Court Opinion

ID: 9664050
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 00:00:50.227632+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:15:01.477047
License: Public Domain

THORNTON, District Judge
(dissenting).
I cannot agree with the action of the court in granting an interlocutory injunction at this point in these proceedings.
Act 300 of the Public Acts of the state of Michigan, 1909, is described as follows: “An Act to define and regulate common carriers and the receiving, transportation and delivery of persons and property, prevent the imposition of unreasonable rates, prevent unjust discrimination, insure adequate service, create the Michigan Railroad Commission, define the powers and duties thereof, and to prescribe penalties for violations hereof.”
By virtue of the foregoing legislation the state of Michigan has inaugurated a policy of insuring adequate service by common carriers to the people of the state of Michigan, and has vested in the Michigan Public Service Commission1 the function of regulating the conduct and operations of common carriers within the state.
Sec. 2(f) of Act 300, P.A.1909, as amended, Comp.Laws Mich.1948, § 462.2(f) (22.21 (f), M.S.A.) provides in part as follows: “Provided, That any interested party shall be entitled to a re-hearing before the full commission on request served upon the commission within 5 days after service of such order upon such party. In the absence of' a quorum of the commission at the time appointed for any hearing before such commission, such hearing may be continued to a later date by a single member of the commission present or, in the absence of any member, by the secretary.”
Comp.Laws Mich.1948, .§ 460.351, Sec. 22.111, M.S.A., further provides: “The Michigan public utilities commission, in any proceeding which may now be pending before it or which shall hereafter be brought before it, shall have full power and authority to grant rehearings and to alter, amend or modify its findings and orders.” Comp.Laws Mich.1948, § 462.26, Sec. 22.45, M.S.A., provides in part as follows: “Any common carrier or other party in interest, being dissatisfied with any order of the commission fixing any rate or rates, fares, charges, classifications, joint rate or rates, or any order fixing any regulations, practices or services, may within 30 days from the issuance of such order and notice thereof commence an action in the circuit court in chancery for the county of Ingham, against the commission as defendant to vacate and set aside any such order on the ground that the rate or rates, fares, charges, classifications, joint rate or rates fixed are unlawful or unreasonable, or that any such regulation, practice or service fixed in such order is unreasonable * *
Comp.Laws Mich.1948, § 460.59, Sec. 22.9, M.S.A., provides as follows: “Any order or decree shall be subject to review in the manner now provided by law for reviewing orders and decrees of the Michigan railroad commission. In no case, however, shall any injunction or other order issue suspending or staying any decree or order of the commission except after due notice to the commission and a reasonable opportunity for hearing thereon.”
The plaintiff, a Michigan railroad corporation, in August 1941, petitioned the *673defendant commission for authority to discontinue its passenger service operating within the state of Michigan and, after a series of adjournments, hearings were held and the matter was concluded by an order of the commission to the plaintiff. The nature of this order clearly indicates that careful consideration was given to the contentions of the plaintiff as well as to the welfare of the people of the state of Michigan. The plaintiff being dissatisfied with this order of the commission has not sought aid in a single remedy or in a tribunal made available to it by the laws of the state of Michigan, but rather has asked this court to retry the issues and enjoin the commission from carrying out its order.
The modern tendency is to compel a party aggrieved by the determination of a state administrative agency to pursue the remedies made available to him by state law, thereby effacing the distinction between administrative and judicial remedies insofar as resort to a Federal court is concerned. 42 Am.Jur., Pub.Admin.Law, Sec. 201.
