1. Where a city and a railway company agreed for the removal of
the railway's main tracks from a busy street to another location to
promote the public safety and convenience and the operation of the
railway, and owners of abutting property alleged that the change,
by depriving them of their switch connection, would largely destroy
the value of their expensive plant, in violation of their
constitutional rights of contract and property,
held that
the case was not one for
Page 255 U. S. 281
relief by injunction, and that the plaintiffs had a full and
complete remedy in an action at law for damages. P.
255 U. S.
286.
2. The district court should not enjoin the performance of a
city's contract as void under the city charter where the same
question is involved in a taxpayer's suit, instituted in the state
court by the same parties and still pending, in which a temporary
injunction had been granted and is still in force. P.
255 U. S.
286.
Affirmed.
This was a direct appeal from a decree of the district court
which dismissed, upon the merits, a bill brought by the appellants
to enjoin, upon constitutional grounds, the removal of certain
railway tracks in the City of Dallas. The facts are stated in the
opinion.
Page 255 U. S. 282
MR. JUSTICE BRANDEIS delivered the opinion of the Court.
In 1872, the Texas & Pacific Railway Company built its
single track main line to the west on a street in the Village of
Dallas, then as now called Pacific Avenue. In 1890, the city
granted to the company a 50-year franchise to double-track its
railroad on that street. In the latter year, the population of
Dallas was 35,057; now it is 158,976,
* and the
existence and operation of the railroad
Page 255 U. S. 283
on the avenue has become a serious menace to life and limb, a
great inconvenience to the whole people, burdensome to the railway,
and an injury to neighboring property. North of the avenue lie
largely the residential sections of the city; adjacent and to the
south, largely business sections. A part of the avenue is in the
heart of the city. There, six of the leading business streets --
great thoroughfares -- cross it, and on two of them streetcars
cross the railroad at grade. Two other much traveled streets are
parallel. One of these, which is only two hundred feet distant, is
the principal business street of the city. The number of trains
operated daily over the avenue had risen in 1918 to more than one
hundred, and there were, in addition, switching operations to many
neighboring industries. Trains are now longer -- some of them
consisting of 80 freight cars, and they occasion serious
interruption to street traffic. The necessary use of larger
engines, due partly to a heavy grade, results in much noise, smoke,
and cinders. Regulations concerning operation of trains imposed by
the city in the interests of safety were necessarily severe, and
had proved expensive and embarrassing to the railway. Still further
safeguards and restrictions upon operation appeared to be
necessary. Plans were proposed for putting the tracks in subways,
for elevating them, and for eliminating the grade crossings, all of
which the city confessedly had power to require of the railway. But
none of these projects appeared to offer a satisfactory solution of
the problem. Finally a plan was worked out for the removal of the
tracks from this part of the avenue for a distance of nearly a
mile, and for diverting the trains to the line of another railroad
with which it was proposed to make connections. This involved
establishing a wholesale trade district elsewhere.
This plan proved acceptable to the railway, its receiver, the
city, and most of the real estate owners affected. In order to
carry out the plan, the Wholesale District Trackage
Page 255 U. S. 284
Company was organized, and this corporation, the city, the
railway, and its receiver entered into a contract under which the
improvement was to be made. Then Armour & Co., owner of a plant
served by a switch track connecting with the main line on the
avenue, and its lessee, brought this suit in the District Court of
the United States for the Northern District of Texas against all
the parties to the contract seeking to enjoin its performance and
specifically the removal from Pacific Avenue of the tracks which
connected with their switch track. Jurisdiction of the federal
court was invoked on the ground that the action proposed would
deprive plaintiffs of their property without due process of law and
impair the obligation of their contracts in violation of the
federal Constitution. After full hearing on the merits, a decree
was entered dismissing the bill with costs. The case comes here by
direct appeal under ยง 238 of the Judicial Code.
First. The basis of the plaintiffs' principal claim is
this: in 1912, Armour & Co., being desirous of erecting a plant
in Dallas, made a contract for the purchase of a lot on the avenue,
the purchase to be conditioned upon the railway's securing from the
city a franchise to lay a switch connecting the lot with its main
track on the avenue and upon Armour & Co., then securing from
the railway an agreement to build and maintain the switch. Upon
satisfying itself through negotiation with officials of the city
and of the railway that these conditions would be complied with,
Armour & Co. completed the purchase of the lot. The city then
passed an ordinance granting such a franchise to the railway for
the period of 20 years, conditioned, among other things, upon
Armour & Co.'s dedicating about 90 square feet of their land to
the public to round the two corners of their lot. The small parcels
were dedicated, the plant was erected, the switch was built by the
railway, and over the switch Armour & Co.'s lessee customarily
receives
Page 255 U. S. 285
about 600 cars of freight a year. The plaintiffs contend that
the switch franchise, granted by the city to the railway, was
entered into for Armour & Co.'s benefit, that it was, in
effect, a contract with them, that the city and the railway are
powerless under the federal Constitution to abrogate that contract,
either directly by surrendering the switch franchise or indirectly
by removing the main track with which the switch connects, and that
the plaintiffs are entitled to an injunction, because the plant,
which cost nearly $80,000 to build, would lose most of its value if
deprived of its rail connection.
