Court Opinion

ID: 9643272
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 20:24:28.685093+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:10:58.982857
License: Public Domain

MAGRUDER, Chief Judge
(concurring).
When federal jurisdiction has been invoked by a complaint setting forth a claim under the Constitution or laws of the United States, the extent of the accessory or pendent jurisdiction of the federal court to determine questions of state law has been a matter of some perplexity. See Shulman and Jaegerman, Some Jurisdictional Limitations on Federal Procedure, 45 Yale L.J. 393, 397 et seq. (1936); Note, 52 Yale L.J. 922 (1943). Such pendent jurisdiction, where it exists, must be traced back to the Constitution. Under Article III, Section 2, the judicial power of the United States extends “to all Cases, in Law and Equity, arising under this Constitution, the Laws of the United States, and Treaties made, or which shall be made, under their Authority * * The federal judicial power thus extends to the decision of the “whole case”, not merely “to those parts of cases only which present the particular question involving the construction of the constitution or the law”, as Marshall, C. J., pointed out in Osborn v. President, etc., of Bank of United States, 1824, 9 Wheat. 738, 822, 6 L.Ed. 204. Presumably, considerations of convenience and economy of judicial administration prompted this extensive grant of federal judicial power. At any rate, as Chief Justice Marshall further stated in the case just cited, 9 Wheat, at page 823, 6 L.Ed. 204, “when a question to which the judicial power of the Union is extended by the constitution, forms an ingredient of the original cause, it is in the power of congress to give the circuit courts jurisdiction of that cause, although other questions of fact or of law may be involved in it.”
The statutory grant of judicial power to the federal district courts is phrased in correspondingly broad terms. Under 28 U.S. C.A. § 1331, the district courts are given “original jurisdiction of all civil actions wherein the matter in controversy exceeds the sum or value of $3,000, exclusive of interest and costs, and arises under the Constitution, laws or treaties of the United States.” In the latest revision, the phrase “civil actions” was substituted for the earlier version, “all suits of a civil nature, at common law or in equity”, 28 U.S.C.A. § 41(1), to conform to Rule 2 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, 28 U.S.C.A., but the meaning is the same. Jurisdiction extends to the whole “case” or “suit” or “civil action” when a federal question “forms an ingredient of the original cause”. Difficulties have arisen as to what is to be deemed a part or ingredient of a single “case” or “cause of action”; and the Second Circuit, particularly, has wrestled with this problem in a number of cases. See, for instance, Treasure Imports, Inc. v. Henry Amdur & Sons, Inc., 1942, 127 F.2d 3; Musher Foundation, Inc. v. Alba Trading Co., Inc., 1942, 127 F.2d 9; Zalkind v. Scheinman, 1943, 139 F.2d 895. The refinements need not concern us in the case at bar, for the existence of pendent or accessory jurisdiction here is clearly indicated by the rule formulated in Hurn v. Oursler, 1933, 289 U.S. 238, 53 S.Ct. 586, 77 L.Ed. 1148, however unclear that rule may be as applied to other situations. Complainant’s “case” or “cause of action” against defendant carriers is for loss or damage to cows in the course of shipment. Liability is asserted under an Act of Congress; but if this ground fails on the merits (as I think it does), there is an alternative common law ground of recovery against each carrier for so much of the damage as occurred *432through its negligence during the transportation over its own lines.
The recent revision of the Judicial Code, 28 U.S.C.A. § 1338(b), provides: “The district courts shall have original jurisdiction of any civil action asserting a claim of unfair competition when joined with a substantial and related claim under the copyright, patent or trade-mark laws.” According to the Reviser’s Notes, this subsection was designed to give explicit statutory authority for the rule in Hurn v. Oursler, supra, a case which happened to involve claims of copyright infringement and unfair competition. But the enactment of this § 1338(b) hardly warrants the inference that Congress intended that the pendent jurisdiction of the federal courts, as enunciated in Hurn v. Oursler, is to be confined to the special classes of cases enumerated in the subsection. That the decision in Hurn v. Oursler was not so limited is apparent from the .Court’s reliance upon Siler v. Louisville and Nashville R. Co., 1909, 213 U.S. 175, 29 S.Ct. 451, 53 L.Ed. 753, and Moore v. New York Cotton Exchange, 1926, 270 U.S. 593, 46 S.Ct. 367, 70 L.Ed. 750, 45 A.L.R. 1370. And as I have indicated above, this pendent jurisdiction in generalized form, not limited to any particular class of cases, is derived from Article III, Section 2, of the 'Constitution and 28 U.S.C.A. § 1331.
For the federal court to obtain jurisdiction of the “whole case” it is necessary that the federal claim be a “substantial” one, not one so frivolous as to be plainly without color of merit, “and, in effect, no claim at all.” So the Supreme Court has said in numerous cases, Moore v. New York Cotton Exchange, supra, 270 U.S. at pages 608-609, 46 S.Ct. at page 370; Levering & Garrigues Co. v. Morrin, 1933, 289 U.S. 103, 105, 53 S.Ct. 549, 77 L.Ed. 1062; Hurn v. Oursler, supra, 289 U.S. 238, at page 246, 53 S.Ct. 586, 77 L.Ed. 1148; Armstrong Paint & Varnish Works v. Nu-Enamel Corp., 1938, 305 U.S. 315, 324, 59 S.Ct. 191, 83 L.Ed. 195; Bell v. Hood, 327 U.S. 678, 682, 683, 66 S.Ct. 773, 90 L.Ed. 939. This requirement is not without its theoretical difficulties. Thus, in Levering & Garrigues Co. v. Morrin, supra, the plaintiffs sued for an injunction against a labor boycott which was alleged to be a violation of the antitrust laws and also a common law tort. The Supreme Court held that the district court did not have incidental o’r pendent jurisdiction to decide the asserted common law ground of liability, because the federal question averred was deemed to be “plainly •unsubstantial.” The ¡Court reached this conclusion because the unsoundness of the federal claim under the anti-trust acts “so clearly results from the previous decisions of this court as to foreclose the subject and leave no room for the inference that the questions sought to be raised can be the subject of controversy.” 289 U.S. at page 105, 53 S.Ct. at page 550. But a judgment of the Supreme Court is not res judicata as against persons not parties or privies to the earlier litigation; and the Supreme 'Court has been known to overrule its previous decisions. Persons not concluded by the earlier judgment are entitled to litigate the question anew; so it is difficult to understand why the federal district courts should be deemed to lack “jurisdiction” in such a case, even though the lower courts may be bound to adjudicate adversely to the federal claim in deference to controlling authority not yet overruled by the Supreme Court.
