Railroad Commission of Texas v. Pullman Co

• Court: U.S. Supreme Court
• Writing for the Court: FRANKFURTER
• Citation: Railroad Commission of Texas v. Pullman Co, 312 U.S. 496, 61 S.Ct. 643, 85 L.Ed. 971 (1941)
• Decision Date: 03 March 1941
• Docket Number: No. 283,283
• Parties: RAILROAD COMMISSION OF TEXAS et al. v. PULLMAN CO. et al

312 U.S. 496

61 S.Ct. 643

85 L.Ed. 971

RAILROAD COMMISSION OF TEXAS et al.

v PULLMAN CO. et al.

No. 283.

Argued Feb. 4, 1941.

Decided March 3, 1941.

Appeal from the District Court of the United States for the Western District of Texas.

Mr. Cecil A. Morgan, of Fort Worth, Tex., for appellants, Cunningham et al.

Mr. Cecil C. Rotsch, of Fort Worth, Tex., for appellants, Railroad Commission of Texas et al.

Mr. Ireland Graves, of Austin, Tex., for appellees.

Mr. Justice FRANKFURTER delivered the opinion of the Court.

In those sections of Texas where the local passenger traffic is slight, trains carry but one sleeping car. These trains, unlike trains having two or more sleepers, are without a Pullman conductor; the sleeper is in charge of a porter who is subject to the train conductor's control. As is well known, porters on Pullmans are colored and conductors are white. Addressing itself to this situation, the Texas Railroad Commission after due hearing ordered that 'no sleeping car shall be operated on any line of railroad in the State of Texas * * * unless such cars are continuously in the charge of an employee * * * having the rank and position of Pullman conductor'. Thereupon, the Pullman Company and the railroads affected brought this action in a federal district court to enjoin the Commission's order. Pullman porters were permitted to intervene as complainants, and Pullman conductors entered the litigation in support of the order. Three judges having been convened, Judicial Code, § 266, as amended, 28 U.S.C. § 380, 28 U.S.C.A. § 380, the court enjoined enforcement of the order. From this decree, the case came here directly. Judicial Code, § 238, as amended, 28 U.S.C. § 345, 28 U.S.C.A. § 345.

The Pullman Company and the reilroads assailed the order as unauthorized by Texas law as well as violative of the Equal Protection, the Due Process and the Commerce Clauses of the Constitution. The intervening porters adopted these objections but mainly objected to the order as a discrimination against Negroes in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment.

The complaint of the Pullman porters undoubtedly tendered a substantial constitutional issue. It is more than substantial. It touches a sensitive area of social policy upon which the federal courts ought not to enter unless no alternative to its adjudication is open. Such constitutional adjudication plainly can be avoided if a definitive ruling on the state issue would terminate the controversy. It is therefore our duty to turn to a consideration of questions under Texas law.

The Commission found justification for its order in a Texas statute which we quote in the margin.¹ It is com- mon ground that if the order is within the Commission's authority its subject matter must be included in the Commission's power to prevent 'unjust discrimination * * * and to prevent any and all other abuses' in the conduct of railroads. Whether arrangements pertaining to the staffs of Pullman cars are covered by the Texas concept of 'discrimination' is far from clear. What practices of the railroads may be deemed to be 'abuses' subject to the Commission's correction is equally doubtful. Reading the Texas statutes and the Texas decisions as outsiders without special competence in Texas law, we would have little confidence in our independent judgment regarding the application of that law to the present situation. The lower court did deny that the Texas statutes sustained the Commission's assertion of power. And this represents the view of an able and experienced circuit judge of the circuit which includes Texas and of two capable district judges trained in Texas law. Had we or they no choice in the matter but to decide what is the law of the state, we should hesitate long before rejecting their forecast of Texas law. But no matter how seasoned the judgment of the district court may be, it cannot escape being a forecast rather than a determination. The last word on the meaning of Article 6445 of the Texas Civil Statutes, and therefore the last word on the statutory authority of the Railroad Commission in this case, belongs neither to us nor to the district court but to the supreme court of Texas. In this situation a federal court of equity is asked to decide an issue by making a tentative answer which may be displaced tomorrow by a state adjudication. Glenn v. Field Packing Co., 290 U.S. 177, 54 S.Ct. 138, 78 L.Ed. 252; Lee v. Bickell, 292 U.S. 415, 54 S.Ct. 727, 78 L.Ed. 1337. The reign of law is hardly promoted if an unnecessary ruling of a federal court is thus supplanted by a controlling decision of a state court. The resources of equity are equal to an adjustment that will avoid the waste of a tentative decision as well as the friction of a premature constitutional adjudication.

An appeal to the chancellor, as we had occasion to recall only the other day, is an appeal to the 'exercise of the sound discretion, which guides the determination of courts of equity'. Beal v. Missouri Pacific R.R., 312 U.S. 45, 61 S.Ct. 418, 421, 85 L.Ed. —-, decided January 20, 1941. The history of equity jurisdiction is the history of regard for public consequences in employing the extraordinary remedy of the injunction. There have been as many and as variegated applications of this supple principle as the situations that have brought it into play. See, for modern instances, Beasley v. Texas & Pacific Ry., 191 U.S. 492, 24 S.Ct. 164, 48 L.Ed. 274; Harrisonville v. Dickey Clay Co., 289 U.S. 334, 53 S.Ct. 602, 77 L.Ed. 1208; United States v. Dern, 289 U.S. 352, 53 S.Ct. 614, 77 L.Ed. 1250. Few public interests have a higher claim upon the discretion of a federal chancellor than the avoidance of needless friction with state policies, whether the policy relates to the enforcement of the criminal law, Fenner v. Boykin, 271 U.S. 240, 46 S.Ct. 492, 70 L.Ed. 927; Spielman Motor Co. v. Dodge, 295 U.S. 89, 55 S.Ct. 678, 79 L.Ed. 1322; or the administration of a specialized scheme for liquidating embarrassed business enterprises, Pennsylvania v. Williams, 294 U.S. 176, 55 S.Ct. 380, 79 L.Ed. 841, 96 A.L.R. 1166; or the final authority of a ...