Jennings v. United States

• Decision Date: 17 February 1920
• Docket Number: 5071.
• Citation: Jennings v. United States, 264 F. 399 (8th Cir. 1920)
• Parties: JENNINGS v. UNITED STATES.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit

264 F. 399

JENNINGS v. UNITED STATES.

No. 5071.

United States Court of Appeals, Eighth Circuit.

February 17, 1920

O. T Hamlin, of Springfield, Mo. (Willard W. Hamlin, of Springfield, Mo., on the brief), for plaintiff in error.

Francis M. Wilson, U.S. Atty., of Kansas City, Mo. (Elmer B. Silvers Asst. U.S. Atty., of Kansas City, Mo., on the brief), for the United States.

Before SANBORN and STONE, Circuit Judges, and MUNGER, District Judge.

SANBORN Circuit Judge.

On October 30, 1916, upon the verified complaint of the Guaranty Trust Company of New York and J. J. Bodell, plaintiffs in a suit in equity against Division No. 691 of Springfield, Mo of the Amalgamated Association of Street and Electric Railway Employes of America, the Springfield Traction Company, the owner of the street railways of Springfield, Mo., and O. E. Jennings and others, who were former employes of the Traction Company, an order of injunction was issued by the court below against Jennings and other defendants in that suit, by which they were enjoined from conspiring to use and from using abusive, profane, vulgar, violent, or threatening language to or in the presence or hearing of any of the employes of the Springfield Traction Company, which was operating its street cars in Springfield, Mo., and from conspiring to intimidate and intimidating any of such employes, so as to obstruct or interfere with the operation of the Traction Company's cars.On December 29, 1916, upon the verified complaints of the Guaranty Trust Company and Bodell, to the effect that O. E. Jennings had repeatedly violated the injunction and had thereby become guilty of contempt of court, and upon supporting affidavits, the court below ordered and adjudged that a case in the name of the United States v. O. E. Jennings be docketed in that court, that an attachment for the arrest of Jennings be issued to apprehend him for the alleged contempts and bring him before that court.The attachment was issued, the defendant Jennings was arrested, brought before the court, heard and tried before a jury in this case, entitled United States v. O. E. Jennings, No. 2655.

On March 9, 1917, the court below, upon affidavits specifying other specific violations of the injunction by Jennings, issued another writ of arrest against him under which the marshal again arrested him and brought him before the court in the second case against him, which was entitled United States v. O. E. Jennings, No. 2661.On the representation of the United States attorney that these two cases were actions for contempt against the same person, and that each was for the same class of offenses punishable by the same penalties, the court ordered them consolidated for trial.They were tried together, the jury found the defendant guilty in each case, and in each case the court sentenced the defendant to imprisonment for three months and the payment of the costs of the action.

Counsel for Mr. Jennings ask a reversal of the judgments in these cases on three grounds: First, because the court below had no jurisdiction of the suit in equity in which it issued the injunction and therefore fore no jurisdiction to issue it; second, because no indictment was found or information filed against the defendant below but he was tried on the attachments for his arrests and the complaints and affidavits on which the attachments were founded; and, third, because the two cases against him were consolidated for trial and each of the charges against him in the complaints and affidavits was not tried separately.

The first complaint is that the court below had no jurisdiction to issue the injunction, because there was not the requisite diversity of citizenship between the parties in the equity suit in which that injunction was issued.There are several reasons why this court may not lawfully reverse the judgments below on this claim.The first is that these actions are not the suit in equity of which Jennings seeks to challenge the jurisdiction of the court, all the parties to that suit except Jennings are not parties to these actions, and there is no substantial evidence in these criminal actions that the court below was without jurisdiction in the equity suit.These are actions at law, criminal actions between the United States and Mr. Jennings.The only errors for which this court may lawfully reverse the judgments in these cases are errors of law committed by the court below in these actions, and the burden is upon Mr. Jennings to establish by the record in these actions the existence of such errors.In the cases now in hand the defendant by a plea in abatement, and by the objections to the admission in evidence of the writ of injunction, asserted that the court below was without jurisdiction to make the order of injunction in the equity suit 'for the reason of diversity of citizenship, in that complainants in their petition in the case aforesaid, alleged that the Springfield Traction Company is a Missouri corporation, and the Guaranty Trust Company of New York a New York corporation, and J. J. Bodell was a citizen of Rhode Island; that from the facts stated in said petition the interest of said Guaranty Trust Company, J. J. Bodell, and Springfield Traction Company is the same. 'The court below overruled their objections.

The order of injunction, which is the only part of the papers, orders, or proceedings in the equity suit that was offered or introduced in evidence in the cases now in hand, discloses the fact that it was made by the court below after due notice of, and a hearing upon a motion for it, at which the defendants in the equity suit, of whom Mr. Jennings was one, were represented by counsel.It discloses no lack of jurisdiction of the court in the equity suit.It could not have been rendered by the court below without a consideration, and an adjudication by that court before the order was made that it had jurisdiction of the suit in which it was rendered, and that it had the judicial power to render it.It is evidence of that adjudication and bears with it the strong legal presumption that the court had jurisdiction to render it and that it is a valid order.Moreover it was an appealable order.If the court had no jurisdiction to make it Mr. Jennings, who was a partydefendant in the equity suit, could have avoided it by an appeal.It was, however, too late for him to appeal from it on April 2, 1917, when, for the first time, he questioned the jurisdiction of the court to make it by his collateral attack upon it by his objections in these cases, for the injunction was ordered on October 30, 1916.In the face of this legal presumption and evidence of jurisdiction, there was no substantial evidence in these actions of the alleged facts on which counsel for Jennings base their attack on the power of the court to grant the injunction.Those alleged facts are, not that there was not the requisite diversity of citizenship between the parties in that suit as they then stood, but that the complaint in that suit disclosed the facts that the traction company was so related to the plaintiffs and the other parties to that suit that it should be aligned with the plaintiffs, and that if it were so aligned the requisite diversity of citizenship would not exist.But there was no proof of this alleged identity of interest between the plaintiffs and the traction company in the record of these cases.The complaint in the equity suit, upon which alone counsel rely in their brief and argument to show this fact, was not offered in evidence in these actions, and there is no record or evidence that it was before the court below when it made the rulings assailed.It is not a part of the bill of exceptions or of the record in either of these cases, and in its absence there was no evidence of the facts on which counsel rely to establish their claim that the court below had no jurisdiction of the equity suit, so that there was no error in the ruling of the court below, but the legal presumption of jurisdiction which accompanied the adjudication and order of injunction should prevail.In reaching this conclusion the fact has not been overlooked that there appears in the printed transcript a recital of a bill in equity in cause No. 15 in equity between the parties in the equity suit.But this complaint is not a part of the bill of exceptions, either in itself or by any reference to it therein.The record contains no evidence that it was ever offered, received in evidence, submitted, or considered by the court below in either of the cases in hand, nor is it so certified to be the copy of any original as to make it available in this court in these actions at law as the basis of consideration or decision.

Another reason why the objections of Mr. Jennings to the jurisdiction of the court below to issue the order of injunction in the equity suit are not tenable is that he is estopped from successfully objecting to that jurisdiction by the adjudication which the court necessarily made that it had such jurisdiction when it issued the order of injunction on notice to him of the hearing on the motion for it, and by his failure to appeal from it within the time fixed for his appeal by the acts of Congress.

Again, if the complaint which is recited in the printed transcript outside the bill of exceptions had been available for consideration and decision, it would not have established lack of jurisdiction in the court below to make the order of injunction on October 30, 1916.That complaint set forth this state of things:

The Traction Company was the owner and was trying to...