Bitterman v. Louisville & Nashville Railroad Company/Opinion of the Court

United States Supreme Court

207 U.S. 205

Bitterman  v.  Louisville & Nashville Railroad Company

 Argued: November 4, 1907. --- Decided: December 2, 1907

The points urged at bar on behalf of the petitioners as establishing that the decrees below should be reversed and the bill of complaint dismissed, and, in any event, the injunction be modified and restricted, are the following:

'1. The bill of complaint does not state a cause of action, either at law or in equity, against any of the defendants, even though the tickets in which they dealt are in form nontransferable, when the original purchasers disposed of them in breach of their contract with the complainant.

'2. The complainant has shown no sufficient ground for equitable intervention, since, assuming, but not admitting, that the acts charged against the defendants are wrongful, tortious, or even fraudulent, it has a plain, adequate, and complete remedy at law to redress such wrongs.

'3. There was an improder joinder of defendants and of independent causes of action. The bill is multifarious and the case does not fall within the rule concerning the avoidance of a multiplicity of suits.

'4. The circuit court was without jurisdiction, notwithstanding the colorable averments contained in the bill that the injury sustained in consequence of the defendants' act exceeded $2,000, there being no foundation in fact in support of such averment.

'5. The decree of injunction awarded by the circuit court of appeals, so far as it relates to nontransferable tickets that may be hereafter issued, is in effect the exercise of legislative, as distinct from judicial, power, since it undertakes to promulgate a rule applicable to conditions and circumstances which have not yet arisen, and to prohibit the petitioners from dealing in tickets not in esse, and not even in contemplation, and is, therefore, violative of the most fundamental principle of our government.'

Stated in logical sequence and reduced to their essence, these propositions assert:

First, want of jurisdiction from the insufficiency of the amount involved, want of power in a court of equity to grant relief because, on the face of the bill, relief at law was adequate, and because equitable relief was improper on account of misjoinder of parties and causes of action.

Second, because the case as made did not entitle to relief, since it did not show the commission of any legal wrong by the defendants.

Third, because, conceding the right to relief, the remedy by injunction which the court accorded was so broad as, in effect, to amount to the exertion of legislative, as distinct from judicial, power, and hence was equivalent to the denial of due process of law.

As, for reasons hereafter to be stated, we think the contentions embodied in the first proposition as to want of jurisdiction, etc., are without merit, we come at once to the fundamental question involved in the second proposition; that is, the absence of averment or proof as to the commission of a legal wrong by the defendants.

That the complainant had the lawful right to sell nontransferable tickets of the character alleged in the bill at reduced rates we think is not open to controversy, and that the condition of nontransferability and forfeiture embodied in such tickets was not only binding upon the original purchaser, but upon anyone who acquired such a ticket and attempted to use the same in violation of its terms, is also settled. Mosher v. St. Louis, I. M. & S. R. Co. 127 U.S. 390, 32 L. ed. 249, 8 Sup. Ct. Rep. 1324. See also Boylan v. Hot Springs R. Co. 132 U.S. 146, 33 L. ed. 290, 10 Sup. Ct. Rep. 50.

Ture, these cases were decided before the passage oF THE ACT TO regulate commerce, but the power of carriers engaged in interstate commerce to issue nontransferable reducedrate excursion tickets was expressly recognized by that act, and the operation and binding effect of the nontransferable clause in such tickets upon all third persons acquiring the same and attempting to use them, and the duty of the carrier in such case to use due diligence to enforce a forfeiture, results from the context of the act. Thus, by § 22, it was provided 'that nothing in this act shall apply to . . . the issuance of mileage, excursion, or commutation passenger tickets.' [24 Stat. at L. 387, chap. 104, U.S.C.omp. Stat. 1901, p. 3170.] And it is to be observed that, despite the frequent changes in the act, including the comprehensive amendments embodied in the act of June 29, 1906 (34 Stat. at L. 584, chap. 3591, U.S.C.omp. Stat. Supp. 1907, p. 892), the provision in question remains in force, although the Interstate Commerce Commission, charged with the administrative enforcement of the act, has directed the attention of Congress to the importance of defining the scope of such tickets in view of the abuses which might arise from the exercise of the right to issue them. (2 Inters. Com. Rep. 340.) And, when the restrictions embodied in the act concerning equality of rates and the prohibitions against preferences are borne in mind, the conclusion cannot be escaped that the right to issue tickets of the class referred to carried with it the duty on the carrier of exercising due diligence to prevent the use of such tickets by other than the original purchasers, and therefore caused the nontransferable clause to be operative and effective against anyone who wrongfully might attempt to use such tickets. Any other view would cause the act to destroy itself; since it would necessarily imply that the recognition of the power to issue reduced-rate excursion tickets conveyed with it the right to disregard the prohibitions against preferences which it was one of the great purposes of the act to render efficacious. This must follow, since, if the return portion of the round-trip ticket be used by one not entitled to the ticket, and who otherwise would have had to pay the full one-way fare, the person so successfully traveling on the ticket would not only defraud the carrier, but effectually enjoy a preference over similar one-way travelers who had paid their full fare, and who were unwilling to be participants in a fraud upon the railroad company.

