Elder v. Whitesides

• Decision Date: 22 March 1895
• Docket Number: 12,383.
• Citation: 72 F. 724
• Parties: ELDER et al. v. WHITESIDES et al.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Louisiana

72 F. 724

ELDER et al. v. WHITESIDES et al.

No. 12,383.

United States Circuit Court, E.D. Louisiana.

March 22, 1895

Gurley & Mellen, for complainants.

W. L Thompson, for defendants.

PARLANGE District Judge.

The defendants have been granted all the time which they have requested to present their side of the case. The argument made by their counsel may be divided under four heads. He urged: First, that there is no allegation or proof of any overt act committed by the defendants against the particular vessel mentioned in the bill; second, that a court of equity cannot enjoin crime; third, that no damages have actually been inflicted upon the vessel; and, fourth, that the proof of conspiracy is insufficient.

In a recent case decided by the United States circuit court of appeals, Seventh circuit (Arthur v. Oakes, 11 C.C.A 209, 63 F. 310), in which Mr. Justice Harlan was the organ of the court, all the law points made by the counsel for the defendants have been passed upon, clearly and distinctly. In speaking of combinations and conspiracies, Mr. Justice Harlan said:

'According to the principles of the common law, a conspiracy upon the part of two or more persons, with the intent, by their combined power, to wrong others, or to prejudice the rights of the public, is in itself illegal, although nothing be actually done in the execution of such conspiracy. This is fundamental in our jurisprudence. So, a combination or conspiracy to procure an employe or body of employes to quit service, in violation of the contract of service, would be unlawful, and, in a proper case, might be enjoined, if the injury threatened would be irremediable in law. It is one thing for a single individual or for several individuals, each acting upon his own responsibility and not in cooperation with others, to form the purpose of inflicting actual injury upon the property or rights of others. It is quite a different thing, in the eye of the law, for many persons to combine or conspire together with the intent, not simply of asserting their rights or of accomplishing lawful ends by peaceable methods, but of employing their united energies to injure others or the public. An intent upon the part of a single person to injure the rights of others or of the public is not in itself a wrong of which the law will take cognizance, unless some injurious act be done in execution of the unlawful intent. But a combination of two or more persons with such an intent, and under circumstances that given them, when so combined, a power to do an injury they would not possess as individuals acting singly, has always been recognized as in itself wrongful and illegal.'

The justice cites approvingly the language of another court, as follows:

'There is nothing in the objection that to punish a conspiracy where the end is not accomplished would be to punish a mere unexecuted intention. It is not the bar intention that the law punishes, but the act of conspiring, which is made a substantive offense by the nature of the object to be effected. ' State v. Buchanan, 5 Har.& J. 317.

The justice further said:

'The authorities all agree that a court of equity should not hesitate to use this power (injunction) when the circumstances of the particular case in hand require it to be done in order to protect rights of property against irreparable damages by wrongdoers. * * * That some of the acts enjoined would have...