Court Opinion

ID: 9446763
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 22:17:47.744227+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:30:46.284334
License: Public Domain

DUFFY, Chief Judge
(dissenting).
I agree that two simultaneously pending lawsuits in different federal courts involving identical issues between the same parties is an unfortunate situation which should be discouraged. However, I do not concede that in the case at bar the District Court abused its discretion in refusing to issue the injunction.
I think the District Court made a mistake in not issuing the injunction, but in a case relied upon by the majority opinion, Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific Railroad Co. v. Igoe, 7 Cir., 220 F.2d 299, certiorari denied 350 U.S. 822, 76 S.Ct. 49, 100 L.Ed. 735, we held, 220 F.2d at page 304, that what its members “ * * * or any other judge might have done in the circumstances is not the test we must apply in deciding this case. To warrant action by us, there must be something more than an erroneous decision. * * * ” (emphasis supplied)
The majority professes to use Kerotest Mfg. Co. v. C-O-Two Fire Equipment Co., 342 U.S. 180, 72 S.Ct. 219, 96 L.Ed. 200 as its guide and quotes from that opinion. However, a succeeding sentence in the same paragraph of that opinion states, 342 U.S. at page 183, 72 S.Ct. at page 221: “Necessarily, an ample degree of discretion, appropriate for disciplined and experienced judges, must be left to the lower courts.”
In my judgment the issue before us is not whether the decision below was right or wrong, but whether it was so clearly erroneous as to constitute a “rare instance” of abuse of his discretionary authority by the district judge. Kerotest Mfg. Co. v. C-O-Two Fire Equipment Co., 342 U.S. 180, 72 S.Ct. 219, 96 L.Ed. 200. I think there was no such abuse of discretion.
Plaintiff Martin has resided in Iowa for twenty-one out of the past twenty-six years, and for the past five years has resided in Waterloo, in the northern district of Iowa. The stock certificates and the voting trust certificates which are the subject of this controversy are now physically located there. Martin could have brought this suit in Iowa but, for some reason, chose the District Court located in Chicago. Practically all of the original records which bear on the issue are already on file in the District Court in Iowa. In all probability the case can be reached for trial in Iowa at an earlier date than in Chicago. I would affirm.