Mutual Orange Distributors v. AGRICULTURAL PRORATE COM'N

• Citation: 30 F. Supp. 937
• Decision Date: 23 January 1940
• Docket Number: No. 564-J.,564-J.
• Parties: MUTUAL ORANGE DISTRIBUTORS et al. v. AGRICULTURAL PRORATE COMMISSION OF CALIFORNIA et al.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Southern District of California

30 F. Supp. 937

MUTUAL ORANGE DISTRIBUTORS et al. v. AGRICULTURAL PRORATE COMMISSION OF CALIFORNIA et al.

No. 564-J.

District Court, S. D. California, Central Division.

January 23, 1940.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

Crump & Rogers, of Los Angeles, Cal., for plaintiffs.

Earl Warren, Atty. Gen., and Walter L. Bowers, Deputy Atty. Gen., for defendants.

George E. Farrand, Edward E. Tuttle, and Stephen M. Farrand, all of Los Angeles, Cal., for certain defendants T. H. Powell, L. R. Bradley, C. P. Foster, R. L. Willets, F. G. Webber, and Walter Shippey.

Before STEPHENS, Circuit Judge, and JAMES and HOLLZER, District Judges.

STEPHENS, Circuit Judge.

In this proceeding certain lemon growers and shippers of the State of California seek to have the members of the Agricultural Prorate Commission of the State of California and its "Zone Agent" enjoined from putting into effect the California State Prorate Act (Chapter 754, p. 1969 Calif.Stats. of 1933) or putting into effect the orders or program in respect thereof. We are now concerned with the application for an interlocutory restraining order heretofore made and submitted to a "Three Judge Court" as constituted under Section 266 of the Judicial Code, as amended, 28 U.S.C.A. § 380.

It is claimed under supporting affidavits that the application of the statute as contemplated by the Prorate Commission and Zone Agent will result in irreparable loss and damage to each of the plaintiffs. It is also claimed that the statutes under which the Commission is threatening to act violate the provisions of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution of the United States, U.S.C.A.

The defendants have appeared in this court by answer which puts in issue the constitutional questions and the alleged irreparable injury to which reference has just been made. They have also appeared in resistance to the motion for an interlocutory injunction.

The constitutionality of this Act has heretofore been raised, and in some respects is still pending in the California courts. To understand the problems we here have for solution it will be necessary to get acquainted with such litigation.

The first action, or an action by certain growers to enjoin enforcement of the Act, will hereinafter be referred to as the injunction suit. The second action, or an action by the Commissioners to prohibit the Superior Court from interfering with the enforcement of the Act will hereinafter be referred to as the prohibition suit. The instant action will be referred to as the federal suit. The plaintiffs herein as a group and the defendants herein as a group will be referred to respectively as the growers and as the Commissioners.

Subsequent to the passage of the Act the Commissioners provided thereby were proceeding toward its application, when (May 8th, 1935) certain objecting lemon growers and shippers instituted an action (the injunction suit) in the State Superior Court against the Commission and its members and the "Zone Agent"¹ to enjoin them from enforcing certain orders or a certain program of the Commission relative to the enforcement of the Act. In this action the Superior Court held that the temporary restraint or temporary injunction should be ordered. Thereafter the Commission by its Commissioners and the Zone Agent instituted a proceeding in the California District Court of Appeal (the prohibition suit) praying that a writ of prohibition issue to the said Superior Court and to the judge presiding therein, commanding them to desist from any further proceedings in connection with any restraining order or preliminary injunction in the aforesaid injunction suit except to dissolve any such restraining order. The District Court of Appeal denied the petition and the Supreme Court, in accord with its power and jurisdiction, ordered the matter transferred to that court. The latter court issued an alternative writ of prohibition as prayed for and ordered the respondents to show cause why such writ should not be made permanent. Respondents Superior Court and the judge thereof, appeared by general demurrer and answer. The Supreme Court in its opinion, filed February 29, 1936, Agricultural Prorate Comm. v. Superior Court of Los Angeles County, 5 Cal.2d 550, 55 P.2d 495, 499², said, "It is apparent therefore that the major question calling for decision in this proceeding is the constitutionality of the Agricultural Prorate Act." The court then proceeded to thoroughly discuss and treat the constitutional questions raised by the proceedings, which were substantially the same constitutional questions that were raised by the growers in their action to enjoin the enforcement of the Act. The Supreme Court held the Act valid, but said (opinion in prohibition suit), "The injunction suit is still in the respondent court, and that court has exclusive jurisdiction to hear and determine all undecided issues of fact presented by the pleadings in said suit. Should it determine that said district was legally organized and that the orders which the plaintiffs in said action seek to restrain are valid and binding upon those to whom they are directed, then it would be the duty of said court to deny the injunction and dismiss the suit. * * For this reason, the application for a writ of prohibition directed to respondents restraining them from proceeding in said action should be denied."³

