Court Opinion

ID: 9417467
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 20:18:01.446723+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:21:43.464632
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Harlan
dissenting.
As I adhere to the views expressed by me in Louisiana v. Jumel, 107 U.S. 746; Antoni v. Greenhow, 107 U.S. 801; and Cunningham v. Macon & Brunswick Railroad Company, 109 U.S. 458; and as I concurred in the judgments in Poindexter v. Greenhow, 114 U.S. 273, and Allen v. Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Company, 114 U.S. 311, I feel obliged to dissent from the opinion and judgment in these cases.
In Cooper v. Marye, &c., the jurisdiction of the Circuit Court cannot be questioned, so far as it depends upon the citizenship of the parties; for the plaintiffs are subjects or citizens of Great Britain, and the defendants, are citizens of Virginia.
Whether the plaintiffs merely as holders, of Virginia coupons, and not tax-payers in that Commonwealth, have any legal ground of complaint, by reason of the refusal of her officers to accept, when tendered, like coupons which the plaintiffs sold or transferred to tax-payers to be used in meeting their taxes; whether the statutes under which those .officers proceeded, or intend to proceed, are repugnant to the Constitution of the United States, and, therefore, void; whether the preliminary injunction in question should or should not have been refused upon the ground that such tax-payers have a complete and adequate remedy at law, whether the necessity of avoiding conflicts between the courts of the United States and the officers of a State, acting in obedience to her statutes, was not ample reason for refusing *511to grant such injunction; or whether an officer ought to be enjoined from merely bringing a suit in behalf of the public— the suit itself not necessarily, or before judgment therein, involving an invasion of the property rights of the defendant therein — are all matters which the Circuit Court, sitting in equity, was competent to determine upon the final hearing in Cooper v. Manye, c&e. Those questions are not open for consideration here except upon the appeal from the final decree in that case; consequently, I am not at liberty now to express an opinion as to any of them.
The only inquiry now to be made is, whether Cooper v. Marye is a suit against Virginia within the meaning of the 11th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. If it be, I agree that the prisoners must be discharged; for the judicial power of the United States does not extend to suits against a State by citizens of another State, or by subjects of foreign countries.
But I am of opinion that it is not a suit of that character. I stand upon what was adjudged in Osborn v. United States Bank, 9 Wheat. at page 857. Chief Justice Marshall, speaking for the court in that case, said: "It may, we think, be laid down as a rule which admits of no exception, that in all cases where jurisdiction depends on the party, it is the party named in the record. Consequently, the 11th Amendment, which restrains the jurisdiction granted by the Constitution over suits against States, is, of necessity, limited to those suits in which a State is a party on the record. The amendment has its full effect, if the Constitution be construed as it would have been construed, had the jurisdiction of the court never been extended to suits brought against a State by the citizens of another State, or by aliens. The State not being a party on the record, and the court having jurisdiction over those who are parties on the record, the true question is, not one of jurisdiction, but whether, in the exercise of its jurisdiction, the court ought to make a decree against the defendants; whether they are to be considered as having a real interest, or as being only nominal parties."
These principles have been recognized in several decisions of *512this court, notably in United States v. Lee and Kaufman v. Lee, 106 U.S. 196, 213, 215. That was an action to recover a body of land in Alexandria County, Virginia, two hundred acres of which constituted Arlington Cemetery, previously established by the United States as a military station and as a national cemetery for the soldiers and sailors of the Union. When the action was brought that cemetery was in the actual possession of the United States by the defendants, as their officers. Those officers certainly had no personal interest in the result of the suit. They simply represented the United States, who were the real parties in interest. As the United States were not parties to the record, and because they could not be made parties, the court proceeded to a determination of the case between the parties before it. The result was a judgment, determining that Lee had a legal right to the possession of Arlington Cemetery as against the officers of the United States having it under their control. The authority and duty of the court to proceed in the case, notwithstanding the United States were not before the court, was rested mainly upon the decision in Osborn v. Bank of the United States, from which was quoted, with emphatic approval, the following language: "If the State of Ohio could have been made a party defendant, it can scarcely be denied that this would be a strong case for an injunction. The objection is that, as the real party cannot be brought before the court, a suit cannot be sustained against the agents of that party; and cases have been cited to show that a court of chancery will not make a decree unless all those who are substantially interested be made parties to the suit. This is certainly true where it is in the power of the plaintiff to make them parties; but if the person who is the real principal, the person who is the true source of the mischief, by whose power and for whose advantage it is done, be himself above the law, be exempt from all judicial process, it would be subversive of the best established principles to say that the laws could not afford the same remedies against the agent employed in doing the wrong which they would afford against him could his principal be joined in the suit." And in order that no one might suppose that Osborn v. Bank of the United *513States had been modified or overruled by subsequent decisions, the court in the Lee case, after referring to several decisions, said: "These decisions have never been overruled. On the contrary, as late as the case of Davis v. Gray, 16 Wall. 203, the case of Osborn v. Bank of the United States is cited with approval, as establishing these, among other propositions: `Where the State is concerned, the State should be made a party, if it can be done. That it cannot be done is a sufficient reason for the omission to do it, and the court may proceed to decree against the officers of the State in all respects as if the State were a party to the record. In deciding who are parties to the suit, the court will not look beyond the record. Making a state officer a party does not make the State a party, although her law may have prompted his action, and the State may stand behind him as a real party in interest. A State can be made a party only by shaping the bill expressly with that view, as where individuals or corporations are intended to be put in that relation to the case.' Though not prepared to say now that the court can proceed against the officer `in all respects' as if the State were a party, this may be taken as intimating, in a general way, the views of the court at that time."
