Seacoast Products, Inc. v. Douglas

Decision Date07 November 1975
Docket NumberCiv. A. No. 75-69-NN.
Citation432 F. Supp. 1
CourtU.S. District Court — Eastern District of Virginia
PartiesSEACOAST PRODUCTS, INC., the New Smith Meal Company, Inc., and Second Oceanic Corporation, Plaintiffs, v. James E. DOUGLAS, Jr., Commissioner, Virginia Marine Resources Commission, Defendant.

T. H. Willcox, Jr., Willcox, Savage, Lawrence, Dickson & Spindle, Norfolk, Va., for plaintiffs.

James E. Moore, Asst. Atty. Gen., Richmond, Va., Andrew P. Miller, Atty. Gen., Richmond, Va., for defendant.

Before BRYAN, Senior Circuit Judge, and KELLAM and MacKENZIE, District Judges.

ALBERT V. BRYAN, Senior Circuit Judge:

In question here is the constitutionality of two Virginia statutes restricting the fishing of menhaden in her part of Chesapeake Bay and in the Atlantic Ocean within three miles1 of her coast. Plaintiffs, Seacoast Products, Inc., The New Smith Meal Company, Inc., and Second Oceanic Corporation, now and for a number of years engaged in such fishing in these areas, sue the Virginia Commissioner of Marine Resources to have these restrictions declared invalid and to enjoin his imposed enforcement of them.2 Plaintiffs' motion for summary judgment must be sustained.3

The two statutes are Virginia Code § 28.1-60 and § 28.1-81.1. Epitomized, the force of § 28.1-60 is to allow a non-resident a license to fish menhaden "within the three-mile limit" but to exclude nonresidents of Virginia from menhaden fishing in the Virginia portion of Chesapeake Bay, while at the same time permitting Virginia residents to fish for menhaden in that body of water. The force of § 28.1-81.1 is to exclude any fishing by aliens within the three-mile limit off the Virginia coast. Thus non-residence and alienage are the determinant factors in the ban of plaintiffs from a piscary for menhaden.

The challenged provisions, we conclude, "flagrantly and patently" as well as irreparably offend plaintiffs' rights under the Fourteenth Amendment's equal protection clause and under the preemptive and exclusive Federal regulation of sea fisheries. In this context the doctrines of abstention have no place. In other circumstances they are appropriate: to obtain interpretation of a State statute, Railroad Commission v. Pullman Co., 312 U.S. 496, 61 S.Ct. 643, 85 L.Ed. 971 (1941); or to avoid needless interference with the administration of State domestic policies, Alabama Public Service Commission v. Southern Railway Co., 341 U.S. 341, 71 S.Ct. 762, 95 L.Ed. 1002 (1951); or to avoid obstruction of State prosecutions, Younger v. Harris, 401 U.S. 37, 91 S.Ct. 746, 27 L.Ed.2d 669 (1971); but forbearance of Federal judicial action is not demanded when the deprivation of rights is so severe, clear and damaging as here. Huffman v. Pursue, Ltd., 420 U.S. 592, 602, 95 S.Ct. 1200, 43 L.Ed.2d 482 (1975); Younger, supra, 401 U.S. at 53-54, 91 S.Ct. 746; Zwickler v. Koota, 389 U.S. 241, 248, 249-50, 88 S.Ct. 391, 19 L.Ed.2d 444 (1967). For the same reasons prior exhaustion of State administrative or judicial remedies is not mandatory. On study of the merits of the complaint we grant the relief it prays.

Plaintiff Seacoast Products is a Delaware chartered corporation with its principal office in New Jersey; Smith Meal is a Massachusetts corporation with its office in New Jersey; and Oceanic is a New York corporation having its principal place of business in that State. The last two corporations are wholly-owned subsidiaries of Seacoast which in turn is ultimately controlled, through subsidiaries, by Hanson Trust Ltd., a corporation organized and existing under the laws of the United Kingdom. For many years the plaintiff parent and subsidiary corporations have been embarked on menhaden seining in Chesapeake Bay and in the Virginia three-mile ocean belt.

