Tramel v. Schrader

• Decision Date: 06 January 1975
• Docket Number: No. 74-1096,74-1096
• Citation: 505 F.2d 1310
• Parties: Arthur L. TRAMEL et al., Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. George SCHRADER et al., Defendants-Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit

Page 1310

505 F.2d 1310

Arthur L. TRAMEL et al., Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. George SCHRADER et al., Defendants-Appellees.

No. 74-1096.

United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit.

Jan. 6, 1975.

John F. Jordan, F. Burns Vick, Jr., Edward B. Cloutman, III, Robert A. Bernstein, Dallas, Tex., for plaintiffs-appellants.

N. Alex Bickley, City Atty., T. Alex Eastus, Carroll R. Graham, Mary Leigh Bartlett, Dallas, Tex., for Schrader and others.

John L. Hill, Atty. Gen., Scott Garrison, Houghton Brownlee, Jr., Asst. Attys. Gen., Austin, Tex., for State of Texas.

Before RIVES, WISDOM and COLEMAN, Circuit Judges.

COLEMAN, Circuit Judge.

This is a suit to enjoin the collection of special street improvements assessments by city officials. Plaintiffs (Arthur L. Tramel, et al.) are citizens of Dallas, Texas. They own land which abuts streets being improved by the City of Dallas. Defendants (George Schrader, et al.) are the Dallas City officials who ordered the streets inproved and who levied the assessments against plaintiffs' property to help pay the cost of the improvements.

Plaintiffs contend that in two respects the assessments violate their federal constitutional rights. ¹ First Texas law provides for no pre-assessment hearing, thus, they say that the assessments constitute a taking of property without due process of law. Second, Texas law ² allows city governments, but not county governments, to charge to abutting property owners the cost of street improvements; hence, city property owners are being denied equal protection of the law.

The City Order which mandated the assessments is under attack. In addition, the Texas statute which empowers municipalities to order such assessments is under attack. Thus, this suit seeks to restrain the action of city officials and to declare invalid both a state statute and a municipal order made pursuant to that statute.

The District Court denied the request for the convention of a three judge court, demanded by plaintiffs. It dismissed the action for failure to state a claim upon which relief could be granted

We affirm.

I. WAS THE DISTRICT COURT CORRECT AS TO THE NECESSITY FOR A THREE JUDGE COURT?

The Three Judge Court Act, 28 U.S.C. 2281, provides:

'An interlocutory or permanent injunction restraining the enforcement, operation or execution of any State statute by restraining the action of any officer of such State in the enforcement or execution of such statute or of an order made by an administrative board or commission acting under State statutes, shall not be granted by any district court or judge thereof upon the ground of the unconstitutionality of such statute unless the application therefor is heard and determined by a district court of three judges under section 2284 of this title.'

The literal language of this statute requires the convention of a three judge court only when the defendants are state officers. It applies only when plaintiff seeks an injunction 'restraining the enforcement, operation or execution of any State statute by restraining the action of any officer of such state'.

The Supreme Court has held that the language of this statute is to be literally followed. A three judge court is required only when state officers are defendants; a three judge court is not required where an action is brought against local officers who are enforcing a local ordinance.

A decision directly in point is Ex parte Collins, 277 U.S. 565, 48 S.Ct. 585, 72 L.Ed. 990 (1928). In that case, an Arizona statute provided that municipalities could finance improvements by issuing bonds to be paid off by taxing owners of property abutting the improvements. The City of Phoenix, pursuant to the statute, assessed plaintiff's property to pay for certain improvements. Plaintiff brought suit against Phoenix city officials. A district judge refused to request the convention of a three judge court. Plaintiff petitioned the Supreme Court for leave to file a writ of mandamus directing the district judge to appoint two additional judges to sit with him. The Supreme Court held the district judge's refusal to convene the three judge court was correct since only the enforcement of municipal action by municipal officials was involved.

