Kline v. Burke Const Co

• Decision Date: 20 November 1922
• Docket Number: No. 81,81
• Citation: 43 S.Ct. 79,67 L.Ed. 226,24 A.L.R. 1077,260 U.S. 226
• Parties: KLINE et al. v. BURKE CONST. CO
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

260 U.S. 226

43 S.Ct. 79

67 L.Ed. 226

KLINE et al.

v BURKE CONST. CO.

No. 81.

Argued Oct. 19 and 20, 1922.

Decided Nov. 20, 1922.

Messrs. Wm. H. Arnold and F. S. Quinn, both of Texarkana, Ark., for petitioners.

Mr. James B. McDonough, of Fort Smith, Ark., for respondent.

Mr. Justice SUTHERLANDdelivered the opinion of the Court.

The Burke Construction Company, a corporation orgainized under the laws of the state of Missouri, brought an action at law against petitioners in the United States District Court for the Western District of Arkansas on February 16, 1920.The jurisdiction of that court was invoked upon the ground of diversity of citizenship, the petitioners being citizens of the state of Arkansas.The action was for breach of a contract between the parties, whereby the Construction Company had engaged to pave certain streets in the town of Texarkana.A trial was had before the court and a jury which resulted in a disagreement.

Subsequent to the commencement of the action by the Construction Company, viz., on March 19, 1920, petitioners instituted a suit in equity against that company in a state chancery court of the state of Arkansas, upon the same contract, joining as defendants the sureties on the bond which had been given for the faithful performance of the contract.The bill in the latter suit alleged that the Construction Company had abandoned its contract and judgment was sought against the sureties as well as against the company.The bill asked an accounting with reference to the work which had been done and which remained to be done under the contract, and prayed judgment in the sum of $88,000.

In the action brought by the Construction Companythe petitioners filed an answer and cross-complaint, setting up, in substance, the same matters which were set forth in their bill in the state court.In the equity suit the Construction Company filed an answer and cross-complaint, setting up the matters charged in its complaint in the action at law.Thus the two cases presented substantially the same issues, the only differences being those resulting from the addition of the sureties as partiesdefendant in the equity suit.Both actions were in personam, the ultimate relief sought in each case being for a money judgment only.

The equity suit was removed to the United States District Court upon the petition of the Construction Company upon the ground that the company and the petitioners were citizens of different states and that the controversy between them was a separable controversy, and upon the further ground that a federal question was involved.Petitioners moved to remand.The District Court sustained the motion and the equity suit was thereupon remanded to the State Chancery Court, where it is still pending.

After the mistrial of the action at law in the United States District Court, the Construction Company filed a bill of complaint as a dependent bill to its action at law, by which it sought to enjoin the petitioners from further prosecuting the suit in equity in the State Chancery Court.The United States District Court denied the injunction and an appeal was taken to the Circuit Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit.That court reversed the decision of the District Court and remanded the case with instructions to issue an injunction against the prosecution of the suit in equity in the State Chancery Court.From that decree the case comes here upon writ of certiorari.

Section 265 of the Judicial Code(Comp. St. § 1242) provides:

'The writ of injunction shall not be granted by any court of the United States to stay proceedings in any court of a state, except in cases where such injunction may be authorized by any law relating to proceedings in bankruptcy.'

But this section is to be construed in connection with section 262(Comp. St. § 1239) which authorizes the United States courts'to issue all writs not specifically provided for by statute, which may be necessary for the exercise of their respective jurisdictions and agreeable to the usages and principles of law.'SeeJulian v. Central Trust Co., 193 U. S. 93, 112, 34 Sup. Ct. 399, 48 L. Ed. 629;Lanning v. Osborne (C. C.)79 Fed. 657, 662.It is settled that where a federal court has first acquired jurisdiction of the subject-matter of a cause, it may enjoin the parties from proceeding in a state court of concurrent jurisdiction where the effect of the action would be to defeat or impair the jurisdiction of the federal court.Where the action is in rem the effect is to draw to the federal court the possession or control, actual or potential, of the res, and the exercise by the state court of jurisdiction over the same res necessarily impairs, and may defeat, the jurisdiction of the federal court already attached.The converse of the rule is equally true, that where the jurisdiction of the state court has first attached, the federal court is precluded from exercising its jurisdiction over the same res to defeat or impair the state court's jurisdiction.