To this claim several answers are made: (1) that the city did
not make any contract with Armour & Co., and under its charter
would have been without power to do so; (2) that the railway did
not make any contract with Armour & Co. to maintain the side
track, and that it had been authorized to remove the tracks from
Pacific Avenue by the Railroad Commission, under appropriate
legislation, on the ground that it would "serve the public
interests by promoting the public safety and convenience," (3) that
the plaintiffs have already sought and been denied, as against the
railway and its receivers, the same relief here applied for, having
intervened for that purpose in the original suit brought for
appointment of the receiver in the District Court of the United
States for the Western District of Louisiana; that the decree of
the district court therein dismissing its petition asking the same
relief had been affirmed by the United States Circuit Court of
Appeals for the Fifth Circuit,
Armour & Co. v. Texas &
Pacific Railway Co., 258 F. 185, and that this Court had
denied Armour & Co.'s petition for writ of certiorari, 251 U.S.
551; (4) that, even if the franchise had purported to grant an
absolute right to maintain the tracks of Pacific Avenue, it would
have been subject to the fair exercise by the state, through the
municipality as its agent, of the police power to promote the
public safety, and that, under
Page 255 U. S. 286
the circumstances, removal of the tracks was essential for this
purpose, since the tracks could not appropriately be placed under
ground or be elevated.
See Denver & Rio Grande Railroad Co.
v. Denver, 250 U. S. 241,
250 U. S. 244;
Erie Railroad Co. v. Board of Public Utility
Commissioners, 254 U. S. 394; (5)
that the franchise for the switch was not absolute; that power of
revocation had been expressly reserved by clauses in the ordinance
which made the franchise subject to the city's charter powers and
provided
"that, in the event the said railway company shall be required
to abandon, to elevate, or to place in subways said main tracks on
Pacific Avenue, the franchise should be subject thereto,"
and that the railway was so required; (6) that, even if
plaintiffs had the legal right which they assert, they were not
entitled to relief in equity by injunction, since an action at law
would afford an adequate remedy, and an injunction would interfere
with a paramount public interest.
It was on the last of these grounds that the circuit court of
appeals, in
Armour & Co. v. Texas & Pacific Railway
Co., 258 F. 185, unanimously affirmed the decree dismissing
the intervening petition. Among the judges sitting upon appeal in
that case was the circuit judge who entered the decree in this case
here under review. He does not appear to have written an opinion in
this case, but presumably he dismissed this bill also on that
ground. For it is clear that the case is not one for equitable
relief. If the plaintiffs as abutting property owners have any
legal right which is interfered with, an action at law for damages
will afford them a full and complete remedy.
See Texas &
Pacific Ry. Co. v. Marshall, 136 U. S. 393,
136 U. S. 405;
Beasley v. Texas & Pacific Ry. Co., 191 U.
S. 492,
191 U. S.
496-497. We have no occasion, therefore, to consider any
of the other reasons urged for affirming the decree.
Second. Plaintiffs urge, apparently as taxpayers, this
additional ground for relief: they allege that the contract
Page 255 U. S. 287
entered into by the city is void and that its performance should
be enjoined because the contract therefor was not countersigned by
the auditor and the expense thereof was not charged to the proper
appropriation as required by the city's charter. It was agreed that
the plaintiffs had brought a suit on this ground in a state court
on behalf of themselves and of other taxpayers of Dallas against
the city and others, that it had obtained upon an
ex parte
hearing a temporary injunction restraining the city from carrying
out the contract, that this suit was pending on appeal before the
Court of Civil Appeals for the Fifth Supreme Judicial District of
Texas when this case was heard below, and that the temporary
injunction, so far as appears, is still in force. The district
court was clearly right, under the circumstances, in refusing to
grant an injunction on this ground.
Affirmed.
* 12th Census, Vol. I, p. 430; U.S. Census Bureau, Population of
Cities Having 25,000 Inhabitants or More, 1920.