Baldwin v. Morgan

• Decision Date: 04 March 1957
• Docket Number: Civ. A. No. 8634.
• Citation: Baldwin v. Morgan, 149 F.Supp. 224 (N.D. Ala. 1957)
• Parties: Carl L. BALDWIN et al., Plaintiffs, v. J. W. MORGAN, R. E. Lindbergh, J. T. Waggoner, individually and as Members of the Board of Commissioners of the City of Birmingham, et al., Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Northern District of Alabama

149 F. Supp. 224

Carl L. BALDWIN et al., Plaintiffs, v. J. W. MORGAN, R. E. Lindbergh, J. T. Waggoner, individually and as Members of the Board of Commissioners of the City of Birmingham, et al., Defendants.

Civ. A. No. 8634.

United States District Court N. D. Alabama, S. D.

March 4, 1957.

Demetrius C. Newton and Oscar W. Adams, Jr., Birmingham, Ala., for plaintiffs.

Cabaniss & Johnston, Joseph F. Johnston and Thaddeus Holt, Jr., James H. Willis, City Atty., James M. Breckenridge, Asst. City Atty., Birmingham, Ala., and John Patterson, Atty. Gen., Gordon Madison, Asst. Atty. Gen., and William F. Black, Atty., Montgomery, Ala., for defendants.

LYNNE, Chief Judge.

This is but another in the growing list of cases wherein both the tutored and the untutored apparently entertain the mistaken notion that the proper function of the federal courts is propaganda rather than judicature. They who espouse the theory that such courts should essay the roles of super legislatures know not what they do. One day they may be reminded of Mary Shelley's terrified self-reproach in "Frankenstein": "I beheld the wretch — the miserable monster whom I had created."

The framers of our Constitution, in contriving a system of checks and balances, taught us a lesson which we have never learned, but which we have never quite forgotten; that the federal judicial power extends only to "cases" or "controversies" in the constitutional sense. No judge of a federal court has a right to adjudicate a difference or dispute of a hypothetical or abstract character. The wisdom of withholding from the federal judiciary power to render advisory opinions would seem to be self evident. Public Serv. Comm. of Utah v. Wycoff Co., 344 U.S. 237, 73 S.Ct. 236, 97 L.Ed. 291; United Public Workers of America (C.I.O.) v. Mitchell, 330 U.S. 75, 67 S.Ct. 556, 91 L.Ed. 754; Alabama State Federation of Labor, etc., v. McAdory, 325 U.S. 450, 65 S.Ct. 1384, 89 L.Ed. 1725; Maryland Casualty Co. v. Pacific Coal & Oil Co., 312 U.S. 270, 61 S.Ct. 510, 85 L.Ed. 826; Aetna Life Ins. Co. of Hartford, Conn. v. Haworth, 300 U.S. 227, 57 S.Ct. 461, 81 L.Ed. 617; Ashwander v. Tennessee Valley Authority, 297 U.S. 288, 56 S.Ct. 466, 80 L.Ed. 688; People of State of California v. San Pablo & Tulare R. Co., 149 U.S. 308, 13 S.Ct. 876, 37 L.Ed. 747; Indemnity Ins. Co. of North America v. Kellas, 1 Cir., 173 F.2d 120; Johnson v. Interstate Transit Lines, 10 Cir., 163 F.2d 125, 172 A.L.R. 1242.

In vain, the court has searched the allegations of the complaint for a definitive statement of facts, showing "that there is a substantial controversy, between plaintiffs and defendants of sufficient immediacy and reality to warrant the issuance of a declaratory judgment." Maryland Casualty Co. v. Pacific Coal & Oil Co., supra 312 U.S. 270, 61 S.Ct. 512.

Stripped of excess verbiage and argumentative innuendo, a summary of the factual averments in capsule form is as follows: On December 22, 1956, plaintiffs, Negro citizens, holding tickets entitling them to transportation as passengers in interstate commerce, while seated in a waiting room of the Birmingham Terminal Station designated "Interstate and White Passengers," were placed under arrest and confined in jail by police officers of the City of Birmingham.

Mere reference to the silence of the complaint as to the character of the charge on which plaintiffs were arrested is to demonstrate its...