Menhaden are not edible by humans. They are ground into fish meal for poultry feed, fish solubles as ingredients of animal feed, and fish oil for the manufacture in Europe and Canada of margarine. Hence the statutes are not purposed to conserve the food supply of the State. It is conceded by plaintiffs that Virginia could exact from them the same licenses as she required of residents for fisheries in her inland waters. Indeed, plaintiffs have heretofore applied for and been granted the requisite licenses for several years past. However, based on the two Code sections, their applications were denied in May 1975 because of their non-resident status and ultimate British control.

I. Plaintiffs' first point is that since the licenses are granted to Virginia domestic and resident corporations but refused nonresident corporations, there is discrimination in contravention of the Fourteenth Amendment assurance of equal protection of the laws. It cannot be successfully gainsaid that this is in actuality the impact of § 28.1-60.

Particularly exampling the discrimination is the licensing of Zapata Haynie Corporation and Standard Products Company, Inc., both resident corporations of Virginia, to fish menhaden in the areas forbidden nonresidents. It is alleged, without contradiction, that Zapata is the largest, Seacoast the next largest and Standard the third largest of such fishers.

Supportive of plaintiffs is Takahashi v. Fish and Game Commission, 334 U.S. 410, 419-20, 68 S.Ct. 1138, 92 L.Ed. 1478 (1948). It dealt with the denial by a State of a license to a lawfully resident Japanese to earn his living by fishing commercially in ocean waters off her coast. The State action was premised on his ineligibility under Federal law to achieve United States citizenship. In reaching its decision the Court declared the equality in every State of all who are lawful residents of any State:

"The Fourteenth Amendment and the laws adopted under its authority thus embody a general policy that all persons lawfully in this country shall abide `in any state' on an equality of legal privileges with all citizens under non-discriminatory laws."

Incidentally, the Court in both Takahashi, supra, at 420, 68 S.Ct. at p. 1143, and in Toomer v. Witsell, 334 U.S. 385, 401, 68 S.Ct. 1156, 1164, 92 L.Ed. 1460 (1948), declined to treat, as contra, McCready v. Virginia, 94 U.S. 391, 24 L.Ed. 248 (1876), upholding the State statute prohibiting "citizens of other States but not Virginia citizens from planting oysters" in her tidal river waters.

II. The alienage issue, made by the plaintiffs' attack on Virginia Code § 28.1-81.1, is predicated on the statute's denial of a commercial license to any person, firm or corporation not a citizen of the United States for the taking of any fish from the marginal ocean waters of Virginia. The vitality of that statute, however, has been superseded by an Act of Congress approved May 20, 1964, 78 Stat. 194, 16 U.S.C. § 1081, et seq., declaring as far as pertinent here that "it is unlawful for any vessel, except a vessel of the United States, or for any master or other person in charge of such a vessel, to engage in the fisheries within the territorial waters of the United States . . .", except upon authorizations not relevant here. In our judgment this legislation preempted Virginia's control of commercial sea fisheries and superseded the State's regulation of them. Toomer v. Witsell, 334 U.S. 385, 393, 394, 68 S.Ct. 1156, 92 L.Ed. 1460 (1948); United States v....

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2 cases
  • Smart v. First Federal S & L Ass'n of Detroit
    • United States
    • U.S. District Court — Western District of Michigan
    • September 15, 1980
    ...with rights granted to them under their federal fishing licenses. A three-judge court sustained both claims. Seacoast Products, Inc. v. Douglas, 432 F.Supp. 1 (E.D.Va.1975). On appeal, the United States Supreme Court affirmed, holding that the Virginia laws denied plaintiffs "their federall......
  • Douglas v. Seacoast Products, Inc
    • United States
    • U.S. Supreme Court
    • May 23, 1977
    ...residents. P. 283. (d) The broad language of the Submerged Lands Act did not impliedly repeal the federal licensing laws. P. 283-284. 432 F.Supp. 1, James E. Moore, Norfolk, Va., for appellant. John J. Loflin, New York City, for appellees. [Amicus Curiae Information from page 266 intentiona......

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