In Poindexter v. Greenhow, 114 U.S. 270, we sustained a suit by a private individual against a treasurer, charged with the duty of collecting taxes, to recover certain personal property which the defendant had seized for the non-payment of taxes due Virginia from the plaintiff in that suit. In seizing the property the officer disregarded the tender, previously made, of the State's coupons. It was earnestly contended that, as the officer only did what the State by her statutes had commanded him to do, and had himself no personal interest in the matter, the suit against him was, in legal effect, one against the State; that a suit to recover property seized for the non-payment of taxes, in conformity with the statutes of Virginia, had the same result as a direct suit against the State to compel her performance of her contract with the coupon holder, or to enjoin her officer from carrying those statutes into effect. But this view was overruled, mainly upon the authority of Osborn v. Bank of the United States, from which the court *514quoted, with approval, the same passages as are to be found in the opinion in Lee's case, and in reference thereto observed: "This language, it may be observed, was quoted with approval in United States v. Lee. The principle which it enunciates constitutes the very foundation upon which the decision in that case rested." In Poindexter's case we said that the immunity from suit secured to the States by the Constitution "does not exempt the State from the operation of the constitutional provision that no State shall pass any law impairing the obligation of contracts; for, it has long been settled that contracts between a State and an individual are as fully protected by the Constitution as contracts between two individuals. It is true, that no remedy for a breach of its contract by a State, by way of damages as compensation, or by means of process to compel its performance, is open, under the Constitution, in the courts of the United States, by a direct suit against the State itself, on the part of the injured party, being a citizen of another State, or a citizen or subject of a foreign state. But it is equally true, that whenever, in a controversy between parties to a suit, of which these courts have jurisdiction, the question arises upon the validity of a law by a State impairing the obligation of its contract, the jurisdiction is not thereby ousted, but must be exercised, with whatever legal consequences to the rights of the litigants may be the result of the determination."
Upon identically the same grounds rests our decision in Allen v. Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, 114 U.S. 311, in which we maintained the right of that company to an injunction to prevent the collection of taxes by distraint upon its property after a tender of the State's tax-receivable coupons in payment of such taxes. That suit was against the Auditor of Public Accounts and the Treasurer of Virginia. They certainly had no personal interest in the collection of the taxes, but were only obeying the statutes of the State which they assumed to be constitutional and binding upon them. But the effect of that suit was to say to the State of Virginia that she should not collect her revenue in the mode proposed by the statute, and thereby violate rights secured by the Constitution of the United States. In vain was it urged by the officers of the *515State that Virginia was the real party in interest; that, as the State could only act by her officers, to enjoin them was to enjoin the State; and that consequently the suit was one against the State within the meaning of the Eleventh Amendment. This court overruled that contention, holding, in substance, that, the State of Virginia not being named as a party, and it being impossible to make her a party, her officers could be prevented from touching the property of the railroad under a statute void under the Constitution of the United States.
The result, then, of former decisions is: That a suit against officers of the United States to recover property not legally in their possession, is not a suit against the United States; and that neither a suit against officers of the State to recover property illegally taken by them, in obedience to the statutes of the State, nor a suit brought against state officers to enjoin them from taking, under the command of the State, the property of a tax-payer who has tendered coupons for taxes due to her, were suits against the State within the meaning of the 11th Amendment of the Constitution. And now it is adjudged, in the cases before us, that a suit merely against state officers to enjoin them from bringing actions against tax-payers who have previously tendered tax-receivable coupons is a suit against the State. There is, I grant, a difference between the cases heretofore decided and the case of Cooper v. Marye; but the difference is not such as to involve the jurisdiction of the Circuit Court, but, rather, to use the language of Chief Justice Marshall, "the exercise of its jurisdiction."
The Commonwealth of Virginia has no more authority to enact statutes impairing the obligation of her contracts than statutes impairing the obligation of contracts exclusively between individuals. State of New Jersey v. Wilson, 7 Cranch, 164, 166; Providence Bank v. Billings, 4 Pet. 514, 560; Green v. Biddle, 8 Wheat. 1, 84; Woodruff v. Trapnall, 10 How. 190, 207; Wolff v. New Orleans, 103 U.S. 358, 367; New Orleans Gas Co. v. Louisiana Light Co., 115 U.S. 650, 673. A statute which is void, as impairing the obligation of the State's contract, affords no justification to any one, and confers no authority. If an officer proposes to enforce such a *516statute against a party, the obligation of whose contract is sought to be impaired, the latter, in my judgment, may proceed, by suit, against such officer, and thereby obtain protection in his rights of contract, as against the proposed action of that officer. A contrary view enables the State to use her immunity from suit to effect what the Constitution of the United States forbids her from doing, namely, to enact statutes impairing the obligation of her contract. If an officer of the State can take shelter behind such immunity while he proceeds with the execution of a void enactment to the injury of the citizen's rights of contract, it would look as if that provision which declares that the Constitution of the United States shall be the supreme law of the land, anything in the constitution or laws of a State to the contrary notwithstanding, had lost most, if not all, of its value in respect to contracts which a State makes with individuals.
I repeat, that the difference between a suit against officers, of .the State, enjoining them from seizing the property of the citizen, in obedience to' a void statute of the State, and a suit enjoining such officers from bringing under the order of the State, and in her name, an action which, it is alleged, will result in injury to the rights of the complainant, is not a difference that affects the jurisdiction of the court, but only its exercise of jurisdiction. If the former is not a suit against the State, the latter should not be deemed of that class.