Manufacturers Record Publishing Company v. Lauer

• Decision Date: 07 January 1959
• Docket Number: No. 8428.,8428.
• Citation: 169 F. Supp. 234
• Parties: MANUFACTURERS RECORD PUBLISHING COMPANY, Plaintiff, v. Margaret E. LAUER, the duly qualified and authorized Testamentary Executrix of the Succession of Jacques E. Blevins in Succession No. 325,086 of the Civil District Court, Division "B," Parish of Orleans, Louisiana; Louis J. Roussel and Republic Petroleum Corporation, Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Louisiana

169 F. Supp. 234

MANUFACTURERS RECORD PUBLISHING COMPANY, Plaintiff, v. Margaret E. LAUER, the duly qualified and authorized Testamentary Executrix of the Succession of Jacques E. Blevins in Succession No. 325,086 of the Civil District Court, Division "B," Parish of Orleans, Louisiana; Louis J. Roussel and Republic Petroleum Corporation, Defendants.

No. 8428.

United States District Court E. D. Louisiana, New Orleans Division.

January 7, 1959.

Wilkinson, Lewis, Wilkinson & Madison, W. Scott Wilkinson, John M. Madison and John C. Christian, Shreveport, La., for plaintiff.

Henican, James & Cleveland, C. Ellis Henican, New Orleans, La., for Margaret E. Lauer, defendant.

Clem H. Sehrt, New Orleans, La., for Louis J. Roussel, defendant.

Kalford K. Miazza, New Orleans, La., for Republic Petroleum Corp., defendant.

J. SKELLY WRIGHT, District Judge.

Plaintiff seeks a judgment from this Court declaring null and void the judgment of the Supreme Court of Louisiana in Suit No. 43,469 entitled "Blevins v. Manufacturers Record Publishing Company,"¹ in so far as the judgment in that case affects Tracts 1 and 3 of certain described oil producing property. It also seeks an injunction restraining and prohibiting the defendants from enforcing or executing that judgment. The Blevins case in the state court was a title contest over Tracts 1, 2 and 3, the Supreme Court holding that the heirs of Blevins were the owners of Tracts 1 and 3 whereas the plaintiff herein was the owner of Tract 2.

The jurisdictional basis for the action in this court is alleged to be the general equitable power of a federal court in diversity cases, as well as federal question jurisdiction based on the alleged denial of due process of law and equal protection of the laws by the state court in the proceedings aforementioned. Plaintiff alleges that the action of the state court was arbitrary and unreasonable in that its decision, depriving the plaintiff of title to Tracts 1 and 3, was based on erroneous principles not recognized by Louisiana law. It alleges that to enforce the state court judgment would be contrary to equity and good conscience.²

Defendants have filed a motion to dismiss for lack of jurisdiction in this court and for failure to state a claim. They assert that with certain specified exceptions, 28 U.S.C. § 2283³ prohibits a federal court from enjoining proceedings in the state court and that this action does not come within any of the exceptions.

The record, as now made up, shows that the state court title litigation, which is the basis of the action here, was fully heard both at the trial level and before the Supreme Court of Louisiana.⁴ The trial court held that the plaintiff here, Manufacturers Record Publishing Company, was the owner of the property in suit. The Supreme Court reversed the trial court and held that the defendants here owned the property. On rehearing, the Supreme Court, while reaffirming its prior ruling as to Tracts 1 and 3, amended that ruling so that the ownership of Tract 2 was recognized in Manufacturers Record Publishing Company. The decision of the Supreme Court of Louisiana originally and on rehearing was by a divided court, 4-3.

At no point in the state proceedings was any federal constitutional question raised. The decisions by the trial court and by the Supreme Court were based on their conceptions of Louisiana law. The justices dissenting also referred only to Louisiana law as the basis for their dissents. No application for review of the state Supreme Court's ruling was made to the Supreme Court of the United States. The time for making such application has now expired and plaintiff has brought this proceeding asking that the state court judgment be declared null and execution thereof enjoined.

The short answer to this litigation is probably contained in two decisions of the Court of Appeals of the Fifth Circuit. These two cases,⁵ strikingly similar in facts to the case at bar, even to the extent that they involve title to oil producing land, hold that a federal district court has no jurisdiction to review the decisions of state courts, irrespective of the manner in which the relief sought in the federal court is styled. In the Williams and Hendron cases, the unsuccessful title litigants in the state court, charging the state court with arbitrarily and capriciously discriminating against them in failing to recognize their title to the land in suit, asked the federal court to declare the successful state court litigant a constructive trustee of the property and the unsuccessful state court litigant the beneficiary of the trust. The Fifth Circuit, in affirming the dismissal of the suits for want of jurisdiction, stated, "The purpose of the suit is clearly to seek a review of the decisions of the Texas courts * * *." Williams v. Tooke, supra, 108 F.2d 759.

