Boston & M. R. R. v. Niles

• Decision Date: 27 November 1914
• Docket Number: 71.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of New Hampshire
• Parties: BOSTON & M.R.R. v. NILES et al.

218 F. 944

BOSTON & M.R.R. v. NILES et al.

No. 71.

United States District Court, D. New Hampshire.

November 27, 1914

Streeter Demond, Woodworth & Sulloway, of Concord, N.H., for plaintiff.

James P. Tuttle, Atty. Gen., of New Hampshire, for defendants.

Before DODGE and BINGHAM, Circuit Judges, and ALDRICH, District Judge, sitting under the provisions of section 266 of the Judicial Code of the United States (Act March 3, 1911, c 231, 36 Stat. 1162 (Comp. St. 1913, Sec. 1243)).

ALDRICH District Judge.

While we do not doubt the jurisdiction of United States courts, or their power to entertain questions like these here, in an original and independent proceeding instituted for the purpose of testing the constitutionality of state statutes which it is claimed conflict with the federal Constitution we do think that such a proceeding in certain circumstances is subject to being controlled or influenced by preliminary considerations involved in rules of comity existing under our judicial system, and these rules are now accepted as meaning something more than rules of convenience.

It was pointed out in the Houseman Case, 93 U.S. 130, 136, 137, 23 L.Ed. 833, that, while the jurisdiction of the federal courts was the jurisdiction of a paramount sovereignty, the laws of the United States are laws in the several states, and just as much binding on the citizens and courts thereof as the state laws; that legal and equitable rights acquired under either system may be enforced in any court of either sovereignty competent to hear and determine; that in respect to matters, though federal, unless otherwise provided, a remedy may be had upon proper proceedings in the state court, because, though the state courts derive their existence and functions from the state laws, such courts are subject also to the laws of the United States and just as much bound to recognize these as operative within the state as they are to recognize the state laws; that the two together form one system of jurisprudence, which constitutes the law of the land for the state; and that there is no reason why the state courts should not be open for the prosecution of rights growing out of the laws of the United States to which their jurisdiction is competent and not denied. It has come to be pretty generally understood, we think, that state courts, in respect to federal rights involved in a proper proceeding before them, are under the same duty to enforce the federal law as that which imposes itself upon the federal courts. This is because the federal law is a part of their own system, and the state courts have gone as far in saying this as the federal courts.

Still in respect to the question as to where remedy shall be had for supposed invaded rights, which depend upon the federal Constitution or upon a state Constitution, or partly upon both, as well as in respect to other rights about which jurisdiction is concurrent, much depends upon the question as to where the proceeding to establish the right is first instituted.

In the case of Covell v. Heyman, 111 U.S.at page 182, 4 Sup.Ct. 358, 28 L.Ed. 390, the Supreme Court said:

'The forbearance which courts of co-ordinate jurisdiction, administered under a single system, exercise towards each other, whereby conflicts are avoided, by avoiding interference with the process of each other, is a principle of comity, with perhaps no higher sanction than the utility which comes from concord; but between state courts and those of the United States, it is something more. It is a principle of right and of law, and therefore of necessity. It leaves nothing to discretion or mere convenience. These courts do not belong to the same system, so far as their jurisdiction is concurrent; and, although they coexist in the same space, they are independent, and have no common superior. They exercise jurisdiction, it is true, within the same territory, but not in the same plane; and when one takes into its jurisdiction a specific thing, that res is as much withdrawn from the judicial power of the other, as if it had been carried physically into a different territorial sovereignty.'

The reasoning to which we have referred is very general, and has reference to all rights in respect to which there is concurrent jurisdiction. The result of the reasoning of this case, and others, is that when rights have been put at issue in a state court, even though the right of ultimate review may reside with the court of paramount sovereignty, rules of comity require that the state court whose process has been first invoked shall have a free hand under the presumption that the right will be suitably established, and this view is understood to hold good until the reasonable remedies in the state courts have been exhausted and a decision reached which aggrieves one of the parties, and then, if the supposed grievance is based upon the idea that the decision conflicts with the paramount federal law, he may have his review upon writ of error from the Supreme Court to the state court, and perhaps, in exceptional circumstances, through independent proceedings instituted in the lower federal courts.

While this reasoning applies to litigation in a broad sense and to general rights, it has especial force in cases which involve the validity of a state statute which has not been passed upon by the state courts, and where the federal courts are invoked to pass in the first instance upon the question whether it is in conflict with the spirit of either the federal or a state Constitution. In respect to such situations, the Supreme Court has set forth over and over again that, except in extreme and exceptional cases, the state court is the appropriate court to have the first opportunity to determine whether its statutes are good or bad in a constitutional sense. And, moreover, where state statutes relate to general rights, unless they conflict with the provisions of the federal Constitution, it has been repeatedly said that the state court's interpretation or construction will generally be accepted as final, and would only be departed from, if at all, with reluctance.

This case involves the single question of the validity of a state statute, which has not yet been passed upon by the Supreme Court of the state. The question has been at issue before the local Public Service Commission of New Hampshire, a commission which is comparatively new, and one whose powers have not been defined by the state courts. Upon certain proceedings, that Commission based its action upon the statute in question, accepting it as binding, and as establishing certain rights in respect to passenger railroad tariff rates in New Hampshire. The question thus grows out of a situation which is in a large sense a domestic one, and it goes without reasoning or saying that the New Hampshire courts, whose duty is coextensive with that of the federal courts in respect to all questions of right properly before them, are the appropriate courts to deal with the question in the first instance, and the federal courts, though of paramount authority in respect to federal questions, in such a situation, are bound under rules of comity to presume that the state courts will give force and effect to the federal laws and constitutional provisions, so far as they apply and become limitations, as well as to the laws of the state in respect to which there are no federal limitations.

We do not deem it necessary to inquire here as to the extent of the powers of the New Hampshire Public Service Commission. It manifestly has certain judicial power, and doubtless certain legislative power; but no particular point as to its powers either judicial or legislative is presented by the bill. The Boston & Maine Railroad filed a schedule of rates, acting upon the idea that such rates should become operative notwithstanding the statute in question assumed to establish a maximum. The Commission accepted the statute as...