Court Opinion

ID: 9418347
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 22:22:14.817277+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:22:01.378451
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Clarke,
dissenting.
The opinion and decree announced in this case seem to me so unsupported by the record and so unusual in character that I am impelled, reluctantly, to. state my reasons for dissenting from both.
The court finds that the District Court had and that this court now has jurisdiction in the case such as to warrant permanently enjoining the City of Cincinnati in the two respects' stated in the opinion, and with instructions to limit .its decree to such an injunction the case is remanded to the District Court, leaving open for further litigation the validity and effect of the Ordinance of April 21, 1914 (copied in the margin of the court’s opinion) and of prior grants claimed by the plaintiffs.
*456Assuming as we must that if the District Court had jurisdiction of the cause it had authority to go forward and completely dispose of the controversy, this action taken by the majority of the court seems to me to be anomalous if not unprecedented.
But my dissent goes also upon the more fundamental ground that the District Court did not have, and that this court does not now have, any jurisdiction over the case, for reasons which I shall state as briefly as I may.
The-bill alleges that the plaintiffs and the defendant aré all Ohio corporations, and after setting out in detail the grants which had been made to the plaintiffs over the various routes described in the Ordinance of April 21, 1914, it continues in paragraphs thirteen and fourteen, as follows:
“13. Notwithstanding the contract rights of plaintiffs as hereinabove set forth, the defendant, The City of Cincinnati, on or about the 21st day of April, 1914, passed a certain alleged ordinance entitled, ‘An Ordinance No. ——. Specifying the terms and conditions upon which the Cincinnati and Hamilton Traction Company and The Ohio Traction Company, as its lessee, may operate street cars on certain streets of the City, and authorizing the City Solicitor to take legal proceedings to enforce this ordinance/ a copy of which is hereto attached, marked Exhibit A, and made a part hereof; in and by said ordinance said City repudiated the grants aforesaid and thereby impaired and attempted to impair the obligations of the aforesaid contracts and each of them, in violation of Article I, Section 10, of the Constitution of the United States, and the enforcement of said ordinance will deprive plaintiffs of their property without due process of law and without compensation, in violation of the Constitution of the United States and particularly Article XIV in amendment thereof.”
“14. The defendant, The City of Cincinnati, by its. *457agents and. employees, under the pretended authority of the ordinance of the City of Cincinnati aforesaid, threatens to and will; unless restrained by the order of this Court, interfere with and prevent the maintenance and operation by plaintiffs of said electric street railway over the routes described in the grants aforesaid and under authority and in accordance with the terms and conditions thereof, which will cause great and irreparable injury to these plaintiffs for which they have no adequate remedy at law.”
Since there' is no diversity of citizenship there must be found in these two paragraphs, if anywhere in the bill, the assertion of federal right sufficient to give jurisdiction to the district court.
Confining our attention to paragraph 13. It seems to me very clear that this paragraph simply alleges that the City passed-the ordinance, copied in the margin of the court’s opinion, and thereby authorized “the City Solicitor to take legal proceedings to enforce” it. This allegation is emphasized by making the ordinance, by reference, a part of the bill, which in § 5 specifically provides that if the plaintiffs shall fail or refuse to comply with the terms of the ordinance “the City Solicitor shall be, and he is hereby authorized and directed to take such legal proceedings as may be proper and necessary to enforce the provisions of this ordinance,” or to require the companies to remove their tracks from the streets. The making of this declaration by ordinance, it is averred, impaired the obligation of the grants — the contract rights — which the plaintiffs claim they had when the ordinance was passed. No action other than the passing of the ordinance had been taken by the City when the bill for injunction was filed, in fact the ordinance did not become effective for thirty days after the bill was filed.
It has been decided by this court, within recent years, at least twice, that for a municipal corporation to thus *458assert by resolution or by ordinance that a claim of contract right against it is not valid and to direct its legal representative to test in the courts the right so asserted, neither impairs the obligation of the contract assailed nor deprives the persons claiming under it of their property without due process of law.
