Small v. Wageman, 5793.
| Decision Date | 22 June 1961 |
| Docket Number | No. 5793.,5793. |
| Citation | 291 F.2d 734 |
| Parties | Edward C. SMALL et al., Plaintiffs, Appellants, v. Frank WAGEMAN et al., Defendants, Appellees. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — First Circuit |
George P. Lordan, Cambridge, Mass., for appellants.
Norman H. Stahl, Manchester, N. H., with whom Shane Devine and Devine, Millimet & McDonough, Manchester, N. H., were on brief, for appellees.
Before WOODBURY, Chief Judge, and HARTIGAN and ALDRICH, Circuit Judges.
The plaintiffs-appellants, a husband and wife who are citizens of Massachusetts, brought suit in the United States District Court for the District of New Hampshire under its diversity jurisdiction against the defendants-appellees, a father and daughter who are citizens of New Hampshire, to recover damages of more than $10,000 for personal injuries suffered on Lake Winnipesaukee, New Hampshire, when a boat in which the plaintiffs-appellants were seated was struck by a boat operated by the defendant-appellee-daughter. The defendants-appellees answered and filed a motion to strike part of the complaint which was subsequently granted. After answer but before any further proceedings the plaintiffs-appellants, effecting service on the defendant-appellee-daughter in Massachusetts, commenced an action against her alone in the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts to recover damages for the same cause of action set out in the complaint they had previously filed in the District of New Hampshire. Thereupon the defendants-appellees filed a petition in the action pending against them in New Hampshire for an order enjoining the plaintiffs-appellants from prosecuting their action in Massachusetts until final determination of their action in New Hampshire. After hearing the court below granted the injunction asked for, and the plaintiffs-appellants took this appeal.1
The cause of action sued upon is certainly transitory. But it does not follow from this that the plaintiffs below have the right to sue the defendants on it either separately or together in every jurisdiction where they may be able to accomplish service of process. Time out of mind courts of equity have had jurisdiction to prevent a multiplicity of actions on the same cause, and it is no longer open to question that a federal district court in the exercise of that jurisdiction may enjoin a party before it from attempting simultaneously to litigate the same matter with the same opponent in another court of co-ordinate jurisdiction in the same judicial system. See Steelman v. All Continent Co., 1937, 301 U.S. 278, 57 S.Ct. 705, 81 L.Ed. 1085. It is true that the power of one federal district court to enjoin a party from undertaking to litigate the same question with the same opponent in another federal district court has most often been exercised in patent and copyright litigation. See e. g. Dwinell-Wright Co. v. National Fruit Product Co., 1 Cir., 1942, 129 F.2d 848. But that the power is not limited to litigation only in those fields is made clear in the interesting and scholarly opinion of Judge Maris in Crosley Corp. v. Hazeltine Corp., 3 Cir., 1941, 122 F.2d 925.
The question thus comes down to whether the court below abused its equitable discretion in exercising its power as it did in this case. We think the answer is that it did not.
As a general proposition, but not as a rigid rule, the federal district court which first obtains jurisdiction of the issues and the parties should proceed to adjudication and to accomplish that end may properly enjoin a party before it...
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