Court Opinion

ID: 9418132
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 22:09:45.683187+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:21:55.913370
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Harlan,
also concurring in the reversal of the décree, but dissenting from the opinion of the court.
I concur in the general observations of the Chief Justice, and with him dissent from the opinion of the court. But I go somewhat further than he has done. I hold that the Circuit Court was entirely without authority, by injunction, to stay the proceedings of the State Corporation Commission. By § 720 of the Revised Statutes it is provided that “the writ of injunction shall not be granted by any court of the United States to stay proceedings in any court of a State, except.in cases where such injunction may be authorized by any law authorizing proceedings in bankruptcy.” Such has been the law since 1793. In my judgment, the Virginia State Corporation Commission is, in every substantial sense, a court. It is cofi-clusively shown to be such- by the provisions of the constitution and laws of Virginia, as interpreted by the highest court of 'Virginia aúd as summarized in the opinion of the Chief Justice. If the commission is a court, within the meaning of § 720, then ■ the Circuit Court of the- United States was wholly without authority to stay the proceedings of that tribunal by the writ, -.of injunction. The Circuit Court could not grant the writ of injunction in face of the act of Congress expressly forbidding , such action. No óne will question the authority of Congress to prescribe the limits, of the jurisdiction of the courts created ■by it.
It is suggested that under this view there is danger that rights granted or secured by the Constitution may be violated *239by the judgment, of the commission or by the judgment of the Court of Appeals of Virginia. A conclusive answer to this suggestion is that if the final action of the commission, in any case of rate-making, amounts to confiscation of the property of the corporation whose rates are regulated, and therefore is to be held wanting in due process of law as taking private property for public use without just compensation, and if such action be sustained by the highest court of Virginia, then the way is plainly open.to bring that question to this court upon writ of error. Rev. Stat. § 709. In this way any Federal right, specially set up and denied by the state tribunals, can be adequately protected by the final judgment of this court.
In my opinion, the decree should be reversed, with direction to dismiss the original suit brought in the Federal court.