In Des Moines v. Des Moines City Ry. Co., 214 U. S. 179, it was asserted as a ground of federal jurisdiction that a resolution of the Des Moines City Council was a law which impaired the obligation of the contract which the railway company claimed to have with the City, and that if given effect it would deprive the company of its property without due process of law. The Circuit Court overruled an objection to its jurisdiction and granted an injunction against the enforcement of the resolution. This resolution, in terms, ordered the railway companies to remove their tracks, poles and wires from the streets, and in case of failure to do so within a time stated, the City Solicitor was “instructed to take such action as he shall deem advisable and necessary to secure the enforcement of the resolution.” In a unanimous decision, this court reverses the lower court, saying:
“We are of opinion that this is nót a law impairing the rights alleged by the appellee, and therefore that the jurisdiction of the Circuit Court cannot be maintained. Leaving on one side all questions as to what can be done by resolution as distinguished from ordinance under Iowa laws, we read this resolution as simply a denial of the appellee’s claim and a direction to the City Solicitor to resort to the courts if the appellee shall not accept the city’s views. The resolution begins with a recital that questions as to the railway company’s, rights have been raised, and ends with a direction to the City Solicitor to take action to enforce the city’s position. The only action to be expected from a City Solicitor is a suit in court. We cannot take it to have been within the meaning of the *459direction to him that he should take a posse and begin to pull up the tracks. The order addressed to the companies to remove their tracks was simply to put them in the position of disobedience, as ground for a suit, if the city was right.”
Since the court “lays on one side” the distinction between a resolution and an ordinance, this decision seems clearly to rule the case at bar.
Again, in Defiance Water Co. v. Defiance, 191 U. S. 184, a claim to federal jurisdiction was based on a resolution of an Ohio city .council, which it was claimed impaired the obligation of a contract which the water company had with the City. But this court, while finding that the record disclosed the City as claiming that the water company did not have a valid contract with the City and that a suit to test its validity had been instituted in a state court by the City Solicitor, nevertheless held that the action so taken was not obnoxious to the prohibition of the Federal Constitution, and the case was dismissed for want of jurisdiction.
The ordinance involved in this case, like the one in the Des Moines Case, having regard to all of its provisions, even including its title, seems very clearly to be no more than an assertion on the part of the City Council of what it considers the rights of the City to be, with authority and direction to the City Solicitor to resort to the courts to test the validity of the claims made, if they are denied by the traction companies, and the. cases cited are authority sufficient, if indeed authority be needed, to justify the conclusion that such an -expression of purpose .to resort to the courts of the country and to abide by their decision, is not a law impairing the obligation of a. contract, within the meaning of the Constitution.
A careful reading of this ordinance, especially of §§ 3 and 5, makes it convincingly clear that the writer of it must have had in mind the decisions which we have cited* *460and that he has attempted, successfully it seems to me, to keep clearly within the law established by them.
The allegation in paragraph 14 of the bill, that the City, and its agents and employees, threaten to interfere with and prevent the operation of the street railways, states no invasion of a federal right, unless such action is threatened under warrant of an invalid ordinance. If the ordinance is valid it can add nothing to the other allegátions of the bill and if invalid it is futile.
It is impossible for me, also, to share in the interpretation given to § 4 of the ordinance which makes it the subject of special injunctive relief. The section provides that the continuing to operate cars on the streets in controversy “shall be deemed., an acceptance of this ordinance and of all of the terms hereof.” Considering the ordinance as a whole, and not as if it were a group of independent provisions, if this section has any meaning at all, it cannot be more than an assertion on the part of the City, that if the companies, without formal acceptance, but without, protest, should continue to operate the lines of railway, such action would be taken as implying an acceptance of the burdens as well as of the benefits of the ordinance. But such an implication of acceptance certainly could not prevail in any court against an assertion to the contrary by the companies.
If the companies really have contract rights in the streets, as they claim that they have, such rights cannot be impaired by the exercise of them, and if they do not have such rights, this declaration of the section cannot harm them, and therefore it cannot properly serve as a basis, either for jurisdiction or for an injunction.
