KOEHRING CO. v. HYDE CONSTRUCTION CO., INC., ET AL.
No. 593
Supreme Court of the United States
January 17, 1966
382 U.S. 362
Charles Clark for respondents.
On March 11, 1964, pursuant to a transfer order issued by the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, the United States District Court for the Northern District of Oklahoma entered an order temporarily restraining respondents from proceeding with trial of a case in the Mississippi state courts. When respondents, in disregard of the temporary rеstraining order, proceeded to trial in Mississippi, the District Court on March 14 found them in civil contempt.1 Undetеrred, respondents pressed the state court action to a conclusion and obtained a judgment against petitioner on April 8. But the District Court, on September 1, enjoined respondents from seeking to enforce the Mississippi judgment, required them to compensate petitioner for reasonable еxpenses in connection with the contempt proceeding, reserved decision as to whethеr they must also reimburse petitioner for expenses relating to the Mississippi litigation, and ordered the сivil suit between the parties retried—this time in Oklahoma and in federal court.
Respondents appeаled from this decree to the Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit which reversed, holding that at the time thе District Court had entered the original restraining order it was without jurisdiction since it had not yet received the case file from the transferor court. We are asked to review that determination. We grant the pеtition and reverse.
The District Court had assumed jurisdiction of the cause and entered its restraining order on Mаrch 11, five days before the papers in the case were transferred to it from Mississippi. It acted upon the basis of a certified copy of an order entered the previous day by
Although a federal appellate court does not ordinarily itself transfer a case to another district, but remands to the District Court for that purpose,2 the extraordinary action in this casе was taken as a result of extraordinary circumstances. These included the fact that the Federal District Court in Mississippi had granted a motion to dismiss despite instructions from the Fifth Circuit to transfer the cause to Oklahoma,3 and the further fact that trial of a duplicative action in the Mississippi state courts brought by resрondent Hyde Construction Company was to commence, and did in fact commence, on March 11—оne day after the Fifth Circuit‘s instanter transfer and the very day on which the Federal District Court in Oklahoma entered its order.
In the special circumstances of this case, we conclude that the District Court in Oklahoma had аcquired jurisdiction on March 11 in accordance with the Fifth Circuit‘s order for instanter transfer and that the Tenth Circuit erred in vacating the District Court‘s orders on
Accordingly, we grant the petition, reverse the judgment, and remand tо the District Court for the Northern District of Oklahoma for further proceedings consistent with this opinion, reserving to the parties the right to apply to that court to have the case transferred back to the Sоuthern District of Mississippi because of changed conditions.5
MR. JUSTICE BLACK, with whom MR. JUSTICE DOUGLAS joins, dissenting.
I think, as shown by the record and the carefully prepared opinions of the able judges in both the Fifth and the Tenth Circuits, that the circumstances of this case are both too complex and obscure, and the issues which concern among other things the relationship between state and federal courts and the transfer of cases betweеn federal courts are all too important to be treated in the cursory manner as they are by the Court here. This Court‘s reversal of the judgment below, without giving respondents any opportunity for oral argument tо support the thoroughly considered opinion and holding of the Tenth Circuit, seems more extraordinary to me than what the Court‘s per curiam opinion refers to as the “extraordinary circumstances” in the courts below. I dissent from that course of action taken by this Court.