Thereafter, the Superior Court, being freed from the restraint, proceeded with the trial of the injunction suit and entered a judgment therein restraining and enjoining the Commission and Zone Agent from proceeding further, holding among other things that the proceedings under the Act were fatally defective. The Commission and Zone Agent appealed therefrom, and on June 30, 1938, Whittier Mut. Orange & Lemon Ass'n v. Agricultural Prorate Comm., 11 Cal.2d 470, 80 P.2d 983⁴ the State Supreme Court caused its opinion and decision to be filed (injunction suit), reversing the judgment, but without direction to the Superior Court.

The judgment of the Superior Court in the injunction suit standing reversed, the cause went back to that court, and after a trial de novo the court denied the plaintiffs relief and they again appealed from the judgment to the Supreme Court. This appeal in the injunction suit is still pending.

On September 5, 1939, and subsequent to all of the proceedings hereinbefore narrated, some of the growers who were plaintiffs in the injunction suit, together with several additional growers, doing business as one partnership started the instant, or Federal suit. Substantially the same federal constitutional questions raised and already passed upon by the Supreme Court of California are again raised. The allegations of injury are substantially the same. The addition of certain plaintiffs in the instant case as the partnership of R. H. Verity Sons & Co. adds no new element of fact, as they fall in the same category as certain others who are plaintiffs in the injunction suit. The complaint in the Federal suit sets out in part "Bulletin 4" issued by the Commission under date of December 31, 1938, or subsequent to the instigation of the other actions. For the purposes of this opinion we deem this portion of the complaint in this court as not changing the fundamental issues raised in the other cases.

The defendants herein claim that the issues raised by the complaint are res judicata.

At the outset of our discussion on this point it may be remembered that it has already been shown that neither the parties nor the issues of the injunction case are altogether the same as here. However, the three proceedings (the injunction suit, the prohibition suit and the Federal suit) are all directed to the same subject matter. All the plaintiffs in the Federal suit but those suing as members of a copartnership, whose position raised no additional legal question, were plaintiffs in the injunction suit. But not all of the plaintiffs in the injunction suit are plaintiffs in the Federal suit. No judgment finally disposing of the injunction case has yet been had. The attorneys in the injunction case were not attorneys in the prohibition case. The attorneys in the prohibition case are attorneys in the Federal case.

Federal courts accord to a judgment of a state court only the effect given to it by the law of the state in which it was rendered. Wright v. Georgia R. & B. Co., 216 U.S. 420, 30 S.Ct. 242, 245, 54 L.Ed. 544, and cases therein cited. It is therefore necessary to examine the California law as to the effect of the judgments in the injunction and prohibition cases which the defendants urge are res judicata.

We shall first consider the Supreme Court decision in the prohibition case in which the Court expressed itself as to the constitutionality of the Act and refused to grant a writ of prohibition directed to the Superior Court, since there were certain fact issues to be determined.

In a similar case, Brock v. Superior Court of Los Angeles County, 11 Cal.2d 682, 81 P.2d 931, the California Supreme Court again had under consideration the question of whether a writ of prohibition should issue to restrain the Superior Court from proceeding in an action for an injunction against the Director of Agriculture of the State of California. The court therein 11 Cal.2d page 688, 81 P.2d page 934, said, "The constitutionality of the Milk Control Act is also raised by the respondents. In view of our conclusion that the trial court still has jurisdiction of the injunction suit, and therefore the petition herein must be denied, it is not necessary for us to pass upon the constitutionality of said act, and a majority of this court deem it improper to do so."

In effect this relegates the expressions on the constitutional questions in the prohibition case to the status of dicta. The Commissioners argue that the expressions are not dicta, relying upon Florida Central Railroad Company v. Schutte, 103 U.S. 118, 26 L.Ed. 327, 329. However, the...