St. Louis, I. M. & S. Ry. Co. v. Bellamy

211 F. 172, 1914 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 1104
CourtDistrict Court, E.D. Arkansas
DecidedJanuary 17, 1914
StatusPublished
Cited by3 cases

This text of 211 F. 172 (St. Louis, I. M. & S. Ry. Co. v. Bellamy) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, E.D. Arkansas primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
St. Louis, I. M. & S. Ry. Co. v. Bellamy, 211 F. 172, 1914 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 1104 (E.D. Ark. 1914).

Opinion

TRIEBER, District Judge

(after stating the facts as above). The argument of the numerous counsel took a very wide range, and a great many questions were discussed. Among others were the liability on the bonds, the liability of the railroad company regardless of the bond, before the final decree making the injunction perpetual was rendered by this court, and the liability of the railroad company on the bonds, as well as individually, for the excess rates collected after the injunction had been made perpetual by this court, and up to the time it was dissolved and the bill dismissed in obedience to the mandate of the Supreme Court. As these questions will have to be determined when the report of *the special master comes up for hearing, the court deems it unnecessary to determine them in this proceeding. The only question properly before the court is whether this supplemental bill can be maintained as an ancillary proceeding to the original bill, and, if so, whether it is the duty of the court, in order to prevent the many thousands of suits which might be instituted in the different courts of the state to recover these overcharges, to enjoin the parties having these claims and determine the entire matter in the proceeding now pending in this court to ascertain the liability of the. railroad company for the wrongful injunction.

[1] It is claimed that, the suit of the defendant Gallup having been instituted in the chancery court of Baxter county before the filing of this bill, no injunction can be issued by this court to stay that action, as that is expressly prohibited by section 720, Rev. St. (U. S. Comp. St. 1901, p. 581). That section does not apply to a proceeding which [176]*176is ancillary to a cause of which the court had original jurisdiction. As stated in Gunter v. Atlantic Coast Line, 200 U. S. 273, 292, 26 Sup. Ct. 252, 259 (50 L. Ed. 477):

“The proposition that the eleventh amendment, or section 720 of the Revised Statutes, controls a court of the United States in administering relief, although the court was acting in a matter ancillary to a decree rendered in a cause over which it had jurisdiction, is not open for discussion”—citing Dietzsch v. Huidekoper, 103 U. S. 494, 26 L. Ed. 497; Prout v. Starr, 188 U. S. 537, 23 Sup. Ct. 39S, 47 L. Ed. 584; Julian v. Central Trust Co., 193 U. S. 93, 112, 24 Sup. Ct. 399, 48 L. Ed. 629.

To these cases may be added Root v. Woolworth, 150 U. S. 401, 14 Sup. Ct. 136, 37 L. Ed. 1123; Lang v. Choctaw, etc., R. Co., 160 Fed., 355, 87 C. C. A. 307; Mound City v. Castleman, 187 Fed. 921, 110 C. C. A. 35.

In Root v. Woolworth the supplemental bill was filed several years after a decree in the original case had been rendered establishing the title of the grantor of the plaintiff in the supplemental bill. The jurisdiction of the court to grant such relief was attacked upon several grounds by the defendant; one of them being that there was no diversity of citizenship between the plaintiff and defendant in the ancillary proceedings, but the court held:

“The bill being ancillary to the original proceedings of Morton v. Root, and supplementary to the decree rendered therein, can be maintained without reference to the citizenship or residence of the parties. There is consequently no force in the objection that the court below had no jurisdiction in this case because the appellee and the appellant were both citizens of Nebraska.”

Another objection was that the proceeding should have been an action of ejectment on the law side of the court. The court in overruling that objection held:

“If the bill in the present case could be properly considered as an ejectment bill, the objection taken thereto by the defendant would be fatal to the proceeding; but, instead of being a bill of this character, if is clearly a supplemental and ancillary bill, such as the court had jurisdiction to entertain. * * * It is well settled that a court of equity has jurisdiction to carry into effect its own orders, decrees, and judgments which remain unreversed when the subject-matter and the parties are the same in both proceedings.”

The court, after quoting section 338 of Story’s Equity Pleading, proceeded :

“The jurisdiction of courts of equity to interfere and effectuate their own decrees by injunction or writs of assistance in order to avoid the relitigation of questions once settled between the same parties is well settled.”

Nor is it necessary that the parties be the same.

“It is equally clear,” the court in that case held, “that his assignee or privy in estate has the right to the same relief that Morton (the original party, and-Woolworth’s grantor) could have asserted”—quoting as authority for this rule of law section 429, Story’s Equity Pleading.

Upon the same principle it has also been held that, if a state court refuses to grant a petition for removal to a federal court, when the petition and bond show that the cause is one properly removable, and a transcript of the record has been filed in the national court to which it was sought to have it removed, that court may by a proceeding an[177]*177ciliary in its nature grant an injunction restraining the plaintiff from proceeding with his cause in the state court without violating section 720, Rev. Stat, French v. May, 22 Wall. 250, note, 22 L. Ed. 857; Traction Co. v. St. Bernard Mining Co., 196 U. S. 239, 245, 25 Sup. Ct. 251, 49 L. Ed. 462.

2For these reasons, if the court has jurisdiction to maintain this ancillary proceeding, the fact that the defendant Gallup had, before 'the filing of this supplemental bill, instituted his action in the state court, would not prevent this court from enjoining him from prosecuting that action by reason of the provisions, of section 720, Rev. Stat.

Has the court jurisdiction to entertain the supplemental bill?

As this is an ancillary proceeding, the jurisdiction of the court depends upon the jurisdiction of the original cause, regardless of the fact that it would have no jurisdiction if this were an original proceeding.

In Riggs v. Johnson County, 6 Wall. 166, 187 (18 L. Ed, 768), it was held that:

“Process subsequent to judgment is as essential to jurisdiction as process antecedent to judgment, else the judicial power would be incomplete and entirely inadequate to the purpose for which it' was conferred by the Constitution.”

In Lamb v. Ewing, 54 Fed. 269, 4 C. C. A. 320, the Circuit Court of Appeals for this circuit held;

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211 F. 172, 1914 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 1104, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/st-louis-i-m-s-ry-co-v-bellamy-ared-1914.