Cleveland, Painesville and Ashtabula Railroad Co. v. City of Erie

• Decision Date: 01 January 1857
• Citation: 27 Pa. 380
• Parties: Cleveland, Painesville and Ashtabula Railroad Company versus The City of Erie.
• Court: Pennsylvania Supreme Court

Page 380

27 Pa. 380

Cleveland, Painesville and Ashtabula Railroad Company versus The City of Erie.

Supreme Court of Pennsylvania.

In Equity. Coram LEWIS, C. J., and BLACK and KNOX, Js.

Walker and Meredith, with whom were Hirst and Campbell, for complainants.

Thompson and Griscom, with whom was Grant, for respondents.

The opinion of the court was delivered by BLACK, J.

This is another of the numerous cases which have arisen out of what are popularly called "the railroad troubles at Erie." To decide it properly, it may be necessary to forget for a time that the corporations which have built railroads in that neighbourhood, have violated their charters; and to suppress whatever of natural indignation has been stirred by the irregular outbreaks of violence among those who oppose them, we will confine the railroad companies within the strict limits of the privileges given them by the legislature, and we will at the same time protect them in the exercise of all their lawful rights. If the legislature have given them advantages over the people of Erie which ought to have been withheld, it is no fault of ours; we cannot repeal an Act of Assembly.

This motion was made and argued when two of the judges were absent. Of the three who heard it, the opinions are anything but unanimous. What is now decided is just as likely as not to be reversed on final hearing of the cause before a full court. For these reasons, I will abstain from the discussion of all questions not absolutely necessary to be settled before the motion can be disposed of. If I were not sure that every admonition would be disregarded, I might say to the defendants that their present attempt to prevent the two roads from connecting, may (probably at least) turn out to be a failure, disastrous to them in some of its consequences. If the law be against them, they will find it executed in a way which probably they do not now anticipate. But I am not willing to interfere in these "troubles," except in due course of law. If either of the parties desire an interposition, it must be demanded in the regular way, just as it would be by any other party in the Commonwealth. No one of us has the least desire to be subserviceable in a business like this. It is in vain to expect that we will overlook those rules which bind other persons in ordinary cases. I am, therefore, to consider whether this injunction ought, or ought not, to be awarded in a common case, coming to us from some other part of the state.

It is argued that we ought to refuse the motion, because the plaintiffs, before they filed this bill, filed another for the same matter in the Common Pleas of Erie county. The record produced by the defendant shows that the fact is so, and that the bill filed there is between the same parties, averring the same facts, and praying for the same relief. In that suit the defendants appeared, and the plaintiffs made the same motion which is now under consideration here. The motion was refused, but the suit is still pending and undetermined. Is it, or is it not, consistent with the rules of law and justice that we should ignore the facts I have mentioned, and proceed as if they did not exist?

The Court of Common Pleas of Erie county has precisely the same sort of jurisdiction over the subject-matter of this case and over the parties that we have. Our original jurisdiction is simply concurrent with theirs, and nothing more or less. It makes no difference that an appeal lies to this court from their final decree. That does not in any wise diminish their power to protect the plaintiffs in their just rights, or to prevent the commission of wrongs by the defendants. The right which either party may have to appeal after the cause is decided in the Common Pleas, certainly does not amplify the original jurisdiction. On the contrary, it rather increases the obligation we are under to avoid any premature expression of opinion on the cause until it becomes regularly before us for review. The right or duty of the Court of Common Pleas to proceed under a second bill while the same parties are litigant in the same matter before the Supreme Court, under another bill previously filed, would scarcely be asserted by any one. When the second bill is filed in the Supreme Court, and the first in the Common Pleas, it is the same thing.

