Davis Farnum Manufacturing Company v. City of Los Angeles

• Citation: 47 L.Ed. 778,189 U.S. 207,23 S.Ct. 498
• Decision Date: 02 March 1903
• Docket Number: No. 507,507
• Parties: DAVIS & FARNUM MANUFACTURING COMPANY, Appt. , v. CITY OF LOS ANGELES
• Court: United States Supreme Court

189 U.S. 207

23 S.Ct. 498

47 L.Ed. 778

DAVIS & FARNUM MANUFACTURING COMPANY, Appt.,

v CITY OF LOS ANGELES.

No. 507.

Submitted January 12, 1903.

Decided March 2, 1903.

This was a bill in equity filed in the circuit court for the southern district of California by appellant, a citizen of Massachusetts, to restrain the city of Los Angeles and its officers from enforcing certain municipal ordinances prohibiting the erection or maintenance of gas tanks or reservoirs within certain portions of the city.

The gravamen of the bill was that on September 1, 1901, Caroline W. Dobbins made a contract with the Valley Gas & Fuel Company, a California corporation, to build certain gas works for her, including all things necessary for the manu- facture, recovery, and storage of gas, on lands thereafter to be designated; that on September 17 the appellant made a contract with the gas and fuel company to erect upon Mrs. Dobbins's premises a water tank and gas holder having a capacity of 100,000 cubic feet of gas, and that immediately thereafter it constructed and prepared the material and machinery necessary for the erection of the tank and gas holder, and shipped the same to Los Angeles; that on September 28 Mrs. Dobbins purchased certain lands in Los Angeles, which were within the limits wherein it was lawful to erect gas works as described in a municipal ordinance adopted August 26, 1901, and on November 1 applied to the board of fire commissioners for a permit to erect such gas works; that on November 22 her petition came on for hearing before the fire commissioners, and after proof had been made that all provisions of prior ordinances had been complied with, the matter was duly considered, and finally resulted, November 29, in a vote to grant a permit to erect and maintain the gas works.

That upon the 22d day of November Mrs. Dobbins's contractors began at once to lay the foundation for said works at a cost of upwards of $2,500, when, on November 25, the city adopted an ordinance, amending that of August 26, 1901, including her property in the prohibited territory for the erection or maintenance of gas works (which ordinance, however, seems to have proved defective), and subsequently, in February, 1902, caused certain of the employees of the gas and fuel company to be arrested, charging them with a violation of this ordinance. Subsequently, under new proceedings, certain employees of the plaintiff were arrested and the work stopped.

Another ordinance was passed on March 3, 1902, also amending that of August 26, 1901, and other arrests were made of the employees for a violation of this ordinance. It was averred that the gas works are in an uncompleted condition, exposed to the elements and in danger of being destroyed, and that all of the aforesaid ordinances were adopted by the common council at the instigation of the Los Angeles Light Company, which has enjoyed a monopoly of the gas business for the last ten years.

A demurrer was filed to this bill by the city for want of equity and of jurisdiction, which was sustained by the court, and the bill dismissed (115 Fed. 537), apparently upon the ground that a court of chancery has no power to restrain criminal proceedings, unless they are instituted by a party to a suit already pending before it, and to try the same right that is in issue there. Whereupon an appeal was taken to this court.

Messrs. Lynn Helm, Henry T. Helm, Edward C. Bailey, Henry T. Lee, and J. R. Scott for appellant.

[Argument of Counsel from pages 209-214 intentionally omitted]

[214]

Messrs. Albert H. Crutcher, W. B. Mathews, Le Compte Davis, and J. R. Rush for appellee.

[Argument of Counsel from Pages 214-216 intentionally omitted] Mr. Justice Brown delivered the opinion of the court:

As the bill in this case is based, not only upon diversity of citizenship, but upon the alleged unconstitutionality of the municipal ordinances of November 25, 1901, and March 3, 1902, as impairing the obligation of Mrs. Dobbins's contract with the city under prior ordinances, an appeal lies directly to this court, and upon such appeal the whole case is opened for consideration. Horner v. United States, 143 U. S. 570, 36 L. ed. 266, 12 Sup. Ct. Rep. 522; Chappell v. United States, 160 U. S. 499, 40 L. ed. 510, 16 Sup. Ct. Rep. 397. The state having delegated certain powers to the city, the ordinances of the municipal authorities in this particular are the acts of the state through one of its properly constituted instrumentalities, and their unconstitutionality is the unconstitutionality of a state law within the meaning of § 5 of the circuit court of appeals act. [26 Stat. at L. 827, chap. 517, U. S. Comp. Stat. 1901, p. 549]. City R. Co. v. Citizens' Street R. Co. 166 U. S. 557, 41 L. ed. 1114, 17 Sup. Ct. Rep. 653; Penn Mut. L. Ins. Co. v. Austin, 168 U. S. 685, 694, 42 L. ed. 626, 630, 18 Sup. Ct. Rep. 223; St. Paul Gaslight Co. v. St. Paul, 181 U. S. 142, 148, 45 L. ed. 788, 791, 21 Sup. Ct. Rep. 575.

2. The court below did not pass upon the validity of these ordinances, but came to the conclusion that a bill in equity would not lie to restrain their enforcement, and in this aspect we shall discuss the case. As the only method employed for the enforcement of these ordinances was by criminal proceedings, it follows that the prayer of the bill to enjoin the city from enforcing these ordinances, or prevent plaintiff from carrying out its work, must be construed as demanding the discontinuance of such criminal proceedings as were already pending, and inhibiting the institution of others of a similar character.

That a court of equity has no general power to enjoin or stay criminal proceedings unless they are instituted by a party to a suit already pending before it, and to try the same right that is in issue there, or to prohibit the invasion of the rights of property by the enforcement of an unconstitutional law, was so fully considered and settled in an elaborate opinion by Mr. Justice Gray, in Re Sawyer, 124 U. S. 200, 31 L. ed. 402, 8 Sup. Ct. Rep. 482, that no further reference to prior authorities is deemed necessary, and we have little more to do than to consider whether there is anything exceptional in the case under consideration to take it out of the general rule. The plaintiff in the case of Sawyer sought to restrain the mayor and committee of a city in Nebraska from removing a city officer under charges filed against him for malfeasance in office. This was held to fall within the general rule, and not within the exception.

The general rule that a circuit court of the United States sitting as a court of equity cannot stay by injunction proceedings pending in a state court to enforce the criminal laws of such state was applied in Harkrader v. Wadley, 172 U. S. 148, 43 L. ed. 399, 19 Sup. Ct. Rep. 119, to a case where the plaintiff sought to enjoin proceedings against him for the embezzlement of the assets of a bank; and in Fitts v. McGhee, 172 U. S. 516, 43 L. ed. 535, 19 Sup. Ct. Rep. 269, to a suit brought by the receiver of a railroad against the attorney general of the state to restrain him from instituting or prosecuting criminal proceed- ings to enforce against the plaintiff the provisions of a state law reducing the tolls which had been exacted of the public by the railroad, of which the plaintiff was receiver. This was held to be in reality a...