Montgomery Light & Water Power Co. v. Charles

• Decision Date: 15 July 1919
• Docket Number: 233.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Middle District of Alabama
• Parties: MONTGOMERY LIGHT & WATER POWER CO. v. CHARLES et al.

258 F. 723

MONTGOMERY LIGHT & WATER POWER CO. v. CHARLES et al.

No. 233.

United States District Court, M.D. Alabama, Northern Division.

July 15, 1919

Steiner Crum & Weil, of Montgomery, Ala., Frueauff, Robinson & Sloan of New York City, and J. M. Holley, of Wetumpka, Ala., for plaintiff.

Rushton Williams & Crenshaw, Hill, Hill, Whiting & Thomas, and W. A Jordan, all of Montgomery, Ala., for defendants.

HENRY D. CLAYTON, District Judge.

About the year 1900 the plaintiff, the Montgomery Light & Water Power Company, a New Jersey corporation, constructed and has since owned and operated a dam and an electro-hydraulic plant on the Tallapoosa river about 3 miles above the town of Tallassee, Ala., and has been and is now engaged in generating and selling electric power to the public generally at Montgomery and in that vicinity for lighting and industrial purposes.

In the year 1917 the defendants in this case owned or operated the lands situated along the river and below the dam as farms. On August 7 of that year the river overflowed its banks, and the crops growing on these lands were inundated and destroyed. Soon thereafter such farmers who are defendants here, some 130, hereafter referred to as Charles and others, severally brought suits in the circuit court of Montgomery county Ala., against the plaintiff, who will be called hereafter the Power Company, seeking to recover damages, aggregating about $300,000, alleging that they sustained losses to that extent in consequence of this flood upon their lands and crops. The complaints are the same in form and substance, excepting, of course, the variations in the descriptions of the property alleged to have been damaged and the names of the plaintiffs and the amounts sued for. Briefly stated, it is alleged in each complaint that the Power Company had so negligently constructed or maintained its dam that by reason thereof, and as a proximate consequence, on August 7, 1917, the dam, or a part thereof, broke or gave way, and that as a further proximate result large quantities of water were caused to flow upon plaintiffs' (in the state court) lands, and caused the damage for which a recovery is sought. Such of these suits as were removable were removed into this court, and are now pending on the law side of the docket, and those not removable (on account of the amount claimed being less than $3,000) are still pending in the state court.

In this situation the Power Company filed this bill in the nature of a bill of peace in this court against the several plaintiffs at law. It is alleged in the bill, among other things, that by long-continued use the Power Company had acquired a prescriptive right and easement to maintain and operate its said plant an dam and to utilize the waters of said river in operating its hydro-electric plant; that the effect of the numerous suits instituted and others threatened and likely to be brought, as the result of an alleged conspiracy or combination to foment litigation, was, in reality, a denial of and an attack upon the right of the Power Company to use and operate its property, and to appropriate the flow of the river at its dam. The bill seeks to have this right declared and quieted; and, further, it is alleged that without this relief the plaintiff will be repeatedly harassed by useless, wrongful, and vexatious litigation, and that its property rights, business, and credit will be seriously and injuriously affected, and the discharge of its duties to the public hampered and embarrassed.

It is also alleged in the bill that said suits at law are numerous, and that in each case the questions of law and fact are identical; that each of the plaintiffs, and also the defendants therein, had a common interest in the subject-matter of the litigation and in the questions of law and fact involved in these actions at law.

The Power Company, the plaintiff here, denies the averments of fact contained in the several complaints at law, and denies that it was guilty of any negligence, or that it had committed any wrong, or violated any duty that it owed to the plaintiffs in such suits in the circuit court, for or on account of the matters and things therein alleged, and asserts that it has a full and complete defense to the said several suits at law.

Further, the Power Company submits itself to the jurisdiction of the court and prays to restrain the prosecution of the various suits at law now pending in this court by removal, and those pending in the state court, and that the matters and things and things therein involved be determined in this court.

