Haile v. Superior Court

387 F. Supp. 865
CourtDistrict Court, D. Delaware
DecidedJanuary 13, 1975
DocketCiv. A. No. 74-168
StatusPublished

This text of 387 F. Supp. 865 (Haile v. Superior Court) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, D. Delaware primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Haile v. Superior Court, 387 F. Supp. 865 (D. Del. 1975).

Opinion

OPINION

STAPLETON, District Judge:

This action attacks the Delaware Guest Statute1 as violative of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The plaintiffs are alleged to be poor members of minority groups who have been injured in automobile accidents while riding as non-paying passengers in Delaware. The sole defendant, The Superior Court of the State of Delaware, is alleged to be “the designated Delaware Trial Court, ... responsible for enforcement of” the Guest Statute. The complaint alleges that the Supreme Court of Delaware has sustained the constitutionality of the challenged statute2 and that when suits are commenced against the negligent drivers of the vehicles in which plaintiffs were riding, the Superior Court, following the mandate of the State’s highest tribunal, will deprive plaintiffs of their right to equal protection of the laws in violation of the Civil Rights Act.3 An injunction against enforcement of the statute by the- defendant is sought, as well as a declaratory judgment. A three-judge court was requested and convened.4 Jurisdiction is asserted under 28 U.S.C. §§ 1331 and 1343.

The Court concludes that there is no “case” or “controversy” before it within the meaning of Article 3, Section 2, of the United States Constitution and that the complaint must be dismissed for want of jurisdiction.

For over 180 years it has been settled that the judicial power of federal courts is limited to the adjudication of actual controversies between parties having adverse interests. See Hayburn’s Case, 2 Dall. 408 (1792). In the landmark case of Muskrat v. United States, 219 U.S. 346, 31 S.Ct. 250, 55 L.Ed. 246 (1911), the Supreme Court applied this principle in a case brought to test the constitutionality of a Congressional enactment. In that case, landowners attacked a federal law authorizing the Secretary of the Interior to convey property interests adverse to those of the plaintiffs. The suit was brought against the Attorney General of the United States pursuant to an enabling statute. In considering the validity of the enabling statute in light of the Attorney General’s relationship to the matters at issue, the court held as follows:

. [The] judicial power, as we have seen, is the right to determine actual controversies arising between adverse litigants, duly instituted in courts of proper jurisdiction. The right to declare a law unconstitutional arises because an act of Congress relied upon by one or the other of such parties in determining their rights is in conflict with the fundamental law.
. It is true the United States [867]*867is made a defendant to this action, but it has no interest adverse to the claimants. The object is not to assert a property right as against the government, or to demand compensation for alleged wrongs because of action upon its part. The whole purpose of the law [authorizing suit against the Attorney General] is to determine the constitutional validity of this class of legislation, in a suit not arising between parties concerning a property right necessarily involved in the decision in question, but in a proceeding against the government in its sovereign capacity, and concerning which the only judgment required is to settle the doubtful character of the legislation in question. Such judgment will not conclude private parties, when actual litigation brings to the court the question of the constitutionality of such legislation. .
* * * -X- * *
The questions involved in this proceeding as to the validity of the legislation may arise in suits between individuals, and when they do and are properly brought before this court for consideration they, of course, must be determined in the exercise of its judicial functions. For the reasons we have stated, we are constrained to hold that these actions present no justiciable controversy within the authority of the court, acting within the limitations of the Constitution under which it was created. .

More recently, the Supreme Court has reiterated the test of justiciability in similar terms in a declaratory judgment context:

Basically, the question in each case is whether the facts alleged, under all the circumstances, show that there is a substantial controversy, between parties having adverse legal interests, of sufficient immediacy and reality to warrant the issuance of a declaratory judgment.

Maryland Casualty Co. v. Pacific Coal & Oil Co., 312 U.S. 270, 273, 61 S.Ct. 510, 512, 85 L.Ed. 826 (1941).

More specifically, the Supreme Court has observed in the context of an attack on the constitutionality of a statute:

No federal court . . . has “jurisdiction to pronounce any statute, either of a State or of the United States, void, because irreconcilable with the Constitution, except as it is called upon to adjudge the legal rights of litigants in actual controversies.” (Emphasis by the court).

Golden v. Zwickler, 394 U.S. 103, 110, 89 S.Ct. 956, 960, 22 L.Ed.2d 113 (1969), citing, Liverpool, N.Y. & P.S.S. Co. v. Commissioners, 113 U.S. 33, 39, 5 S.Ct. 352, 28 L.Ed. 899 (1885).

While the rule requiring that the parties to litigation have a stake in its outcome is applied most frequently in cases where the plaintiff’s standing is challenged, it remains true that federal courts lack jurisdiction in the absence of a defendant having an interest adverse to that of the plaintiff. E. g., Moore v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education, 402 U.S. 47, 91 S.Ct. 1292, 28 L.Ed.2d 590 (1971); Midland-Guardian of Pensacola, Inc. v. Carr, 425 F.2d 793 (5th Cir. 1970).

In the case presently before this Court, the Superior Court of the State of Delaware has no stake, monetary or otherwise in the outcome; it has no reason to defend. Plaintiffs do not challenge any practice or procedure established by Superior Court and it makes no difference whatever to the members of that Court whether or not they hereafter apply the Guest Statute to cases presently governed by it. Plaintiffs’ claims are against individuals who are not parties to this lawsuit. Those claims can be adjudicated in a suit brought against those individuals in a court of competent jurisdiction. If defenses are asserted based upon a state statute which plaintiffs believe to be unconstitutional and that statute is otherwise found to be applicable, that court can pass upon the issue in the context of a concrete controversy between adverse parties, and an appeal will ultimately lie [868]

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Related

Georgia v. Brailsford
2 U.S. 402 (Supreme Court, 1792)
Ex Parte Young
209 U.S. 123 (Supreme Court, 1908)
Muskrat v. United States
219 U.S. 346 (Supreme Court, 1911)
Maryland Casualty Co. v. Pacific Coal & Oil Co.
312 U.S. 270 (Supreme Court, 1941)
Will v. United States
389 U.S. 90 (Supreme Court, 1967)
Golden v. Zwickler
394 U.S. 103 (Supreme Court, 1969)
Moore v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education
402 U.S. 47 (Supreme Court, 1971)
O'Shea v. Littleton
414 U.S. 488 (Supreme Court, 1974)
Gonzalez v. Automatic Employees Credit Union
419 U.S. 90 (Supreme Court, 1974)
Conover v. Montemuro
477 F.2d 1073 (Third Circuit, 1973)
Huffman v. Montana Supreme Court
372 F. Supp. 1175 (D. Montana, 1974)
Justice Ex Rel. Justice v. Gatchell
325 A.2d 97 (Supreme Court of Delaware, 1974)
Steele v. Superior Court of California
164 F.2d 781 (Ninth Circuit, 1948)

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Bluebook (online)
387 F. Supp. 865, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/haile-v-superior-court-ded-1975.