Industrial & Mining Guaranty Co. v. Electrical Supply Co.

58 F. 732, 9 Ohio F. Dec. 483, 1893 U.S. App. LEXIS 2304
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit
DecidedSeptember 20, 1893
DocketNo. 98
StatusPublished
Cited by10 cases

This text of 58 F. 732 (Industrial & Mining Guaranty Co. v. Electrical Supply Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Industrial & Mining Guaranty Co. v. Electrical Supply Co., 58 F. 732, 9 Ohio F. Dec. 483, 1893 U.S. App. LEXIS 2304 (6th Cir. 1893).

Opinions

SWAN, District Judge,

(after stating tlie facts.)1 1. The appellant insists that as the temporary injunction was granted by the district judge September 10, 1892, at the-June term, under the provisions of section 719 of the Revised Statutes of the United States it could not “continue longer than to the circuit court next ensuing, unless so ordered by the circuit court;” that the next term was the December term, 1892, at which no order was made by the circuit court continuing the injunction, and therefore it became inoperative. This contention is founded on- a misconception of the powers of the district judge-, and fails to give proper effect to his action in refusing to dissolve the injunction at the December term. The circuit court may be held by the associate justice allotted to the circuit, by either circuit judge, by the district judge, or by any two of these. This is the express provision of the statute. Rev. St. U. S. § 609; Insurance Co. v. Dunham, 11 Wall. 22; Gray v. Railroad Co., Woolw. 63; Vulcanite Co. v. Folsom, 3 Fed. Rep. 509; Robinson v. Satterlee, 3 Sawy. 134, 140. The district judge holding the circuit court lias all the authority conferred by law upon either of the judges empowered to hold that court. IXis action, therefore, while holding the circuit court, in refusing to dissolve the injunction granted by himself at the previous term, was as effectual to continue it in force as if the court had been held by a full bench. Parker v. The Judges, 12 Wheat. 561. This objection to the injunction therefore fails.

2. A more serious objection, however, is that the injunction was granted without notice, in violation of general equity rule 55, which declares that “special injunctions shall be grantable upon due notice to the other party by the court in term, or by a judge thereof in vacation, after a hearing, which may be ex parte if the adverse party does not appear at the time and place ordered.” This'rule was evidently founded on section 5 of the judiciary act of 1793, (1 Staff, p. 334,) forbidding the granting of a writ of injunction “in any ease without reasonable previous notice to the adverse party, or his attorney, of the time and place of moving Ihe same.” Fc is held in Yuengling v. Johnson, 1 Hughes, 607, 610, that the omission of ihis clause from the Revised Statutes operated to repeal it by the provision of Rev. St. § 5596, and that it was also impliedly repealed by section 7 of the act of June 1,1872, (17 Stat. 197.) Section 7, above referred to, [738]*738stands as section 718 of the Revised Statutes, and reads as follows:

“Whenever no'tiee is given of a motion for an injunction out of a circuit or district court, the judge thereof may, if there appears to be danger of irreparable injury from delay, grant an order restraining the act sought to be enjoined until the decision upon the motion, and such order may be granted -with or without security in the discretion of a court or judge.”

While this provision obviously enlarges the power of the court, it certainly preserves the principle of the repealed act of 1793, and of general equity rule 55. The issue of a restraining order, which may be granted ex parte, is by the express language of this section made dependent upon the existence of two conditions, — the giving of notice of a motion for an injunction, and an apparent danger of irreparable injury from delay. The first of these conditions is not met by the fact that the cross bill prays an injunction as ancillary to the relief sought, but notice of a motion for that remedy must have been given or be served simultaneously with the notice of motion for an injunction. ISTo such motion was made, or notice given, in this case. Whether the cross bill makes a case of “irreparable injury from delay,” within the statute, may well be doubted, for, upon the facts stated in the cross bill, Tillotson has a legal right of action for any breach of the agreement made with appellant, and his cross bill shows no impediment to the recovery 'of damages at law, nor any reason why such damages will not afford him full redress. Buzard v. Houston, 119 U. S. 347, 7 Sup. Ct. Rep. 249. The fair and necessary implication from the language of section 718, considered in connection with the practice which obtains in the federal courts, and that of the high court of chancery of England, on which it is founded, is that, as before the statute, so now, the extraordinary remedy of injunction — including restraining orders- — -requires for its exercise a clear case of threatened injury reasonably to be apprehended, and which can only be thus averted, and for the redress of which the recovery of damages would not give adequate compensation. The only purpose of such an order is to preserve the status of litigants for such time as may bo necessary, according to the practice of the court, to bring the matter in issue to a hearing upon motion in the regular way, in order that both sides may be heard. When such a hearing has been had, the court may grant or refuse the injunction. The fact that the statute makes the two conditions mentioned indispensable to the granting of a restraining order for a limited time shows indisputably that it was never intended to clothe the courts with power to enjoin a defendant indefinitely or embarrass his business ex parte, and without notice, except where notice of the application would itself be productive of the mischief apprehended by inducing the defendant to accelerate the completion of the act sought to be enjoined before process could be served. Ho such case appears in the cross bill, and both the restraining order and the injunction of September 10th were therefore improvidently granted. Fost. Fed. Pr. § 231. The refusal to dissolve the injunction v?as also erroneous. Upon the [739]*739case made by the cross Mil, the stock of the railway company, ivy the express terms of the contract, became the absolute property of appellant. The equities of the cross bill are denied by the answers of the Put-in-Bay Waterworks, Light & Railway Company, John P. Carrothers, and the appellant, and by the affidavits of Earl, Footnei*, Baruch, and Warner. Opposed to those are the affidavits of Tillotson and L. G-. Richardson, the latter the solicitor of record for complainant, who also had acted as Tillotson’s counsel up to the time of the fding of the bill. The affidavit of Mr. Lewis, also one of Tillotson’s counsel, fails to confirm Tillotson’s denial of the representations as to the title of the property. Without detailing the matters alleged in these affidavits, it is sufficient to say that, conceding to each affiant equal credibility and means of knowledge, the weight of evidence is clearly in favor of the appellant. The burden of proof was upon Tillotson to sustain the allegations of irreparable injury upon which the restraining order and injunction were granted. This he failed to do, and the injunction should have been dissolved, even if there had been only an equipoise of testimony.

3. The important question in the case is whether the amount involved is within the jurisdiction of the court, and whether, for reasons hereinafter stated, the court ought not to have dismissed the cross bill sua sponte. The affidavit of Terry positively avers that the material actually used in the construction of the Put-in-Bay Waterworks, Light & Railway Company amounted to but; $8(51.28, and that the balance of the material, amounting to $1,9215.81, was used inside the Hotel Victory.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
58 F. 732, 9 Ohio F. Dec. 483, 1893 U.S. App. LEXIS 2304, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/industrial-mining-guaranty-co-v-electrical-supply-co-ca6-1893.