Ex parte Lennon

• Decision Date: 02 October 1894
• Docket Number: 175.
• Citation: 64 F. 320
• Parties: Ex parte LENNON.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Sixth Circuit

64 F. 320

Ex parte LENNON.

No. 175.

United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit.

October 2, 1894

This was a proceeding by habeas corpus instituted in the court below by the petitioner, James Lennon, to be relieved from imprisonment to which he was committed to enforce the payment of a fine imposed by that court upon him for the violation of an injunction ordered by it in a cause therein pending between the Toledo, Ann Arbor & North Michigan Railway Company, as complainant, and the Lake Shore & Michigan Southern Railway Company and five other railroad companies and two managing officers of other companies, as defendants. The circumstances out of which the present proceedings grew were substantially these: The locomotive engineers of the first-named railway had, in current phrase, 'gone out on a strike.' The Associated Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers, to which they belonged, and of which the engineers on the Lake Shore & Michigan Southern and the other railroad companies were members, had taken up their cause, and indicated their purpose to refuse to take from or deliver to the Toledo, Ann Arbor & North Michigan Railway Company cars of freight coming from or destined to points on the line of that road, the natural consequence of which would be to compel the other railroad companies to discontinue interstate freight traffic relations with it. The Toledo, Ann Arbor &amp North Michigan Railway Company, finding itself in this situation, hampered and impeded in its business, filed its bill in the court below against the several railroad companies and officers above mentioned, setting forth its employment and agency in interstate commerce, and its relations with the other railroad companies in that business and that these companies threatened to refuse and deny to it the rights and privileges accorded to it by law as an agency in such commerce, by refraining from receiving from or delivering to it freight which was in course of transportation from state to state, and praying for an injunction restraining the defendant companies, their officers, agents servants, and employees, from refusing to offer to the complainant all reasonable and proper and equal facilities for the interchange of traffic with it; from refusing to receive from the complainant, for transportation over their respective lines, any and all cars of freight which might be tendered to them by it; and from refusing to deliver to the complainant all cars of freight which might be billed over its line of railroad. Upon the filing of this bill, the court awarded an injunction against the defendants therein, ordering and enjoining them, their officers, servants, agents, and employees, in the terms, substantially, as prayed in said bill. The injunction was issued accordingly, bearing date March 11, 1893. The petitioner was a locomotive engineer in the service of the Lake Shore & Michigan Southern Company, and a member of the association above mentioned. On the following 18th day of March, the complainant in that suit made an application to the court, stating that the petitioner and others having notice of the injunction had violated it, in that they had refused to haul certain cars laden with interstate freight, standing on the tracks and in the yard of the Lake Shore & Michigan Southern Railway, destined to delivery at points along the line of the Toledo, Ann Arbor & North Michigan Railway by the said last-named railway; that they had refused to obey the order and mandate of the court, and had deserted their locomotives and engines for the reason that they were required to haul the freight going to the Toledo, Ann Arbor & North Michigan Railway Company,-- and praying that they be arrested and punished for their contempt. An order of arrest was issued, and the petitioner and others were brought before the court. The petitioner pleaded not guilty. A hearing was had, and evidence was adduced by both sides upon the issue thus made. The court, upon hearing the evidence and arguments of counsel for the respective parties, found the petitioner guilty, and adjudged him to be in contempt, and that he pay a fine of $50 and costs, and stand committed until the fine should be paid. These proceedings, including the opinion of the court therein, are reported in Toledo, A.A. & N.M. Ry. Co. v. Pennsylvania Co., 54 F. 746. The petitioner thereupon resorted to the same court for a writ of habeas corpus, and, this being denied, he appealed to the supreme court of the United States. That court, holding that it had no appellate jurisdiction in the case, dismissed the appeal. In re Lennon, 150 U.S. 393, 14 Sup.Ct. 123. He then renewed his application to the circuit court for the writ, and, that being denied, he brings his case here by appeal.

G. M. Barber, Frank H. Hurd, and J. H. Southard, for appellant.

George C. Greene, for L.S. & M.S. Ry. Co.

Before LURTON, Circuit Judge, and BARR and SEVERENS, District Judges.

SEVERENS District Judge, having stated the case as above, .

In exercising its jurisdiction upon this petition, the circuit court was bound to observe the well-settled rule that the writ of habeas corpus does not perform the office of a writ of error or an appeal, in respect to the matters of fact involved in the proceedings complained of. If, in those proceedings, the court had jurisdiction of the subject-matter and of the person, the validity of its judgment cannot be collaterally attacked on this writ for error in the original suit, nor can the truth of the facts there found be controverted in the new and collateral proceedings. Ex parte Terry, 128 U.S. 289, 9 Sup.Ct. 77; Cuddy, Petitioner, 131 U.S. 280, 9 Sup.Ct. 703; Savin, Petitioner, 131 U.S. 264, 9 Sup.Ct. 699; In re Tyler, 149 U.S. 167, 13 Sup.Ct 785; U.S. v. Pridgeon, 153, U.S. 48, 14 Sup.Ct. 746. In the latter case it was said by Mr. Justice Jackson, in delivering the opinion of the court, that 'under a writ of habeas corpus the inquiry is addressed, not to errors, but to the question whether the proceedings and the judgment rendered therein are for any reason nullities; and, unless it is affirmatively shown that the judgment or sentence under which the petitioner is confined is void, he is not entitled to his discharge. ' See, also, Church, Hab. Corp. 227; Turney v. Conkey, 132 Ind. 248, 31 N.E. 777. This court is, of course, bound by the same rule in determining the case on appeal. If the conviction and punishment ordered by the court were not open to an appeal, it was none the less final on that account. In the case of Johnson v. Wharton, 152 U.S. 252, 14 Sup.Ct. 608, the defendant sought to obviate the conclusive effect of a former judgment between the same parties in a suit tried and determined in a circuit court of the United States, upon the ground that the amount of that judgement was too small to enable the defendant to obtain a review in a court of error. The defendant was, however, held concluded by the former judgment, Mr. Justice Harlan, delivering the opinion of the court, saying that 'the question is not controlled by the inquiry whether the judgment in the first action could be reviewed upon appeal or writ of error. ' In that opinion the rule was spoken of as a general one, 'having its foundation in a wide public policy, and deeply imbedded in the jurisprudence of all civilized countries, that the final judgment of a court-- at least one of general jurisdiction-- competent, under the law of its creation, to deal with the parties and the subject-matter, and having acquired jurisdiction of the parties, concludes those parties and their privies...