Any third person acquiring a nontransferable reduced-rate railroad ticket from the original purchaser, being therefore bound by the clause forbidding transfer, and the ticket in the hands of all such persons being subject to forfeiture on an attempt being made to use the same for passage, it may well be questioned whether the purchaser of such ticket acquired anything more than a limited and qualified ownership thereof, and whether the carrier did not, for the purpose of enforcing the forfeiture, retain a subordinate interest in the ticket, amounting to a right of property therein, which a court of equity would protect. Board of Trade v. Christie Grain & Stock Co. 198 U.S. 236, 49 L. ed. 1031, 25 Sup. Ct. Rep. 637, and authorities there cited. See also Sperry & H. Co. v. Mechanics' Clothing Co. 128 Fed. 800. We pass this question, however, because the want of merit in the contention that the case as made did not disclose the commission of a legal wrong conclusively results from a previous decision of this court. The case is Angle v. chicago, St. P. M. & O. R. Co. 151 U.S. 1, 38 L. ed. 55, 14 Sup. Ct. Rep. 240, where it was held that an actionable wrong is committed by one 'who maliciously interferes in a contract between two parties and induces one of them to break that contract to the injury of the other.' That this principle embraces a case like the present, that is, the carrying on of the business of purchasing and selling nontransferable reduced-rate railroad tickets for profit, to the injury of the railroad company issuing such tickets, is, we think, clear. It is not necessary that the ingredient of actual malice, in the sense of personal ill will, should exist to bring this controversy within the doctrine of the Angle Case. The wanton disregard of the rights of a carrier, causing injury to it, which the business of purchasing and selling nontransferable reduced-rate tickets of necessity involved, constitute legal malice within the doctrine of the Angle Case. We deem it unnecessary to restate the grounds upon which the ruling in the Angle Case was rested, or to trace the evolution of the principle in that case announced, because of the consideration given to the subject in the Angle Case and the full reference to the authorities which was made in the opinion in that case.

Certain is it that the doctrine of the Angle Case has been frequently applied in cases which involved the identical question here at issue,-that is, whether a legal wrong was committed by the dealing in nontransferable reduced-rate railroad excursion ticket. Pennsylvania R. Co. v. Beekman, 30 Wash. L. Rep. 715; Illinois C. R. Co. v. Caffrey, 128 Fed. 770; Delaware, L. & W. R. Co. v. Frank, 110 Fed. 689; Nashville, C. & St. L. R. Co. v. McConnell, 82 Fed. 65.

Indeed, it is shown by decisions of various state courts of last resort that the wrong occasioned by the dealing in nontransferable reduced-rate railroad tickets has been deemed to be so serious as to call for express legislative prohibition correcting the evil. Kinner v. Lake Shore & M. S. R. Co. 69 Ohio St. 339, 69 N. E. 614; Schubach v. McDonald, 179 Mo. 163, 65 L. R. A. 136, 101 Am. St. Rep. 452, 78 S. W. 1020, and cases cited; Samuelson v. State, 116 Tenn. 470, 115 Am. St. Rep. 805, 95 S. W. 1012. In the case last referred to, where the subject is elaborately reviewed, the supreme court of Tennessee, in holding that the prohibitive statute was not unconstitutional as forbidding a lawful business, and in affirming a criminal conviction for violating the statute, observed:

'That the sale as well as the purchase of nontransferable passage tickets is a fraud upon the carrier and the public, the tendency of which is the demoralization of rates, has been settled by the general concensus of opinion among the courts.'

