Rhodes & Jacobs Mfg. Co. v. State of New Hampshire

• Decision Date: 26 October 1895
• Citation: 70 F. 721
• Parties: RHODES & JACOBS MANUF'G CO. v. STATE OF NEW HAMPSHIRE et al.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of New Hampshire

70 F. 721

RHODES & JACOBS MANUF'G CO. v. STATE OF NEW HAMPSHIRE et al.

United States Circuit Court, D. New Hampshire.

October 26, 1895

Geo. H Warren and Thomas C. Welch, for complainant.

Edwin F. Jones and E. G. Eastman, for defendants.

Before PUTNAM, Circuit Judge, and ALDRICH, District Judge.

PUTNAM Circuit Judge.

The complainant is a corporation created under the laws of the state of Illinois, and having its principal office, place of business, and manufactory at Chicago, in that state. The defendants named in the bill are the state of New Hampshire the mayor of the city of Manchester, in that state, the city's solicitor, its chief of police, and the justice of its police court. The complainant has discontinued as against the state. The complainant alleges that it has been and is engaged in the manufacture of pictures and picture frames at Chicago, and in the exportation of them from Illinois to New Hampshire, and the sale of them from house to house in the city of Manchester, through its agents, Katz, Miller, and Wolf.

The complainant alleges that these agents were arrested by a police officer of the city of Manchester, brought before the police justice, who is made a defendant, and were bound over by him to appear before the supreme court of the state, under color of a criminal prosecution commenced against such agents for making sales from house to house of the complainant's merchandise, in alleged violation of the statute of New Hampshire relating to hawkers and pedlers, approved April 1 1893, and that this statute, so far as it, by its terms interferes with the complainant's business in the manner stated, violates various provisions of the constitution of the United States. The bill clearly states on its face a matter in dispute arising under that constitution. The bill also contains the following allegation:

'The said Rhodes & Jacobs Manufacturing Company further avers that it will suffer irreparable damage and injury, as it verily believes, to the extent of twenty thousand dollars, if prevented from selling or offering for sale its merchandise aforesaid, in the manner aforesaid, within said state of New Hampshire and said city of Manchester.'

This allegation is denied in the answer.

The bill also alleges that the city and its police are threatening to continue to enforce the statute against the complainant's agents, and that, unless restrained, the defendants will prevent the complainant from selling its merchandise in that city; and the complainant therefore asks, to use the language of the bill, that the defendants, their justices of the peace and police officers, shall be restrained from preventing the complainant, its servants and agents, from selling or offering for sale in the manner described, in the city of Manchester and within the state of New Hampshire, pictures or picture frames, the products of complainant's factories at Chicago, and from enforcing the statute referred to with reference to the premises. It will be observed that this injunction, if granted, will relate to the official acts of the various defendants, in their several capacities of mayor, police officer, and justice of the police court. It might well be questioned, on general principles, whether the officers of the law, either police officers or justices of courts, are the agents of the city, for which it is responsible, or which it can control; and it may therefore well be questioned whether it can be in any way involved in this controversy. But no point is taken touching this suggestion.

The allegations which we have explained are ordinarily sufficient to maintain a bill for an injunction, because the injury arising from the alleged unlawful acts is not remediable by suits for damages, while, also, its continuance is clearly intended.

It is claimed by the defendants that this suit relates to the protection of persons only, and not to that of property, and that a court of equity has no criminal jurisdiction, or jurisdiction to restrain criminal prosecutions. So far as these claims touch the question of the power of the federal courts to restrain criminal prosecutions in state courts, we will discuss them further on, but, beyond doubt, the case involves property rights, even if this is essential; and, except as prevented by section 720 of the Revised Statutes, the federal courts have general jurisdiction in equity to restrain proceedings in state courts violative of the constitution of the United States.

Assuming for the purpose of discussing the jurisdictional question only, that the state statute in issue here is distinguishable from that in Emert v. Missouri, 156 U.S. 296, 15 Sup.Ct. 367, we must inquire whether this suit gives this court jurisdiction over the question raised. Ordinarily, proceedings touching such matters have been by habeas corpus for the discharge of persons held in custody for the violation of alleged unconstitutional acts, or by writs of error to the state courts. The supreme court has pointedly cautioned the circuit courts that even writs of habeas corpus are not ordinarily to issue, interfering with the proceedings of state courts, in cases which can be reached by writs of error without substantial detriment. The latest instance of this is New York v. Eno, 155 U.S. 89, 15 Sup.Ct. 30, although the principle was stated in In re Chapman, 156 U.S. 211, 217, 15 Sup.Ct. 331. This rule, however, does not apply where the ordinary course of proceedings under a state statute would interrupt the current of interstate commerce. The reasons for this were well stated by Judge Simonton in Ex parte Jervey, 66 F. 957, 962, and are illustrated in Minnesota v. Barber, 136 U.S. 313, 10 Sup.Ct 862, where the issue of a writ of habeas corpus by the circuit court to the state court, and the discharge the petitioner under the same, were sustained by the supreme court. Also in Yick Wo v. Hopkins, 118 U.S. 356, 6 Sup.Ct. 1064, a writ issued from a circuit court to a state court in a case involving the occupations of a large class in the community, and the supreme court ordered the discharge of the petitioner. Therefore there would be no difficulty here, except for the fact that this is a proceeding for an injunction, instead of an application for a discharge from arrest by a writ of habeas corpus. We are asked to enjoin one of the defendants from proceeding in his official capacity as a justice of the state police court, admittedly a judicial function, and all the other defendants are sought to be restrained in the exercise of their official duties solely and purely with reference to the incidents of proceedings in the justice's court. It is plain that under section 720 of the Revised Statutes the proceedings instituted before this bill was filed, and described in it, cannot be enjoined...