Thus considering the question of jurisdiction as depending wholly upon the form of the allegations of the bill, it seems very clear that the federal courts are without jurisdiction in the case.
If, now, we consider the answer in the case we shall *461find the strongest possible confirmation of the conclusion just arrived at.
The first paragraph of the answer denies the jurisdiction of the court and asserts that it is apparent on the face of the bill that it seeks to prevent the City of Cincinnati from resorting to the state courts for a decision of the controversy, and the answer to paragraph 13 of the bill, quoted above, is a special denial. Then follows this paragraph of the answer:
“13. The defendant denies that under the authority of said Ordinance, or otherwise, it will, unless restrained by this court, interfere with or prevent the maintenance and operation by the plaintiffs, or either of them, of said electric street railway, or cause any damage or injury of any kind to the plaintiffs, or either of them, and defendant avers that the enforcement of said Ordinance is only authorized and will only be sought by and through an order of a court of competent jurisdiction first had and obtained, and after a hearing on due and reasonable notice to all interested parties.”
It is difficult to imagine how a clearer statement than this could be framed on the part of the City, that the enforcemént of the ordinance is only authorized and will only be sought by and through an order of a court of competent jurisdiction.
When to all this we add that not one word of evidence was offered on the trial tending to sustain the allegations of paragraph 14 of the bill, that the defendant threatened and intended to interfere with and unless enjoined would prevent the operation of the street railways, it becomes very clear that we have before us an utterly unsubstantial and purely paper attempt to carry into the federal courts a case which, because of its “many difficult problems arising under local laws,” is peculiarly one for first decision in the state courts, with the right of revision in this court as provided for by law.
*462It has been for many years the constant effort, repeatedly declared, of Congress and of this court, to prevent the evasion of the Constitution and laws of the United States, by bringing into the federal courts controversies between citizens of the same State, Bernards Township v. Stebbins, 109 U. S. 341, 350, and it is because of my conviction that the integrity of the jurisdiction of the federal courts can best be preserved by refusing to extend it to doubtful cases that this dissent is written thus at léngth. My conclusion is that the plea of the defendant to the jurisdiction of the District Court should have been sustained on the face of the bill, but that if doubt were entertained as to this, , then when the plaintiffs rested without attempting to prove their allegations of intended interference by the City with the operation of the roads, it became the duty of the District Court to proceed no further, but to dismiss the case, for the reason- that it did not really and substantially involve a controversy properly within the jurisdiction of the court. Judicial Code, § 37.
There remains to be added only this: That, even if agreement were possible with the conclusion that the court has jurisdiction in the case, névertheless I could not agree with the judgment rendered, for the reason that it seems to me very clear that the principal grant on which the plaintiffs rely, that from the County Commissioners dated March 23, 1889, expired on March 23, 1914, before the ordinance • complained of was passed. ■My reason for this conclusion is that the Supreme Court of Ohio in 1905 held the Ohio Act of 1883 (80 Ohio Laws, 173) invalid because, in violation of § 26 of Article II of the state constitution. Railway Co. v. Railway Co., 5 Ohio C. C. (N. S.) 583, affirmed 73 Ohio St. 364. This is conclusive on all federal courts. If unconstitutional in' 1905, the act was unconstitutional in 1889, when the grant by the Commissioners was made, and therefore *463§§ 3439 and 2502 of the Revised Statutes of Ohio of 1880 were then in force and imposed the limitation of twenty-five years on all grants by County Commissioners. The doctrine that rights acquired before cannot be impaired by a change of judicial decision, has no application to this case, for the reason that there was no settled principle of decision in Ohio in cases such as we have here, where counties were concerned, prior to 1889, or at any other time, but, as the decisions abundantly prove, each case as it arose was disposed of on its own peculiar facts, e. g., State v. Powers, 38 Ohio St. 54 (1882), overruled in State ex rel. v. Shearer, 46 Ohio St. 275 (1889).
For the reasons here given and upon the authorities cited, my conclusion is that the decree of the District Court should be reversed, and the ease remanded with instructions to dismiss the bill for want of jurisdiction.
Mr. Justice Brandéis concurs in this dissent.