Concluding, as we do, that the commission of a legal wrong by the defendants was disclosed by the case as made, we are brought to consider the several contentions concerning the jurisdiction of the court and its right to afford relief. The bill contained an express averment that the amount involved in the controversy exceeded, exclusive of interest and costs, the sum of $5,000 as to each defendant. The defendants not having formally pleaded to the jurisdiction, it was not incumbent upon the complainant to offer proof in support of the averment. Nevertheless, the complainant introduced testimony tending to show that, on the New Orleans division of its road, a loss of from fifteen to eighteen thousand dollars a year was sustained through the practice by dealers of wrongfully purchasing and selling nontransferable tickets. That hundreds of the tickets annually issued for the Mardi Gras festivals in New Orleans were wrongfully bought and sold; that other nontransferable reduced-rate tickets were, in a like manner, illegally trafficked in to the great damage of the corporation, and that the defendants were the persons principally engaged in conducting such wrongful dealings. But, even if this proof be put out of view, we think the contention that a consideration of the whole bill establishes that the jurisdictional amount alleged was merely colorable and fictitious is without merit. We say this because the averments of the bill as to the number of such tickets issued, the recurring occasions for their issue, the magnitude of the wrongful dealings in the nontransferable tickets by the defendants, the cost and the risk incurred by the steps necessary to prevent their wrongful use, the injurious effect upon the revenue of the complainant, the operation of the illegal dealing in such tickets upon the right of the complainant to issue them in the future, coupled with the admissions of the answer, sustain the express averment as to the requisite jurisdictional amount. Besides, the substantial character of the jurisdictional averment in the bill is to be tested, not by the mere immediate pecuniary damage resulting from the acts complained of, but by the value of the business to be protected and the rights of property which the complainant sought to have recognized and enforced. Hunt v. New York Cotton Exchange, 205 U.S. 322, 336, 51 L. ed. 821, 826, 27 Sup. Ct. Rep. 529.

The contention that, though it be admitted, for the sake of the argument, that the acts charged against the defendant 'were wrongful, tortious, or even fraudulent,' there was no right to resort to equity, because there was a complete and adequate remedy at law to redress the threatened wrongs when committed, is, we think, also devoid of merit. From the nature and character of the nontransferable tickets, the number of people to whom they were issued, the dealings of the defendants therein and their avowed purpose to continue such dealings in the future, the risk to result from mistakes in enforcing the forfeiture provision, and the multiplicity of suits necessarily to be engendered if redress was sought at law,-all establish the inadequacy of a legal remedy and the necessity for the intervention of equity. Indeed, the want of foundation for the contention to the contrary is shown by the opinions in the cases which we have previously cited in considering whether a legal wrong resulted from acts of the character complained of, since, in those cases, it was expressly held that the consequences of the legal wrong flowing from the dealing in nontransferable tickets were of such a character as to entitle an injured complainant to redress in a court of equity.

There is an opinion of the supreme court of New York (not the court of last resort) which would seem to express contrary views (New York C. & H. R. R. Co. v. Reeves, 41 Misc. 490, 85 N. Y. Supp. 28), but the reasoning there relied on, in our opinion, is inconclusive.

The proposition that the bill was multifarious because of the misjoinder of parties and causes of action was not assigned as error in the circuit court of appeals, and, therefore, might well be held not to be open. But, passing that view, we hold the objection to be untenable. The acts complained of as to each defendant were of a like character, their operation and effect upon the rights of the complainant were identical, the relief sought against each defendant was the same, and the defenses which might be interposed were common to each defendant and involved like legal questions. Under these Conditions the case is brought within the principle laid down in Hale v. Allinson, 188 U.S. 56, 77, 47 L. ed. 380, 392, 23 Sup. Ct. Rep. 244.