No man shall be twice harassed for the same cause. After judgment or decree by a tribunal of competent jurisdiction, another complaint, grounded on the same facts, will not be listened to, either by the same tribunal or a different one. This nobody denies. It is equally clear that a party cannot be doubly vexed by two proceedings for the same cause carried on against him at the same time. Two suits for the same cause of action, even when brought in the same court, will never be tolerated. It is much worse when the several suits are in different courts, requiring the defendant to appear in two places at once. When it happens, as in this case, that the party must defend himself against separate attacks, simultaneously made at two most distant points in the state — on the shore of Lake Erie and on the banks of the Delaware — the hardships may become intolerable. This is not all. If a party may carry on two suits against his adversary, he may carry on twenty just as well, provided he can find, as in some cases he might find, that number of courts having jurisdiction, and thus he could not only harass and vex him, but plague him to death. Again: the right to bring several suits for the same matter, implies the right to prosecute them all to final judgment or decree. Suppose the decrees to conflict with one another. They are all equally conclusive and valid. Which shall be obeyed? It is impossible to administer justice, and it never has been done in any civilized country, without adopting the rule that a party who brings one suit in a court of competent jurisdiction, must finish it before he can be allowed to prosecute another.

For these and other reasons, it has always been held that at law one pending action may be pleaded in abatement of another. But in equity, the mode of relieving a defendant from such oppression is much more summary. A chancellor takes (as Lord HARDWICKE expresses it) a more particular method. When the fact is suggested in court in a proper manner, its truth, if denied, is to be immediately ascertained by a master, and if the two bills appear to be brought for the same matter, all proceedings on the last one are immediately stopped: Gage v. Lord Stafford (1 Ves. 554). This appears to be done on the principle that the party had no right to be heard, or to have anything whatever done for him on a second bill while a previous one is undisposed of. Before the case I have cited, the practice had been settled the same way in Urlin v. Hudson (1 Vernon 332), and was afterwards followed implicitly in Daniel v. Mitchel (1 Ves. Jr. 484); Bird v. Baker (2 Ves. Jr. 672); and in Weld v. Hobson (Ves. & Bea. 110). In Hart v. Philips (9 Paige 293), we have an American precedent to the same effect. In all these cases the reference was made of course. I do not find any case where a court of equity denied the right of a defendant to have proceedings stopped upon a plea of another suit depending, except in Dillon v. Olveres (5 Ves. 357); Morgan v. ______ (1 Atk. 408); and Foster v. Vassal (3 Atk. 586). But in these cases the refusal of the motion was grounded solely on the fact that the suits pleaded were depending in foreign courts — in Ireland, Wales, and Jamaica. The authority of Urlin v. Hudson and the other cases which followed it, were not doubted, much less denied. That proceedings should be stopped in a case like this, is laid down as the established rule by Lord REDESDALE (Mitf. 245), and Judge STORY (Equ., vol. ___, § 736). It is true that both of these writers say that the court may, under certain circumstances, dismiss the first bill and proceed under the second. But this modification of the general doctrine cannot be applied to the present case for very obvious reasons. In the first place, how can any court take its choice between two bills, dismissing one and proceeding on the other, unless both are in the same court? Here the first bill is filed in Erie, and is wholly beyond our reach and out of our control. But (secondly) we could not do so even if both suits were in this court. The power of the court to dismiss the first bill, is expressly limited in the books cited to cases in which the second bill embraces the whole subject in dispute more fully than the first. Here, one bill is as full as the other. In every important particular they are both in the same words.

But it is said that we ought to overlook this part of the case, because the regular way for the defendant to take advantage of it is by a plea. There is not only no judicial authority for this proposition, but I think it is new even as an argument. Was the doctrine ever heard of before, that on a motion for a preliminary injunction, the decision should be against the defendant, simply because he has not pleaded a fact which he shows to be true? These motions are generally (almost universally) made, heard, and decided without giving time to answer or plead to the bill. We ascertain the facts in the most informal way; without any sort of reference to the pleadings on either side, and award the injunction or refuse it according to the merits. We are in the constant habit of giving full consideration to facts which the defendant may plead if he thinks proper, and which he will waive if he does not plead. Two years ago, when a bill was filed against the Franklin Canal Company by a private individual, we refused the special injunction because the plaintiff had no right to sue, though there was no plea on the record. It is true that the law is not one of the exact sciences, and in judicial proceedings, as in other uncertain affairs of this changing world, no man can tell what a day...