Third Nat Bank of Pittsburg v. Mylin

• Decision Date: 04 September 1896
• Docket Number: 12-1896.
• Citation: 76 F. 385
• Parties: THIRD NAT. BANK OF PITTSBURG v. MYLIN, Auditor, General et al.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Pennsylvania

76 F. 385

THIRD NAT. BANK OF PITTSBURG v. MYLIN, Auditor, General et al.

No. 12-1896.

United States Circuit Court, E.D. Pennsylvania.

September 4, 1896

John Wilson and Wm. M. Hall, Jr., for complainant.

John P Elkin and Henry C. McCormick, for defendants.

ACHESON Circuit Judge.

It is hardly necessary to say that the merits of this controversy are not now to be considered. The plea goes only to the jurisdiction of the court. In disposing of it little need be said beyond a mere reference to some authorities, which, I think, are decisive against the plea. Undoubtedly the suit arises under the constitution and laws of the United States for the plaintiff's alleged rights for which protection is here sought are based upon the fourteenth amendment to the constitution, and upon section 5219 of the Revised Statutes of the United States. ^[1] The construction and application of both are involved here. Most stress is laid upon the objection that this suit is really against the state of Pennsylvania, while not nominally so. But, according to the averments of the bill, the act of assembly under which the defendants are proceeding is violative of the fourteenth amendment to the constitution, and also contravenes section 5219 of the Revised Statutes of the United States. If this be so, then the defendants, while claiming to act in their official capacities, are proceeding without lawful authority. The case therefore falls directly within the principle of the decision of the supreme court of the United States in the case of Osborn v. Bank, 9 Wheat. 738, which reaffirmed in Pennoyer v. McConnaughy, 140 U.S. 1, 10, 11 Sup.Ct 699, that, where grounds of equity jurisdiction exist, and injunction from a circuit court will lie to restrain a person who is a state officer from performing an act directed by an unconstitutional law of the state, when such act would destroy or violate the rights of the complainant. Thus Mr Justice Agnew, of the supreme court of Pennsylvania, sitting at nisi prius, held that the auditor general and treasurer of the state could be restrained by injunction from collecting an illegal tax imposed by the state upon stockholders in a national bank. Markoe v. Hartranft, 6 Am.Law Reg. (N.S.) 487. A court of equity, at the suit of a national bank, will restrain the imposition and collection of an illegal state tax because of the trust relation in which the bank stands to its stockholders, and to avoid a...