However that may be, in the instant case the claim against the carriers based on the federal statute has not been rejected in any prior Supreme Court decision, and has commended itself to at least one lower court, whose decision Judge Wyzanski in the case at bar refused to follow, I believe correctly, Though it may seem to us, after some study of the statute, that the claim is pretty clearly unfounded under the plain statutory language, yet in view of the discussion in Bell v. Hood, supra, I agree with the district court that the federal claim in the present case has sufficient substance to give the federal court jurisdiction to determine it on the merits.
A federal claim may be deemed “substantial” enough to give the federal court jurisdiction of the whole case even though the court eventually concludes that the federal ground on the face of the complaint is insufficient in law. In Levering & Garri*433gues Co. v. Morrin, supra, 289 U.S. at page 105, 53 S.Ct. at page 550, the Court said: “The question of jurisdiction as thus limited is to he determined by the allegations of the bill, and not upon the facts as they may turn out, or by a decision of the merits. Mosher v. Phoenix, 287 U.S. 29, 30, 53 S.Ct. 67, 77 L.Ed. 148, and cases cited.” Thus, in Moore v. New York Cotton Exchange, supra, the plaintiff’s bill for an injunction was founded on a claim that a contract between the New York Cotton Exchange and the Western Union Telegraph Company was an illegal restraint of trade and commerce under the federal anti-trust acts. Defendants’ answer set up certain defenses, and also pleaded under Equity Rule 30 a counterclaim “arising out of the transaction which is the subject matter of the suit”. Plaintiff’s bill was dismissed on the merits, but the court retained jurisdiction over the counterclaim and granted injunctive relief to the defendants thereon. This action of the lower court was affirmed, though the Supreme Court was of opinion, 270 U.S. at page 603, 46 S.Ct. at page 369, “that upon the allegations of the bill no case is made under the federal anti-trust laws”, and though the claim set forth in the counterclaim afforded no independent basis of federal jurisdiction. In other words, federal jurisdiction having been invoked by a bill setting forth a federal claim which, though insufficient in law, was nevertheless not “so unsubstantial as to be frivolous”, [263 U.S. 291, 306, 44 S.Ct. 98] the federal court obtained jurisdiction of the whole case, including power to give relief on a counterclaim arising out of the same transaction. It was deemed appropriate in the particular case to exercise this incidental power under the familiar principle that a court of equity,, once invested with jurisdiction of the case or controversy, will, if possible, afford complete relief and settle the controversy between the parties in all its aspects.
Therefore, I believe the court below was not lacking in “jurisdiction” to determine on the merits both the federal claim and the alternative common law ground of liability. But a distinction should be drawn in this connection between the existence of jurisdiction and the propriety of its exercise in a particular case. Federal courts should not be overeager to hold on to the determination of issues that might be more appropriately left to settlement in state court litigation merely because they have “jurisdiction” to do so by virtue of a complaint making an unfounded claim of federal right. In Hurn v. Oursler, supra, there was a persuasive practical reason for the exercise of such pendent jurisdiction, for in that case the district court, in order to dispose of the federal claim of copyright infringement, was’ required to take the entire evidence necessary to resolve the almost parallel non-federal claim of unfair competition, and it would obviously serve everyone’s convenience for the court to adjudicate the whole case, both in its federal and non-federal aspects. But in the present case it was not necessary to go to trial to dispose of the federal claim on its merits. That claim could have been disposed of as a matter of law upon motion to dismiss. If such motion had been made, I am not prepared to say that the district court would have been in error in dismissing the whole case. The dismissal would have been on the merits as to the 'federal. claim. In strictness, the dismissal of the complaint, in so far as the alternative common law ground was concerned, would not have been for lack of jurisdiction, but it would have been without prejudice, like a dismissal on the ground of forum non conveniens. However, the defendants did not move to dismiss, and as the district court pointed out, by the implied consent of the parties [82 F.Supp. 165] “testimony was received and arguments were made not only on the issue whether plaintiff could recover under the Interstate Commerce Act but also on the issue whether he could recover at common law if the Act did not apply.” Under these circumstances, defendants are now hardly in a position to urge that the complaint should have been dismissed in its entirety, without adjudication of the non-federal issues. Since the district court had “jurisdiction” to dispose finally of the whole case I think it should have done so, in view of the fact that it was led to try the case in its entirety because of the failure of de*434fendants to interpose a timely motion to dismiss. Every consideration of common sense, convenience and economy points to this conclusion. This is especially true here, since the disposition of the common law issues would not seem to present any doubtful or difficult question of state law but depends upon factual determinations as to where and how the cows were damaged in the course of shipment and whose fault it was.