1. Section 17 of the Act of October 15, 1914, providing that
every restraining order shall define the injury and state why it is
irreparable and why the order was granted without notice, and that
no temporary injunction shall be granted without notice
"unless it shall clearly appear from specific facts shown by
affidavit or by the verified bill that immediate and irreparable
injury, loss or damage will result to the applicant before notice
can be served and a hearing had thereon,"
applies to suits brought under § 266 of the Judicial Code. P.
274 U. S.
595.
2. An order granting a temporary injunction without setting
forth specific reasons for issuing it is contrary to the Act of
October 15, 1914, c. 323, § 19, but not therefore void. P.
274 U. S.
591.
3. A decree of the district court temporarily enjoining action
of state officials for the enforcement of a state law should be
accompanied by an opinion setting forth fully the reasons. P.
274 U. S.
596.
4. Evidence of danger of irreparable injury is essential to
justify issuance of a temporary injunction. P.
274 U. S.
592.
5. Where a railway company, after acquiescing for years in an
order of a state Commission enjoining removal of its shops and
division point from one place to another pending determination by
the Commission of objections made by citizens of the place where
they were located, indicated its purpose to make the change, and
the matter was set for hearing by the Commission, and the railway
failed to show that an emergency required an immediate change or
that delay in applying to a federal court would subject it to
penalties under the state law, the case was not one of such
threatened irreparable injury as to justify the federal court in
issuing an interlocutory injunction against the Commission's
hearing the case, it being clear that the railway, by participating
in such hearing, would not waive its right to contest in the
federal court the constitutionality of the state law under which
the Commission was acting. P.
274 U. S.
592.
Page 274 U. S. 589
6. Whether the Oklahoma law forbidding railroads from removing
shops and division points, in certain cases, without previously
securing permission of the state corporation Commission, is
constitutional as applied to a railroad engaged in interstate as
well as intrastate commerce is not here determined, but to require
such a regulating body to be advised of such changes is not such an
obvious interference with interstate commerce that, on application
for a preliminary injunction, the Act should lightly be assumed to
be beyond the power of the state. P.
274 U. S.
594.
Reversed.
Appeal from an interlocutory decree of the district court which
enjoined the Corporation Commission of Oklahoma from enforcing an
order by which the railway was required not to remove its shops and
division point from the City of Sapulpa, and from preventing it
from putting into effect a contemplated passenger train schedule,
and which enjoined the other defendants -- the Attorney General of
the state and citizens of Sapulpa -- from participation in
proceedings before the Commission.
MR. JUSTICE BRANDEIS delivered the opinion of the Court.
This is a direct appeal from a decree for an interlocutory
injunction entered by the Federal Court for Northern Oklahoma. The
plaintiff below was the St. Louis-San Francisco Railway Company;
the defendants the corporation Commission of that state, its
attorney general, and some citizens of Sapulpa. The bill was filed
on January
Page 274 U. S. 590
11, 1927. The case was heard on January 19 by three judges under
§ 266 of the Judicial Code, as amended, and was decided on the same
day. No opinion was delivered.
The Act of February 5, 1917, Compiled Oklahoma Laws 1921, §§
3482-3485, 5548, prohibits a railroad from removing its
"shops or division points which have been located at any place
in this state for a period of not less than five years without
previously securing the permission of the Corporation Commission to
make such removal."
Railroad shops and a division point of the St. Louis-San
Francisco System have been located in Sapulpa, Oklahoma, since
1890. The railway indicated a purpose to remove these shops and the
division point to Tulsa. On February 19, 1917, the Corporation
Commission issued, upon complaint of citizens of Sapulpa and upon
notice to and hearing of the railway, a temporary restraining order
enjoining the removal. The railway acquiesced in this order, the
Commission retained jurisdiction of the cause, and neither party
took any action therein for nearly 10 years. In December, 1926,
while the restraining order issued in 1917 was in force, the
railway, without leave of the Commission and without making any
application in the cause, directed that the division point for
passenger trains be changed in January, 1927, to Tulsa, and it
indicated a purpose to remove its shops to West Tulsa. Thereupon
the complaining citizens of Sapulpa filed in the cause a motion
which, reciting these facts, prayed that the cause be set for
hearing and that meanwhile the Commission prohibit the railway from
making any change. The Commission set the hearing for January 17,
1927, and renewed the temporary restraining order.