If the order of the commission contains all the abuses claimed for it by the plaintiff in the instant proceeding, then the said order is unreasonable and plaintiff might have sought relief from it by petitioning the commission for a rehearing (Comp. Laws Mich.1948, § 462.2, Sec. 22.21(f), M.S.A.), by asking the supreme court of the state of Michigan to review the order (Comp.Laws Mich. 1948, § 460.59, Sec. 22.9, M.S.A.), or by making application to the circuit court for the county of Ingham under the provisions of Comp.Laws Mich. 1948, § 462.26, Sec. 22.45, M.S.A.
Since the legislature of the state of Michigan has established the policy of review of orders of the Michigan Public Service Commission by the circuit court for the county of Ingham and/or the supreme court of the state of Michigan, then the issue of whether an order of the commission is unreasonable should be determined in conformity with this policy before asking this court to pass upon any constitutional questions. That this court has jurisdiction to hear the matter on the constitutional issue is well established; however, in the exercise of a sound discretion, this court should require the plaintiff to exhaust its state remedies before seeking relief here.
In the dissenting opinion of Chief Justice Fuller in Prentis v. Atlantic Coast Line Co., 211 U.S. 210-237, 29 S.Ct. 67, 74, 53 L.Ed. 150, we find the following: “Power grows by what it feeds on, and to hold that state railroad companies can take their chances for the fixing of rates in accordance with their views in a tribunal provided for that purpose by state constitution and laws, and then, if dissatisfied with the result, decline to seek a review in the highest court of the state, though possessed of the absolute right to do so, and invoke the power of the Federal courts to put a stop to such proceedings, is, in my opinion, utterly inadmissible and of palpably dangerous tendency.”
Justice Frankfurter, in speaking for the United States Supreme Court in Railroad Commission of Texas et al. v. Pullman Company et al., 312 U.S. 496-500-501, 61 S.Ct. 643, 645, 85 L.Ed. 971, had the following to say in relation to the discretion which federal courts should exercise in enjoining state policies: “Few public interests have a higher claim upon the discretion of a federal chancellor than the avoidance of needless friction with state policiés, whether the policy relates to the enforcement of the criminal law, Fenner v. Boykin, 271 U.S. 240, 46 S.Ct. 492, 70 L.Ed. 927; Spielman Motor Sales Co. v. Dodge, 295 U.S. 89, 55 S.Ct. 678, 79 L.Ed. 1322; or the administration of a specialized scheme for liquidating embarrassed business enterprises, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania v. Williams, 294 U.S. 176, 55 S.Ct. 380, 79 L. Ed. 841, 96 A.L.R. 1166; or the final authority of a state court to interpret doubtful regulatory laws of the state, Gilchrist v. Interborough Rapid Transit Co., 279 U. S. 159, 49 S.Ct. 282, 73 L.Ed. 652; cf. Hawks v. Hamill, 288 U.S. 52, 61, 53 S.Ct. 240, 243, 77 L.Ed. 610. These cases reflect a doctrine of abstention, appropriate to our federal system whereby the federal courts, ‘exercising a wise discretion’, restrain their authority because of ‘scrupulous regard for the rightful independence' of the *674state governments’ and for the smooth working of the federal judiciary. See Cavanaugh v. Looney, 248 U.S. 453, 457, 39 S.Ct. 142, 143, 63 L.Ed. 354; DiGiovanni v. Camden Fire Ins. Ass’n, 296 U.S. 64, 73, 56 S.Ct. 1, 5, 80 L.Ed. 47. This use of equitable powers is a contribution of the courts in furthering the harmonious relation between state and federal authority without the need of rigorous congressional restriction of those powers. Compare 37 Stat. 1013, 28 U.S.C.A. § 380; Judicial Code, § 24(1), as amended, 28 U.S.C. § 41(1), 28 U.S.C.A. 41(1); 47 Stat. 70, 29 U.S.C. §§ 101-115, 29 U.S.C.A. §§ 101-115.”
For these reasons this court should retain this proceeding to give the plaintiff an opportunity to pursue the remedies available to it under the laws of the state of Michigan.

. See. 3, Act 419, P.A.Mich.1919 (22.3, M.S.A.) abolished the Michigan Railroad Commission and created the Michigan Public Utilities Commission and established it in place and stead thereof. See. 1, Act 3, P.A.Mich.1939 (22.13(1), M.S.A.), created the Michigan Public Service Commission and Sec. 4 thereof (22.13(4) M.S.A.), abolished the Michigan Public Utilities Commission. In each instance all of the rights, duties, privileges, immunities and procedure invested by statute in the abolished commission were transferred to, and invested in, the successor commission.