Other reasons are alleged for equitable intervention, which in the view taken of the case are not necessary to be now mentioned.

The defendants (plaintiffs in the state court) appeared and answered, admitting many of the material averments of the bill, including the right and easement alleged to have been acquired by the Power Company in the use and operation of its dam, etc., but asserted that the damages sought to be recovered in the actions at law were due, not to the negligent operation of the dam, but to the negligent maintenance, on the crest of the dam, of flashboards, which they declared had been improperly and defectively constructed and were allowed to collapse suddenly, releasing large quantities of water upon the lands and crops of Charles and others, with the consequent damage.

The Power Company then amended its bill, denied the negligence charged in the answer, and denied that the alleged damage was in any way attributable to the use of the flashboards. The bill as amended and the original answer of the defendants were verified; but the defendants failed to verify their answer to the amended bill. Afterwards, during the absence of the writer by proper designation on official business in another district, the plaintiff gave due notice to the defendants, and applied to Judge Grubb, of the Northern district of Alabama, for an injunction pendente lite to restrain the further prosecution of the suits at law in accordance with the prayer of the bill, to the end that the matters therein involved might be litigated in this court. Judge Grubb held that the bill contained equity and granted the writ. It may be said, notwithstanding the defendants have challenged the equity of the bill, that from the evidence in the record it is not too much to observe that the writ was not granted with their expressed assent, but apparently with their acquiescence.

At the outset of the trial before me, however, the attorneys have argued the motion to dismiss the bill for want of equity, and said motion has been considered.

The alleged conspiracy against the plaintiff here is elaborately set out in paragraph 9 of the bill, but consideration of such matters may be pretermitted, for it appears to me that the bill presents a case for equity cognizance, in that it is to enjoin a multiplicity of suits at law, where the plaintiffs at law are united by a common tie created by identity of interest in the decision of the same questions of law and fact, the party defendant is the common adversary, and the suits are so numerous that their further prosecution would visit great inconvenience, hardship, and expense upon the Power Company, defendant in the actions at law. Moreover, such suits at law are in effect a denial of the right of the Power Company to maintain and operate its dam and plant.

There are a contrariety of decisions as to the power of a court of equity to enjoin a multiplicity of actions at law, but it seems that on principle, and in the light of and in harmony with the weight of modern authority, the bill must be sustained. Pomeroy's Eq. Jurisprudence (14th Ed.) Sec. 269, p. 500. Beginning with section 243 of this work, the author reviews the entire subject. In the instant case there are about 130 persons who have sued on their separate and individual claims against the same defendant. All these claims arise from the same common cause, are governed by the same legal rules, involve substantially the same facts, and can be settled in a single suit wherein all the plaintiff persons are made parties to one side of the controversy and the Power Company is made the other party, and where the rights of all may be adjudicated and determined. This, I think, is a fair adaption to the present case of the idea expressed by Pomeroy and quoted with approval by Justice Harlan in Osborne v. Wisconsin Central R. Co. (C.C.) 43 F. 825. Here it is undoubtedly true that 'the plaintiffs are united by a common tie, created by identity of interest in the decision of the same questions of law and of fact, and have a common adversary. ' Equity discountenances the multiplicity of suits; and certainly this is true, where as in the instant case, all questions-- that is, right of easement and charge of negligence, etc.-- can be settled in one suit. That is one of the grounds of this jurisdiction, and aims by restraining a multiplicity of suits to give to the owner of the property the beneficial enjoyment of it and to enable him to get the benefit of its ownership, rather than fritter it away in many and diverse suits. Hyman v. Wheeler (C.C.) 33 F. 629.

In the oral argument on the motion to dismiss the bill for want of equity, the attorneys for Charles and others, the defendants here, insisted that the plaintiffs in the law actions had no more than a mere community of interest, as distinguished from a common right, and that this was not sufficient to confer equity jurisdiction. But I think it may be said that, while the Power Company could make its defense in each of the law cases, this is not a sufficient reason to shut it out of a court of equity, unless the Power Company's right of defense in the law court is adequate, considering all...