead to changes in business practices to the injury of the alleged lawbreakers. But the conduct of such proceedings, in good faith and in conformity to law, is not actionable at law or in equity. Damage or loss to one’s business or pocketbook, resulting from such proceedings, is but an incident to the necessary performance of a public function of state government. It is damnum absque injuria. Spielman Motor Co. v. Dodge, 295 U. S. 89, 95, and cases cited; Beal v. Missouri Pacific R. Co., 312 U. S. 45, 49, 50, and cases cited. And even when the threatened injury is attributable to the state court proceeding to enforce a state statute which is asserted to be unconstitutional, it does not follow that equity will or should exercise its jurisdiction to restrain the prosecution.
Congress has adopted the policy of leaving to the courts of the states the trials for criminal violations of state law and of quo warranto proceedings against their own corporations. Federal courts of equity, in the exercise of their sound discretion, conform to that policy by refusing to interfere with proceedings in the state courts except where unusual circumstances clearly call for equitable relief. Hence it is well recognized that measures taken by state *601officials to enforce state laws said to be unconstitutional may be enjoined by federal courts only to prevent “irreparable injury,” and not merely to avoid that harm which is inseparable from the litigation of the mooted issues whether in a state or a federal court. Ex parte Young, 209 U. S. 123, 155, 156, 166; Cavanaugh v. Looney, 248 U. S. 453, 456; Hygrade Provision Co. v. Sherman, 266 U. S. 497, 500; Fenner v. Boykin, 271 U. S. 240, 243; Massachusetts State Grange v. Benton, 272 U. S. 525, 527; Spielman Motor Co. v. Dodge, supra; Di Giovanni v. Camden Fire Ins. Assn., 296 U. S. 64; Douglas v. Jeannette, 319 U. S. 157, and cases cited. It is not enough to show that the injury to appellants is only that which is a normal incident of the state’s assertion of its authority to enforce its laws. No person is immune from any good faith prosecution by the state for his unlawful acts. Neither the imminence of the prosecution nor the incidental injury which may flow from it is a ground for equity relief, since the constitutionality of the statute may be ascertained by the proceeding in the state courts with appellate review by this Court, as readily as by a suit in the federal courts. Spielman Motor Co. v. Dodge, supra, 95, and cases cited; Beal v. Missouri Pacific R. Co., supra, 49, and cases cited; Watson v. Buck, 313 U. S. 387; Williams v. Miller, 317 U. S. 599; Douglas v. Jeannette, supra.
Until the state questions here mooted are authoritatively settled by the state courts, and the constitutional questions which it is asserted they raise are settled by this Court, the threat to the closed shop will continue to embarrass labor unions and employers who have or seek to have closed-shop contracts. That embarrassment can be removed only by the process of adjudication which the state is constitutionally entitled to pursue, so long as the state and its officials proceed according to law. Davis & Farnum Mfg. Co. v. Los Angeles, 189 U. S. 207 ; Fenner v. Boykin, supra; Spielman Motor Co. v. Dodge, supra, 95, *602Hence the arrest by federal courts of the processes of the civil or criminal law of the state, and the determination of questions of civil or criminal liability under state law, must be predicated not only upon a showing of unlawful or unconstitutional action on the part of the state, but upon some showing of a resulting immediate and irreparable injury which can. be avoided or prevented only by the federal court’s transferring the trial of the state questions from the state courts to itself. Douglas v. Jeannette, supra, 164.
There is no contention here that the state officials are acting outside their authority as such, that they are not acting in good faith, Beal v. Missouri Pacific R. Co., supra, 49; Douglas v. Jeannette, supra, 164, or that they threaten to make oppressive or malicious use of the legal processes of the state. Cf. Gumbel v. Pitkin, 124 U. S. 131. Nor is there any showing that the litigation of pending questions in the federal courts will be any less embarrassing or injurious to appellants than the litigation of suits already pending in the state courts with review by this Court. Douglas v. Jeannette, supra, 164.
There are no allegations which would take this case out of the rule that in general a federal court of equity will not exercise its power to stay litigation lawfully proceeding in state courts, or at all except where it is plain that by the exercise of its jurisdiction and its decision of the issue pending in the state courts it will avoid some immediate and irreparable injury to a plaintiff. The case is to be distinguished from those sustaining federal equity jurisdiction where the acts sought to be enjoined, which'are asserted to be unlawful, do not involve any resort by an enforcement officer to the courts, where their lawfulness would, as here, be determined. Utah Fuel Co. v. Coal Comm’n, 306 U. S. 56; Hague v, C. I. O., 307 U. S. 496.