The railway brought this suit shortly before the day set for the
hearing by the Commission. The bill charges that the Oklahoma act
violates the commerce clause, the
Page 274 U. S. 591
due process clause, and the equal protection clause, and that
hence the Commission is without jurisdiction in the premises. The
sole prayer is that the defendants be enjoined "from compelling
plaintiff to submit to the jurisdiction of the Corporation
Commission in the several matters aforesaid" -- that is, the
proposed removal from Sapulpa. The decree is broader than the
prayer. It enjoins the Commission from hearing the cause pending
before it, from taking any other action therein, from making or
enforcing any order restraining the railway from removing its shops
or division point from Sapulpa, and specifically from putting into
effect a contemplated passenger train schedule on January 23, 1927,
the schedule being intended to facilitate the change of the
division point. It enjoins the other defendants from participation
in any way in the proceedings before the Commission.
The decree disregards the requirement of § 19 of the Act of
October 15, 1914, c. 323, 38 Stat. 730, 738, United States Code of
Laws, Title 28, § 383, p. 909: "That every order of injunction . .
. shall set forth the reasons for the issuance of the same, shall
be specific in terms. . . ."
It does not declare that the Oklahoma statute is
unconstitutional, nor does it state any other reason why the action
enjoined is a violation of plaintiff's rights. It does not recite,
even in general terms, that there is danger of irreparable loss. It
sets forth no fact from which such danger can be inferred. It
recites merely that the case was submitted on affidavits and
that:
"the court, having considered said affidavits and having heard
argument of counsel both for plaintiff and defendants, is of the
opinion that the temporary injunction prayed for by plaintiff
herein should be in all things granted."
Although proper practice demands that the provision thus
prescribed by Congress be scrupulously observed, disregard of the
statutory requirement concerning the
Page 274 U. S. 592
form of the order did not render the interlocutory decree void.
Druggan v. Anderson, 269 U. S. 36,
269 U. S. 40. It
must, however, be reversed because the verified bill and the
affidavits fail to supply that evidence of danger of irreparable
injury to plaintiff which is essential to justify issuance of a
temporary injunction. Indeed, it appears affirmatively from the
allegations of the bill and the facts testified to in the
affidavits that irreparable injury would not have resulted from the
failure to issue a restraining order before serving notice on the
defendants, that the interlocutory injunction should have been
denied, except possibly as to the adoption of the new passenger
train schedule on January 23, 1927, and that otherwise action by
the court should have awaited the final hearing.
The only relief prayed for in the bill is that the defendants be
enjoined "from compelling plaintiff to submit to the jurisdiction
of the Corporation Commission in the several matters aforesaid."
There is no prayer for general relief. No right or interest of the
railway would have been prejudiced by participating in the hearing
before the Commission and awaiting the result thereof. The railway
would not thereby have waived its right to contest in the federal
court the validity of the Oklahoma law. Nor would delay in making
application to the federal court have subjected it to penalties
under the Oklahoma law. The earliest date on which the railway is
definitely shown to have proposed to take any action falling within
the prohibition of the Commission's order was January 23, 1927,
when the railway proposed to put into effect the new schedule
involving change of the division point for passenger trains from
Sapulpa to Tulsa. The hearing before the Commission had been set
for January 17, 1927. It was clearly possible, and was perhaps
probable, that the Commission would, after hearing argument on that
day, have modified its order so as to permit the passenger schedule
to go into effect. For
Page 274 U. S. 593
the matter of serious concern to Sapulpa was the threatened
removal of the shops and the freight terminals, not the proposed
new schedule for passenger trains. Moreover, if the Commission had
refused to permit the passenger schedule to go into effect, the
railway would still have had ample opportunity before January 23 to
secure from the federal court relief in that respect.
The broader permission to remove both the shops and the division
point might also have been granted by the Commission if it had been
permitted to proceed with the hearing set for January 17. The
railway asserts that the removal would result in an improved
service and in economy in operation. If this appeared to be true,
it was the duty of the Commission, under the Oklahoma law, to
authorize the removal unless thereby the health of the employees of
the railway or of their families was imperiled. It is not to be
assumed that the railway proposed to remove the shops to an
unhealthy location. And it may not be assumed that the Commission
would have disregarded its duty.
Grand Trunk Ry. Co. v.
Michigan Railroad Commission, 231 U.
S. 457,
231 U. S.
464-466;
Western & Atlantic R. Co. v. Georgia
Public Service Commission, 267 U. S. 493,
267 U. S.
496.
The facts alleged in the bill and testified to in the affidavits
show also otherwise that there was not danger of irreparable loss
to plaintiff within established rules of equity practice. The
railway had for ten years acquiesced in the Commission's order
prohibiting removal. There had not been, so far as appears, even a
suggestion to the Commission that the Act under which the order
issued was invalid, or that the order was otherwise objectionable
to the railway. The advisability of the removal of the shops was a
matter as to which the railway officials had differed in judgment.
The vice-president in charge of operation testified: "We should
have changed many years ago." The president assured a committee
representing Sapulpa in December, 1925, that the city
Page 274 U. S. 594
was
"the logical place for the terminal now located there, . . .
that his company was considering the enlargement of the terminals,
. . . and that there was not reason for any anxiety on the part of
the citizens of Sapulpa as to the removal of the terminals."