As we have stated, the circuit court granted a preliminary injunction, restraining the defendants from illegally dealing in tickets issued on account of the United Confederate Veterans' Reunion, and, before final hearing, granted a second injunction, restraining such dealing in like tickets issued for the approaching Mardi Gras festival. By the final decree these injunctions were perpetuated, the court declining to grant the relief sought by the complainant in relation to nontransferable tickets to be issued for the future, without prejudice, however, to the right of the complainant to seek relief by independent proceedings on each occasion when it might issue such nontransferable tickets. The circuit court of appeals decided that error had been committed in refusing to grant an injunction against dealing in nontransferable tickets to be issued in the future, and directed that the decree below be enlarged in that particular. It is insisted that the circuit court of appeals erred in awarding an injunction as to dealings 'in nontransferable tickets that may be hereafter issued . . . since it thereby undertook to promulgate' a rule applicable to conditions and circumstances which have not yet arisen, and to prohibit 'the petitioners from dealing in tickets not in esse . . . and is, therefore, violative of the most fundamental principles of our government.' But when the broad nature of this proposition is considered, it but denies that there is power in a court of equity in any case to afford effective relief by injunction. Certain is it that every injunction, in the nature of things, contemplates the enforcement, as against the party enjoined, of a rule of conduct for the future as to the wrong to which the injunction relates. Take the case of trespasses upon land where the elements entitling to equitable relief exist. See Slater v. Gunn, 170 Mass. 509, 41 L.R.A. 268, 49 N. E. 1017, and cases cited. It may not be doubted that the authority of a court would extend, not only to restraining a particular imminent trespass, but also to prohibiting like acts for all future time. The power exerted by the court below which is complained of was in no wise different. The bill averred the custom of the complainant at frequently occurring periods to issue reduced-rate, nontransferable tickets for fairs, conventions, etc., charged a course of illegal dealing in such nontransferable tickets by the defendants, and sought to protect its right to issue such tickets by preventing unlawful dealings in them. The defendants in effect not only admitted the unlawful course of dealing as to particular tickets then outstanding, but expressly avowed that they possessed the right, and that it was their intention to carry on the business as to all future issues of a similar character of tickets. The action of the circuit court of appeals, therefore, in causing the injunction to apply not only to the illegal dealings as to the then outstanding tickets, but to like dealings as to similar tickets which might be issued in the future, was but the exertion by the court of its power to restrain the continued commission against the rights of the complainant in the future of a definite character of acts adjudged to be wrongful. Indeed, in view of the state of the record, the inadequacy of the relief afforded by the decree as entered in the circuit court is, we think, manifest on its face. The necessary predicate of the decree was the illegal nature of the dealings by the defendants in the outstanding tickets, and the fact that such dealings, if allowed, would seriously impair the right of the complainant in the future to issue the tickets. Doubtless, for this reason the decree was made without prejudice to the right of the complainant to apply for relief as to future issues of tickets by independent proceedings whenever, on other occasions, it was determined to issue nontransferable tickets. But this was to deny adequate relief, since it subjected the complainant to the necessity, as a preliminary to the exercise of the right to issue tickets, to begin a new suit with the object of restraining the defendants from the commission in the future of acts identical with those which the court had already adjudged to be wrongful and violative of the rights of the complainant.

In Scott v. Donald, 165 U.S. 107, 41 L. ed. 648, 17 Sup. Ct. Rep. 262, on holding a particular seizure of liquor under the South Carolina dispensary law to be invalid, an injunction was sustained, not only addressed to the seizure in controversy, but which also operated to restrain like seizures of liquors in the future, and the exertion of the same character of power by a court of equity was upheld in the cases of Donovan v. Pennsylvania Co. 199 U.S. 279, 50 L. ed. 192, 26 Sup. Ct. Rep. 91, and Swift & Co. v. United States, 196 U.S. 375, 49 L. ed. 518, 25 Sup. Ct. Rep. 276.

Nor is there merit in the contention that the decision in New York N. H. & H. R. Co. v. Interstate Commerce Commission, 200 U.S. 404, 40 L. ed. 526, 26 Sup. Ct. Rep. 272, supports the view here relied upon as to the limited authority of a court of equity to enjoin the continued commission of the same character of acts as those adjudged to be wrongful. On the contrary, the ruling in that case directly refutes the claim based on it. There certain acts of the carrier were held to have violated the act to regulate commerce. The contention of the government was that, because wrongful acts of a particular character had been committed, therefore an injunction should be awarded against any and all violations in the future of the act to regulate commerce. Whilst this broad request was denied, it was carefully pointed out that the power existed to enjoin the future commission of like acts to those found to be illegal, and the injunction was so awarded. The whole argument here made results from a failure to distinguish between an injunction generally restraining the commission of illegal acts in the future and one which simply restrains for the future the commission of acts identical in character with those which have been the subject of controversy, and which have been adjudged to be illegal.

Affirmed.

Notes