'This suit is not one to restrain 'the enforcement, operation, or execution' of a statute of a state within the meaning of section 266. That section was intended to embrace a limited class of cases of special importance and requiring special treatment in the interest of the public. The lower courts have held with substantial unanimity that the section does not govern all suits in which it is sought to restrain the enforcement of legislative action, but only those in which the object of the suit is to restrain the enforcement of a statute of general application or the order of a state board of commission. Thus, the section has long been held inapplicable to suits seeking to enjoin the execution of municipal ordinances, or the orders of a city board. And likewise it has been held that the section does not apply where, as here, although the constitutionality of a statute is challenged, the defendants are local officers and the suit involves matters of interest only to the particular minicipality or district involved. Despite the generality of the language, we think the section must be so construed.

'Congress realized that, in requiring the presence of three judges, of whom one must be a Justice of this court or a Circuit Judge, it was imposing a severe burden upon the federal courts. The burden was imposed because Congress deemed it unseemly that a single District Judge should have power to suspend legislation enacted by a state. That the section was intended to apply only to cases of general importance is shown by the provision that notice of the hearing must be given to the Governor and the Attorney General-- a precaution which would scarcely be deemed necessary in a suit of interest only to a single locality. Support for that view is found also in the provision for a stay of the suit in case there shall have been brought in a court of the state a suit to enforce the statute or order. That the provisions of section 266 applied to cases of unusual gravity was recognized by Congress in 1925, when, in limiting the right of direct appeal from the District Court to this Court, it carefully preserved that right in cases falling within the section. Cases like the present are not of that character. If the temporary injunction had been issued, the result would have been merely to delay a municipal improvement. Though here the alleged unconstitutionality rests in the enabling statute, the case does not differ substantially from one where the sole claim is that a city ordinance is invalid. Moreover, the enabling act is not itself being enforced within the meaning of section 266. That act merely authorizes further legislative action to be taken by the city, as by the resolution here in question. It is that municipal action, not the statute of a state, whose 'enforcement, operation, or execution' the petitioner seeks to enjoin.' 48 S.Ct. at 585-586.

Ex parte Collins was followed in Petition of Public Nat. Bank of New York, 278 U.S. 101, 49 S.Ct. 43, 73 L.Ed. 202 (1928). New York City assessed taxes against a bank. The assessment was authorized by a New York statute which provided for a higher rate of tax on banks than on other business. Plaintiff bank brought a suit in federal court against city officials, asking that they be enjoined from levying the allegedly unconstitutional tax. A three judge court was convened; but dissolved itself, saying it had no jurisdiction. On mandamus, the Supreme Court held the three judge court was correct in dissolving itself. The Three Judge Court Act, the Court said, does not apply when defendants are city officials who are collecting taxes only for the use of the city.

The persons sued are municipal officers, having no state functions to perform, put charged only with the duty of collecting and receiving taxes assessed by other city officials in no respect for the use of the state but for and in behalf of the city alone. In effect, the contention for petitioner practically comes to this-- that the general purpose of section 266 being to safeguard state legislation assailed as unconstitutional from the improvident action of federal courts, the words, 'by restraining the action of any officer of such state in the enforcement . . . of such statute' are without significance. In other words, we are asked to ignore the quoted words and read the section as though they were not there.

But we are not at liberty thus to deny effect to a part of a statute. No rule of statutory construction has been more definitely stated or more often repeated than the cardinal rule that 'significance and effect shall, if possible, be accorded to every word. As early as in Bacon's Abridgment, 2, it was said that 'a statute ought, upon the whole, to be so construed that, if it can be prevented, no clause, sentence, or word shall be superfluous, void, or insignificant'.' Washington Market Co. v. Hoffman, 101 U.S. 112, 115, 25 L.Ed. 782. We are unable to perceive any ground for departing from the rule in the case before us. It follows that, giving effect to the phrase in question, section 266 requires the concurrence of two things in order to give the three-judge court jurisdiction: (1) The suit must seek to have a state statute declared unconstitutional, or that in effect; and (2) it must seek to restrain the action of an officer of the state in the enforcement of such statute. See Henrietta Mills Co. v. Rutherford County (D.C.) 26 F. (2d) 799, 800; Connor v. Board of Com'rs of Logan County, Ohio (D.C.) 12 F. (2d) 789, 790; Connecting Gas Co. v. Imes (D.C.), 11 F.2d 191, 194, 195. The second requisite here is lacking. 49 S.Ct. at 44.

The Collins and Public National Bank cases ³ conclusively demonstrate that the District Court acted properly in...