In December, 1296, apparently, the railway's officials concluded
that, in view of the changed traffic and operating conditions, the
time had come when the removal of the shops and division point from
Sapulpa to Tulsa should be undertaken, and that, with a relatively
small capital outlay at Tulsa, the removal would result not only in
improved service, but also in an important saving in operating
expenses. But there was no emergency requiring the issue of an
interlocutory injunction. To the railway, the matter was not one of
vital concern. For it, time was not of the essence. The effect of
the Commission's restraining order was merely to keep things
in
statu quo until the final hearing in the federal court. The
interlocutory decree set the railway free to remove the shops
before the case could be heard on final hearing. By ending the
status quo which had existed for 10 years, it exposed the
city and its citizens to danger of irreparable loss. The change
subjected Sapulpa to grave and immediate peril. Removal of the
shops, which had been located in Sapulpa for a generation, would
probably affect property values seriously, and might bring disaster
in its train. It might ruin businesses. It might result in
unemployment. It might compel many of Sapulpa's citizens to seek
homes elsewhere. On application for an interlocutory injunction,
such considerations are of weight.
We have no occasion to determine whether the Oklahoma Act is
obnoxious to the federal Constitution. But, as bearing upon the
propriety of issuing the temporary injunction, the fact is
important that the controversy concerns the respective powers of
the nation and of the states over railroads engaged in interstate
commerce.
Page 274 U. S. 595
Such railroads are subject to regulation by both the state and
the United States. The delimitation of the respective powers of the
two governments requires often nice adjustments. The federal power
is paramount. But public interest demands that, whenever possible,
conflict between the two authorities and irritation be avoided. To
this end, it is important that the federal power be not exerted
unnecessarily, hastily, or harshly. It is important also that the
demands of comity and courtesy, as well as of the law, be deferred
to. It was said in
Western & Atlantic R. Co. v. Georgia
Public Service Commission, 267 U. S. 493,
267 U. S. 496,
that a law of a state may be valid which prohibits an important
change in local transportation conditions without application to
the state Commission, although the ultimate authority to determine
whether the change could or should be made may rest with the
federal Commission. And it was there said that the "action of the
company in discontinuing the service without a petition" to the
state body was "arbitrary and defiant."
Compare Henderson Water
Co. v. Corporation Commission, 269 U.
S. 278. To require that the regulating body of the state
be advised of a proposed change seriously affecting transportation
conditions is not such an obvious interference with interstate
commerce that, on application for a preliminary injunction, the act
should lightly be assumed to be beyond the power of the state.
The decree recites that a restraining order was issued on the
filing of the bill. So far as appears, the court also disregarded
in issuing it the requirement of § 17 of the Act of October 15,
1914, Code, Tit. 28, § 381, p. 909. We think that § 17 applies to
suits brought under § 266 of the Judicial Code.
274
U.S. 588|>* Section 17 provides:
"Every such
Page 274 U. S. 596
temporary restraining order . . . shall define the injury and
state why it is irreparable and why the order was granted without
notice. . . ."
It provides also:
"No temporary restraining order shall be granted without notice
to the opposite party unless it shall clearly appear from specific
facts shown by affidavit or by the verified bill that immediate and
irreparable injury, loss, or damage will result to the applicant
before notice can be served and a hearing had thereon."
Such facts do not appear to have been shown. They are not
alleged in the verified bill, and the affidavits in support were
not filed until the hearing on the interlocutory injunction.
The purpose of Congress in requiring that "every order for an
injunction shall set forth the reasons for the issuance of the
same," was in part to insure deliberation, and thus minimize the
chances of error. It was in part to prevent or allay the irritation
naturally incident to interference by injunction with the action of
the state government. Congress did not require the court to
supplement the recitals in the decree by a fuller statement in an
opinion. The importance of an opinion to litigants and to this
Court in cases of this character was pointed out in
Virginian
Ry. Co. v. United States, 272 U. S. 658,
272 U. S. 675. The
importance is even greater where the decree enjoins the enforcement
of a state law or the action of state officials thereunder. For
then the respect due to the state demands that the need for
nullifying the action of its legislature or of its executive
officials be persuasively shown.
Reversed.
|
274
U.S. 588|
* Section 17 took the place of § 263 of the Judicial Code, which
was of general application. The last sentence of § 17 (omitted from
§ 381 of Title 28 of the Code) reads: "Nothing in this section
contained shall be deemed to alter, repeal or amend section two
hundred and sixty-six" of the Judicial Code. In requiring specific
findings of irreparable damage in the issuance of restraining
orders, no alteration, repeal, or amendment of § 266 was made.