Hale v. Bimco Trading

• Decision Date: 27 February 1939
• Docket Number: No. 418,418
• Citation: 83 L.Ed. 771,306 U.S. 375,59 S.Ct. 526
• Parties: HALE et al v. BIMCO TRADING, Inc., et al
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

306 U.S. 375

59 S.Ct. 526

83 L.Ed. 771

HALE et al

v BIMCO TRADING, Inc., et al.

No. 418.

Argued Feb. 6, 1939.

Decided Feb. 27, 1939.

On Appeal from the District Court of the United States for the Northern District of Florida.

Messrs. H. E. Carter, of Tallahassee, Fla., Pat Whitaker, of Tampa, Fla., and George C. Gibbs, of Tallahassee, Fla., for appellants.

Mr. Justice FRANKFURTER delivered the opinion of the Court.

The case is here on appeal, under Section 266 of the Judicial Code, 28 U.S.C. § 380, 28 U.S.C.A. § 380, to review the final decree of a three-judge District Court enjoining appellants, constituting the State Road Department of Florida, from enforcing against appellees relevant provisions of a Florida statute. Acts 1937, c. 18995, Fla.Comp.Gen.Laws Supp. c. cviii, §§ 4151(512) to 4151(519). The statute provides for the inspection of all imported cement and the payment for such inspection of a fee of fifteen cents per hundred pounds. A motion to dismiss the bill having been overruled and appellants having elected to stand on the bill, a final decree was duly entered.

At the threshold, a challenge to the jurisdiction of the District Court must be met. It derives from Section 265 of the Judicial Code, 28 U.S.C. § 379, 28 U.S.C.A. § 379, for it is claimed that the injunction in effect stayed proceedings in the Supreme Court of Florida. Disposition of this claim entails a quick narrative of the course of litigation disclosed by the record.

On July 29, 1937, a petition for mandamus was filed in the Supreme Court of Florida by the State of Florida ex rel. Florida Portland Cement Company to compel appellants, members of the State Road Department, to enforce the statute in question, and on the same day an alternative writ of mandamus was issued. Appellants' demurrer, raising the constitutionality of the statute, was overruled on October 12, 1937. State ex rel. v. Hale, 129 Fla. 588, 176 So. 577. A peremptory writ of mandamus on November 17, 1937, directed appellants to enforce the statute. Meanwhile, on November 4, 1937, appellee Bimco Trading, Inc. filed its bill of complaint in this suit to enjoin the enforcement of the statute as forbidden, inter alia, by Article 1, § 8, cl. 3, and Article 1, § 10, cl. 2, of the Constitution, U.S.C.A. On November 27, 1937, the District Court granted an interlocutory injunction restraining appellants from enforcing the statute. Thereafter, appellants moved the Supreme Court of Florida to stay the mandamus proceedings pending an appeal to this Court from the order of the District Court, and on December 9, 1937, the Florida court ordered 'that all further proceedings and actions taken pursuant to the peremptory Writ of Mandamus heretofore issued in this cause, be and the same is hereby stayed until the final decision of the Supreme Court of the United States upon the constitutionality of the Act involved in this cause and until the further order of this Court.' This cause was then prosecuted with dispatch. On March 8, 1938, appellants' motion to dismiss, which had been filed on November 24, 1937, was overruled, and, appellants refusing to plead over, the District Court, on June 14, 1938, entered a final decree permanently enjoining the enforcement of the statute.

To invoke Section 265 in these circumstances is to assert that a successful mandamus proceeding in a state court against state officials to enforce a challenged statute, bars injunctive relief in a United States district court against enforcement of the statute by state officials at the suit of strangers to the state court proceedings. This assumes that the mandamus proceeding bound the independent suitor in the federal court as though he were a party to the litigation in the state court. This, of course, is not so. Chase National Bank v. Norwalk, 291 U.S. 431, 441, 54 S.Ct. 475, 479, 78 L.Ed. 894.

Appellants are in effect contending that no proceedings are here available to bring the constitutionality of the Florida statute before this Court, once the state court directed its enforcement. The Supreme Court of Florida itself manifested no such strangling conception of Section 265. It did not deem the proceedings initiated below as a denial of the right of way of a state court through an obstructive exercise of authority by a United States court. On the contrary, in staying 'all further proceedings and actions' until this Court had finally passed upon its constitutionality, the Supreme Court of Florida recognized the propriety of the present proceedings as an orderly mode for invoking the ultimate judicial voice on constitutional issues. Therefore, Section 265 has no relevance here. That provision is an historical mechanism (Act of March 2, 1793, 1 Stat. 334, 335) for achieving harmony in one phase of our complicated federalism by avoiding needless friction between two systems of courts having potential jurisdiction over the same subject-matter. Wells Fargo & Co. v. Taylor, 254 U.S. 175, 183, 41 S.Ct. 93, 96, 65 L.Ed. 205. The present record presents no occasion for bringing this safeguard into play.

We turn, therefore, to the merits.

After reciting that 'during the past twelve months approximately thirty per centum (30%) of all cement sold and used in Florida was manufactured in foreign countries and imported'; that cement is 'an integral part of the construction' of 'large numbers' of buildings; that 'much of the foreign manufactured cement * * * brought into the State of Florida has been of inferior quality'; that 'the importation * * * and use of foreign cement not only jeopardizes public safety but amounts to unfair competition being forced on this great industry in Florida', the legislature of that State, in 1937, enacted the statute in controversy. Section 1, Comp.Gen.Laws Supp.Fla. § 4151(512), authorizes the State Road Department of Florida 'to...