Comberland Telephone Telegraph Co v. Louisiana Public Service Commission

• Court: U.S. Supreme Court
• Writing for the Court: TAFT
• Citation: Comberland Telephone Telegraph Co v. Louisiana Public Service Commission, 260 U.S. 212, 43 S.Ct. 75, 67 L.Ed. 217 (1922)
• Decision Date: 20 November 1922
• Docket Number: No. 650,650
• Parties: COMBERLAND TELEPHONE & TELEGRAPH CO. v. LOUISIANA PUBLIC SERVICE COMMISSION et al

260 U.S. 212

43 S.Ct. 75

67 L.Ed. 217

COMBERLAND TELEPHONE & TELEGRAPH CO.

v LOUISIANA PUBLIC SERVICE COMMISSION et al.

No. 650.

Argued Nov. 13, 1922.

Decided Nov. 20, 1922.

Mr. J. Blanc Monroe, of New Orleans, La., for appellant.

[Argument of Counsel from pages 213-214 intentionally omitted] Mr. Huey P. Long, of Shreveport, La., for appellees.

Mr. Chief Justice TAFT delivered the opinion of the Court.

This is a motion by the appellees to set aside the supersedeas and injunction granted by District Judge Foster at the time he allowed an appeal from an order of three judges, Circuit Judge Bryan, District Judge Clayton, and himself, denying an application for an interlocutory injunction under section 266 of the Judicial Code. (Comp. St. § 1243).

The original bill was filed by the Cumberland Telephone & Telegraph Company against the Louisiana Public Service Commission seeking an injunction to prevent the latter, a state board of competent authority, from reducing the existing telephone rates, as it proposed, on the ground that such action would compel the plaintiff to furnish service at rates which would be confiscatory and violate its rights secured by the Fourteenth Amendment. District Judge Foster granted a restraining order as permitted by section 266, to remain in force until the application for an interlocutory injunction could be heard by three judges. The court, thus constituted, heard the application on voluminous evidence, and denied the application, Judge Foster dissenting. Upon the entry of the order, the complainant applied to the District Court for an appeal and for an injunction against the defendant commission, until the determination of the cause on appeal. District Judge Foster, sitting alone, made an order in the District Court allowing the appeal, granted a supersedeas, and continued the original restraining order, made by him before the hearing by the three judges, until the appeal could be determined, in order to maintain the status quo. A bond was required in $100,000, which is conditioned that appellant shall prosecute its appeal to effect and answer all damages and costs if it fails to make its plea good, and also that it shall repay to defendants such damages as they may suffer, and—

'for repayment to plaintiff's subscribers and to each of them of the excess charges collected from each of said subscribers as a result of the issuance and continuance of the preliminary restraining order issued herein, over and above what would have been collected from said subscribers had said restraining order not been rendered, the said payment to be made as, when, and if it shall have been finally determined herein that the order of the Louisiana Public Service Commission of May 13, 1922, is a legal order binding upon the plaintiff herein.'

The present motion is to set aside the supersedeas and the restraining order. That was the form of the application in the original proceeding for mandamus, which by order of the court has been treated in argument as a motion on this appeal. So far as the supersedeas to which the motion is directed, is concerned, it had no effect, because there was nothing to supersede, except an execution for costs, and that was suspended by the mere allowance of the appeal. There was no decree for money, there was no decree at all in favor of the complainants upon which execution could issue. Hovey v. McDonald, 109 U. S. 150, 160, 3 Sup. Ct. 136, 27 L. Ed. 888. The supersedeas would not continue the injunction or maintain the status quo ante of restraint upon the defendant. Slaughter House Cases, 10 Wall. 273, 297, 19 L. Ed. 915; Hovey v. McDonald, supra 109 U. S. 150, 161, 3 Sup. Ct. 136, 27 L. Ed. 888; Leonard v. Ozark Land Co., 115 U. S. 465, 468, 6 Sup. Ct. 127, 29 L. Ed. 445; Knox County v. Harshman, 132 U. S. 14, 16, 10 Sup. Ct. 8, 33 L. Ed. 249; Merrimack River Savings Bank v. Clay Center, 219 U. S. 527, 31 Sup. Ct. 295, 55 L. Ed. 320, Ann. Cas. 1912A, 513. The effective part of the order of Judge Foster, if valid, was the continuance of the restraining order, which is called in the motion and argument the injuncrion. The motion to set this aside must be granted.

Section 266 of the Judicial Code is a codification of section 17 of the Act of June 18, 1910, c. 309, 36 Stat. 557, amended by the Act of March 4, 1913, c. 160, 37 Stat. 1013. The legislation was enacted for the manifest purpose of taking away the power of a single United States judge, whether District Judge, Circuit Judge, or Circuit Justice holding a District Court of the United States, to issue an interlocutory injunction against the execution of a state statute by a state officer or of an order of an administrative board of the state pursuant to a state statute, on the ground of the federal unconstitutionality of the statute. Pending the application for an interlocutory injunction, a single judge may grant a restraining order to be in force until the hearing of the application, but thereafter, so far as enjoining the state officers, his power is exhausted. The wording of the section leaves no doubt that Congress was by provisions ex industria seeking to make interference by interlocutory injunction from a federal court with the enforcement of state legislation regularly enacted and in course of execution, a matter of the adequate hearing and the full deliberation which the presence of three judges, one of whom should be a Circuit Justice of Judge, was likely to secure. It was to prevent the improvident granting of such injunctions by a single judge, and the possible unnecessary conflict between federal and state authority always to be deprecated. This court had occasion to consider the purport and significance of section 17 of the Act of June 18, 1910, embodied in section 266, in Ex parte Metropolitan Water Co. of West Virginia, 220 U. S. 539, 31 Sup. Ct. 600, 55 L. Ed. 575, and there held that after a District Judge had granted a preliminary restraining order in such a case as provided, the same judge could not set aside his own order, and such act by him was without jurisdiction. This court, therefore, issued a mandamus directing him to annul the order of vacation. We are of opinion that a single judge has no power, in view of section 266, to affect the operation of the order of the court constituted by the three judges granting or denying the interlocutory injunction applied for. To hold that he may grant a temporary...