Hutchinson v. Smith

• Citation: 140 F. 982
• Decision Date: 19 July 1905
• Docket Number: 1,305.
• Parties: HUTCHINSON et al. v. SMITH, Sheriff, et al.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Western District of Washington

140 F. 982

HUTCHINSON et al. v. SMITH, Sheriff, et al.

No. 1,305.

United States Circuit Court, W.D. Washington, Northern Division.

July 19, 1905

Carroll & Carroll, for complainants.

Kenneth McIntosh, Pros. Atty., for respondents.

HANFORD District Judge.

This is a suit in equity against the sheriff and prosecuting attorney of King county and the Attorney General of the state of Washington. The object of the suit is to obtain a decree declaring a statute (Laws Wash. 1905, p. 374, c. 179) enacted by the Legislature and approved by the Governor prohibiting the use of trading stamps, to be unconstitutional, and for an injunction against the defendants, as officers, to restrain them from initiating criminal prosecutions to enforce said statute. The argument in support of the demurrer rests entirely upon the single proposition that the Supreme Court of the United States, in the case of Fitts v. McGhee, 172 U.S. 516, 19 Sup.Ct. 269, 43 L.Ed. 535, has determined that a suit in equity against officers of a state to restrain them from initiating judicial proceedings in the courts of the state to enforce a statute alleged to be unconstitutional is in reality a suit against the state, and that the federal courts are prohibited by the eleventh amendment to the Constitution of the United States from exercising jurisdiction in such a case. The able argument in opposition to the demurrer ignores and avoids this vital point, and I find myself, like counsel for the complainant, unable to refute the argument based upon the decision referred to; but the court cannot ignore nor refuse to accept it as an authoritative declaration of the supreme law. In its opinion in the case of Fitts v. McGhee after referring to a number of previous decisions in which the jurisdiction of federal courts in suits against state officers had been sustained, the Supreme Court said:

'There is a wide difference between a suit against individuals holding official positions under a state, to prevent them under the sanction of an unconstitutional statute, from committing by some positive act a wrong or trespass, and a suit against officers of a state merely to test the constitutionality of a state statute, in the enforcement of which those officers will act only by formal judicial proceedings in the courts of the state. In the present case, as we have said, neither of the state officers named held any special relation to the particular statu...