This court in Covell v. Heyman, 111 U. S. 176, 182, 4 Sup. Ct. 355, 358(28 L. Ed. 390), said:

'The forbearance which courts of co-ordinate jurisdiction, administered under a single system, exercise towards each other, whereby conflicts are avoided, by avoiding interference with the process of each other, is a principle of comity, with perhaps no higher sanction than the utility which comes from concord; but between state courts and those of the United States, it is something more.It is a principle of right and of law, and therefore, of necessity.It leaves nothing to discretion or mere convenience.These courts do not belong to the same system so far as their jurisdiction is concurrent; and although they coexist in the same space, they are independent, and have no common superior.They exercise jurisdiction, it is true, within the same territory, but not in the same plane; and when one takes into its jurisdiction a specific thing, that res is as much withdrawn from the judicial power of the other, as if it had been carried physically into a different territorial sovereignty.To attempt to seize it by a foreign process is futile and void.The regulation of process, and the decision of questions relating to it, are part of the jurisdiction of the court from which it issues.'

And the same rule applies where a person is in custody under the authority of the court of another jurisdiction.Ponzi v. Fessenden, 258 U. S. 254, 42 Sup. Ct. 309, 66 L. Ed. 607, decided March 27, 1922.

But a controversy is not a thing, and a controversy over a mere question of personal liability does not involve the possession or control of a thing, and an action brought to enforce such a liability does not tend to impair or defeat the jurisdiction of the court in which a prior action for the same cause is pending.Each court is free to proceed in its own way and in its own time, without reference to the proceedings in the other court.Whenever a judgment is rendered in one of the courts and pleaded in the other, the effect of that judgment is to be determined by the application of the principles of res adjudicata by the court in which the action is still pending in the orderly exercise of its jurisdiction, as it would determine any other question of fact or law arising in the progress of the case.The rule, therefore, has become generally established that where the action first brought is in personam and seeks only a personal judgment, another action for the same cause in another jurisdiction is not precluded.Stanton v. Embrey, 93 U. S. 548, 23 L. Ed. 983;Gordon v. Gilfoil, 99 U. S. 168, 178, 25 L. Ed. 383;Hunt v. New York Cotton Exchange, 205 U. S. 322, 339, 27 Sup. Ct. 529, 51 L. Ed. 821;Insurance Co. v Brune's Assignee, 96 U. S. 588, 592, 24 L. Ed. 737;Merritt v. American Steel Barge Co., 79 Fed. 228, 24 C. C. A. 530;Ball v. Tompkins (C. C.)41 Fed. 486;Holmes County v. Burton Construction Co. (C. C. A.)272 Fed. 565, 567;Standley v. Roberts, 59 Fed. 836, 844, 845, 8 C. C. A. 305;Green v. Underwood, 86 Fed. 427, 429, 30 C. C. A. 162;Ogden City v. Weaver, 108 Fed. 564, 568, 47 C. C. A. 485;Zimmerman v. So Relle, 80 Fed. 417, 419, 420, 25 C. C. A. 518;Baltimore & Ohio R. Co. v. Wabash Railroad Co., 119 Fed. 678, 680, 57 C. C. A. 322;Guardian Trust Co. v. Kansas City Southern Railway Co., 146 Fed. 337, 340, 76 C. C. A. 615;Guardian Trust Co. v. Kansas City Southern Railway Co., 171 Fed. 43, 96 C. C. A. 285, 28 L. R. A. (N. S.) 620;Woren v. Witherbee, Sherman & Co. (D. C.)240 Fed. 1013;W. E. Stewart Land Co. v. Arthur (C. C. A.)267 Fed. 184.

In Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Co. v. Wabash Railroad Co., supra, the Circuit Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit said:

'It is settled that, when a state court and a court of the United States may each take jurisdiction of a matter, the tribunal whose jurisdiction first attaches holds it, to the exclusion of the other, until its duty is fully performed, and the jurisdiction involved is exhausted.* * * The rule is not only one of comity, to prevent unseemly conflicts between courts whose jurisdiction embraces the same subject and persons, but between state courts and those of the United States it is something more.'It is a principle of right and law, and therefore of necessity.It leaves nothing to discretion or mere convenience.'Covell v. Heyman, 111 U. S. 176, 4 Sup. Ct. 355, 28 L. Ed. 390.The rule is not limited to cases where property has actually been seized under judicial process before a second suit is instituted in another court, but it applies as well where suits are brought to enforce...