191 F. 202 | U.S. Circuit Court for the District of Northern California | 1911
This is a bill in equity seeking to .enjoin the enforcement by the municipal authorities of the city and county of San Francisco of an ordinance passed by its board of supervisors “to prohibit bucketing and bucket shopping and to abolish bucket shops” therein, and providing for the punishment by fine and imprisonment of those who violate its provisions, on the ground that such ordinance is in violation of complainant’s rights guaranteed by the Constitution of the United States, in that it unduly limits its right of contract and is unreasonable, arbitrary, and discriminatory.
There are two reasons why the court is not called upon to examine into the question of the validity of the ordinance in question or to determine whether it violates complainant’s rights in the respects complained of.
“The office and jurisdiction of a court of equity,” say the Supreme Court in Re Sawyer, 124 U. S. 200, 8 Sup. Ct. 482, 31 L. Ed. 402, “are limited to the protection of rights of property. It has no jurisdiction over the prosecution, the punishment, or the pardon of crimes or misdemeanors, or over the appointment and removal of public officers. To assume such a jurisdiction, or , to sustain a bill in equity to restrain or relieve against proceedings for the ' punishment of offences, or for the removal of public officers, is to invade the domain of the courts of common law, or of the executive and administrative department of the government.”
See, also, Fitts v. McGhee, 172 U. S. 516, 19 Sup. Ct. 269, 43 L. Ed. 535, and cases there referred to.
In this last case, in speaking of the remedy of one assailed by arrest ■ or prosecution under an unconstitutional law by officers of the state, it-is said:
“Under the view we take of the question, the citizen is not without effective remedy, when proceeded against under a legislative enactment void for re*205 pugnancy to the supreme law of the land; for, whatever the form of proceeding against him, he can make his defense upon the ground that the statute is unconstitutional and void. And that question can be ultimately brought to this court for final determination. * * *
“Let them appear to the indictment and defend themselves upon the ground that the state statute is repugnant to the Constitution of the United States. The state court is competent to determine the question thus raised, and is under a duty to enforce the mandates of the supreme law of the land. Robb v. Connolly, 111 U. S. 624 [4 Sup. Ct. 544, 28 L. Ed. 542]. And, if the question is determined adversely to the defendants in the highest court of the state in which the decision could he had, the judgment may be re-examined by this court upon writ of error. 'That the defendants may he frequently indicted constitutes no reason why a federal court of equity should assume to interfere with the ordinary course of criminal procedure in a state court.”
“That the commission of said acts by defendants will destroy plaintiff’s business and will produce great and irreparable injiuy to your orator, and that no pecuniary compensation will afford your orator adequate relief, and that the amount of damages which said -acts would cause could not be estimated at law, and that plaintiff has no plain, speedy, or adequate relief or remedy at law.”
In Fitts v. McGhee, where the act assailed sought to reduce complainant’s tolls collectible under a franchise held by it and imposed penalties for charging higher tolls than those fixed by the act, it was sought to enjoin the officers of the state from taking proceedings to enforce the penalties, on the ground that the act was unconstitutional because confiscatory and unreasonable and would deprive complainant of its property without due process of law. It was held that the case was not within the exception which would authorize a court of equity to restrain the threatened criminal proceedings; and it is said, in speaking of the remedy to which complainant could resort against the threatened acts of the state authorities:
“If their officers commit acts of trespass or wrong to the citizen, they may be individually proceeded against for such trespass or wrong.”
“That the defendants may be frequently indicted constitutes no reason why a federal court of equity should assume to interfere with the ordinary course, of criminal procedure in a state court.”
And in Camden Interstate Ry. Co. v. Catlettsburg, where the city was threatening to enforce by criminal proceedings an ordinance alleged to be an unconstitutional invasion of complainant’s rights in requiring it at great expense to maintain gates or watchmen at street crossings, it was held that the facts did not justify a court of equity in granting an injunction against the threatened acts of the city authorities, as it did not present an instance of the invasion of property rights within the exception.
The case of Dobbins v. Los Angeles, 195 U. S. 223, 25 Sup. Ct. 18, 49 L. Ed. 169, and the cases therein referred to, aptly illustrate the class of cases coming within the exception; and it will at .once be seen that they have no application to facts such as are here alleged. In the main case, under the allegations of the bill the facts were disclosed that complainant had acquired the right under prior ordinances of the city entitling- her to proceed, and she was proceeding, to erect her gasworks in a certain territory; and it was held that a subsequent ordinance making it unlawful to erect such works in the designated district was, under the circumstances shown, such a palpable invasion of, and would so inevitably result in the destruction of, her property rights, as to-entitle her to enjoin its enforcement — notwithstanding the result would be to restrain the prosecution of criminal proceedings.
Under these authorities it is apparent that the averments of the bill as to the threatened acts -of the defendants looking to an invasion of complainant’s property rights are purely colorable, and the averment that its property will be thereby destroyed a mere unsupported con
That the court is justified in saying from the facts thus disclosed that the controversy sought to be presented by this bill is the same controversy involved in the suit in the state court I think there can be no doubt. The nominal difference in the parties is not the determinative factor. It is not a question of the legal sufficiency of the proceedings
The case, comes, I' think, strongly within the principles of Lehigh M. & M. Co. v. Kelly, 160 U. S. 327, 16 Sup. Ct. 307, 40 L. Ed. 444, wherein the kindred cases are fully reviewed, and in -which it is held that similar facts “made of the transaction a mere device to give jurisdiction to the Circuit Court, and that it was a fraud upon that court as well as a wrong to the defendants..”
For these reasons, the restraining order is vacated, and the bill is dismissed.