It is not suggested that appellants will be forced to comply with the Act because the penalties attending its violation are cumulative or so great that appellants may not, *603without risk of irreparable loss, continue their closed-shop contracts in order to test the constitutionality of the Act. Cf. Ex parte Young, supra, 144; Missouri Pacific R. Co. v. Tucker, 230 U. S. 340, 349; Terrace v. Thompson, 263 U. S. 197, 212, 214-216; Beal v. Missouri Pacific R. Co., supra, 51. Nor does the complaint allege that any of the persons, other than appellants, with whom appellants deal, employers or employees, have, because of the threats of appellees, broken or threatened to break their existing closed-shop agreements or have refused to enter into such agreements.* Cf. Kessler v. Eldred, 206 U. S. 285. So far as the complaint shows such persons have refused to recognize the applicability or validity of the Florida amendment and are prepared to contest it. Thus there is no showing of threatened injury to applicants which would afford any basis for an injunction. True, it is alleged that appellant Gould, an employer, to his irreparable damage, *604has not been able to enter into closed-shop agreements although anxious to do so. But it is not said that any of the other appellants are, or have been, damaged by his failure to enter into such agreements, and Gould himself may test the law in Florida proceedings by refusing to comply with the alleged threats of appellees. It does not appear that his damage will be any different or greater if the litigation proceeds in the state instead of the federal courts, or that it is more than an unavoidable incident to litigation wherever conducted where the lawfulness of a business practice is drawn in question. There is no showing that appellants have sought or been denied the right to intervene in pending quo warranto proceedings, compare Florida Stats. § 63.09; Switow v. Sher, 136 Fla. 284, 186 So. 519; Daugherty v. Latham, 139 Fla. 477, 190 So. 742; Riviera Club v. Belle Mead Develop Corp., 141 Fla. 538, 194 So. 783; Carr v. Carlisle, 146 Fla. 201, 200 So. 529; Tallentire v. Burkhart, 150 Fla. 137, 7 So. 2d 326, although the Attorney General of the state has taken the position in the pending proceedings, as he does here, that he does not oppose the granting of applications for intervention by the appellant labor unions.
We cannot assume that the pending suits in quo warranto, with review by this Court of the federal questions involved, will not settle all pending legal questions, state and federal, as readily as a suit in the federal court, or that the parties will not abide by the result. The bill of complaint is not framed on the theory of a bill of peace. Cf. Cleveland v. Cleveland City R. Co., 194 U. S. 517; Boise Artesian Water Co. v. Boise City, 213 U. S. 276; Beal v. Missouri Pacific R. Co., supra, 50. It does not allege that repeated, groundless or otherwise vexatious suits will be brought. McDaniel v. Traylor, 212 U. S. 428; Di Giovanni v. Camden Fire Ins. Assn., supra, 68. It does not seek to join all parties threatened by the prosecution of suits or show such singleness of issue of decisive questions as will *605permit the adjudication of all in a single suit. Francis v. Flinn, 118 U. S. 385; Scott v. Donald, 165 U. S. 107, 115; Hale v. Allinson, 188 U. S. 56, 77 et seq.; St. Louis, I. M. & S. R. Co. v. McKnight, 244 U. S. 368, 375; Kelley v. Gill, 245 U. S. 116, 120; Matthews v. Rodgers, 284 U. S. 521, 530.
And, finally, the determination of the constitutional questions, which is the only purpose of the suit, must turn on the authoritative decision of the numerous and novel state questions presented. Cf. Hygrade Provision Co. v. Sherman, supra; Cline v. Frink Dairy Co., 274 U. S. 445; Spielman Motor Co. v. Dodge, supra; Beal v. Missouri Pacific R. Co., supra, 50. The presence of such state questions in the suit is, itself a sufficient ground for our declining to decide the constitutional questions in advance of authoritative determination of the state questions by the state courts. Cf. Alabama State Federation v. McAdory, 325 U. S. 450; C. I. O. v. McAdory, 325 U. S. 472; see Spector Motor Co. v. McLaughlin, 323 U. S. 101.
Further, since the whole aim of appellants’ suit is to enjoin the appellees from proceeding in the state courts, this Court’s direction to the district court to retain the bill pending the determination of proceedings in the state courts defeats the entire purpose of the present suit and permits the continuance of state litigation which is the only ground asserted for equitable relief. If appellees should at any time make oppressive use of legal processes of the state, bring repeated, groundless suits, or otherwise threaten irreparable damage to appellants, the federal courts are open to them upon their making allegations sufficient to justify intervention by equity. But the mere chance that such irreparable damage may be threatened at some indefinite time in the future, although it is not now, is no reason for the district court to retain the bill which wholly fails to show any ground for equitable relief. There being no showing of damage, to the appellants, actual or *606potential, save that which is a necessary incident to the state’s exercise of its constitutional power to enforce its constitution and laws, which this Court now permits, it is our plain duty to dismiss the suit.

It is stated in the papers on appellants’ motion in the district court for a restraining order, which now stands denied, that one employer, against whom quo warranto proceedings have been brought, has suspended the closed-shop agreement which it had with one of appellants’ unions, and further, that appellees have filed quo warranto proceedings against several corporations having closed-shop agreements with appellants, that “there will not be any bona fide defense made in said suits, or most of them,” and that the “prayers contained in the petitions” filed by appellees for a declaration “to the effect that the Constitutional‘Amendment here under attack is legal and valid and the closed shop provisions of the contracts invalidated” will be granted. N° such averments appear in the complaint, the allegations of which alone supply the test of the equity jurisdiction. Massachusetts State Grange v. Benton, 272 U. S. 525, 528; Williams v. Miller, 317 U. S. 599. Further, assuming that statements in the motion papers may supply essential allegations lacking in the complaint, no reason appears why the employee appellants cannot test the validity of the Florida laws and constitution by suits against their employers who have broken their closed-shop contracts. There is no allegation on the motion that any employer' has refused to enter into a closed-shop contract because of the threats of appellees.