Plaintiff here maintains that this is an independent action, that it is not asking this court to review the decision of the state court. Plaintiff insists that it merely wants the execution of the state court judgment permanently enjoined so that the defendant here would never be recognized as owner of the land in suit in spite of having been so declared by the Louisiana Supreme Court. Its request for such relief is not based on allegations of lack of notice, or hearing, or perjury, or other fraud in the state court proceedings. Plaintiff here simply alleges that the Supreme Court of Louisiana has misapplied the Louisiana law in reaching its result. If this is not seeking review of a state court decision, it represents a distinction without a difference. Certainly the difference would not be discernible to the prevailing party in the state court. Moreover, if plaintiff is not seeking a review of the state court judgment, and is in fact proceeding independently of the state court action, then under the most elemental principles of res judicata, this action, absent circumstances neither alleged nor disclosed, is barred.

Assuming plaintiff's action here is independent, and not a review, of the state court proceedings, and assuming further that res judicata does not provide a bar, in so far as its federal jurisdictional basis is diversity of citizenship, it is barred by the doctrine of Dulien Steel Products v. Connell, 5 Cir., 252 F.2d 556. There applying the rule of Erie R. Co. v. Tompkins, 304 U.S. 64, 58 S.Ct. 817, 82 L.Ed. 1188, the Fifth Circuit held that, since under Louisiana law the independent action was not available in courts of that state to nullify a judgment of the Louisiana Supreme Court, a federal court is without jurisdiction to entertain such action.⁶

In so far as plaintiff's action here is based on the presence of a federal question, it is barred by Rooker v. Fidelity Trust Co., 263 U.S. 413, 44 S.Ct. 149, 68 L.Ed. 362. There the Supreme Court held that a federal district court had no jurisdiction of suits to nullify state court judgments, that only the Supreme Court can modify or reverse such judgments, and that to permit the bringing of a suit to nullify a state court judgment in the federal district court, after time for applying for relief from the Supreme Court has expired, would be to permit the unsuccessful litigant "to do indirectly what he no longer can do directly." Rooker v. Fidelity Trust Co., supra, 263 U.S. at page 416, 44 S.Ct. at page 150.

The ancient independent action in equity, which apparently is what plaintiff has sought to bring here, originated in England at a time when the courts of law were separate from courts of equity. The law courts, because of the rigors of the final judgment rule and the principle of res judicata, were unable to amend or reform their own judgments, however unjust they proved to be or however fraudulently obtained. In those circumstances, the litigants sought relief in a court of equity through the independent action.⁷ Now, in this country, with the separation between equity and law courts abolished, with law courts exercising equity powers as well, there is little justification for one court relieving against judgments of another except through appeals provided by law. There is even less justification for the courts of one system nullifying final judgments obtained in the courts of another.⁸ This principle of comity was early recognized by the Congress⁹ and by the courts in the federal system.¹⁰ Hence the present prohibition, 28 U.S.C. § 2283, against enjoining state court proceedings.

This statutory prohibition against enjoining state court proceedings has been broadly interpreted by the Supreme Court. It prohibits restraining the execution of a state court judgment as well as the proceedings prior thereto. Hill v. Martin, 296 U.S. 393, 403, 56 S.Ct. 278, 80 L.Ed. 293. Moreover, its purpose can not be frustrated by enjoining the litigants rather than the state court for restraint of the litigants is restraint of the courts. Oklahoma Packing Co. v. Oklahoma Gas & Electric Co., 309 U.S. 4, 9, 60 S.Ct. 215, 84 L.Ed. 537.

Plaintiff cites several cases¹¹ as its authority for enjoining the execution of the state court judgment. These cases carved out a judicially created exception to the unqualified statutory prohibition¹² that a federal court shall not enjoin state court proceedings.¹³ The continuing validity, however, of the doctrine of these cases is open to serious question. In Toucey v. New York Life Insurance Co., 314 U.S. 118, 136, 62 S.Ct. 139, 145, 86 L.Ed. 100, after reviewing, against the background of the statutory prohibition, the cases cited by plaintiff here as justifying the issuance of an injunction against the execution of a state court judgment, the Supreme Court observed, "The foundation of these cases is thus very doubtful." Moreover, in Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America v. Richman Brothers, 348 U.S. 511, 514, 75 S.Ct. 452, 454, 99 L.Ed. 600, in interpreting 28 U.S.C. § 2283, the Supreme Court, again referring to these same cases, stated "We need not...