Opinion of the Court. they suffered but only the equitable relief of injunction, there still remains the question whether they are thus denied the equal protection of the laws. [331] The Arizona constitution provides that the superior court shall have jurisdiction in all cases of equity and, in pursuance of this provision, Paragraph 1456 of the Revised Statutes of Arizona, 1913, declares: "Judges of the superior courts may grant writs of injunction, returnable to said courts, in the following cases: "1. Where it shall appear that the party applying for such writ is entitled to the relief demanded, and such relief or any part thereof requires the restraint of some act prejudicial to the applicant. "2. Where, pending litigation, it shall be made to appear that a party is doing some act respecting the subject of litigation, or threatens, or is about to do some act, or is procuring or suffering the same to be done, in violation of the rights of the applicant, which act would tend to render the judgment ineffectual. "3. In all other cases where the applicant for such writ may show himself entitled thereto under the principles of equity." The necessary effect of these provisions and of Paragraph 1464 is that the plaintiffs in error would have had the right to an injunction against such a campaign as that conducted by the defendants in error, if it had been directed against the plaintiffs' business and property in any kind of a controversy which was not a dispute between employer and former employees. If the competing restaurant keepers in Bisbee had inaugurated such a campaign against the plaintiffs in error and conducted it with banners and handbills of a similar character, an injunction would necessarily have issued to protect the plaintiffs in the enjoyment of their property and business. This brings us to consider the effect in this case of that provision of the Fourteenth Amendment which forbids any State to deny to any person the equal protection of the laws. The clause is associated in the Amendment [332] with the due process clause and it is customary to consider them together. It may be that they overlap, that a violation of one may involve at times the violation of the other, but the spheres of the protection they offer are not coterminous. The due process clause, brought down from Opinion of the Court. Magna Charta, was found in the early state constitutions, and later in the Fifth Amendment to the Federal Constitution as a limitation upon the executive, legislative and judicial powers of the Federal Government, while the equality clause does not appear in the Fifth Amendment and so does not apply to congressional legislation. The due process clause requires that every man shall have the protection of his day in court, and the benefit of the general law, a law which hears before it condemns, which proceeds not arbitrarily or capriciously but upon inquiry, and renders judgment only after trial, so that every citizen shall hold his life, liberty, property and immunities under the protection of the general rules which govern society. Hurtado v. California, 110 U. S. 516, 535. It, of course, tends to secure equality of law in the sense that it makes a required minimum of protection for every one's right of life, liberty and property, which the Congress or the legislature may not withhold. Our whole system of law is predicated on the general, fundamental principle of equality of application of the law. "All men are equal before the law," "This is a government of laws and not of men," "No man is above the law," are all maxims showing the spirit in which legislatures, executives and courts are expected to make, execute and apply laws. But the framers and adopters of this Amendment were not content to depend on a mere minimum secured by the due process clause, or upon the spirit of equality which might not be insisted on by local public opinion. They therefore embodied that spirit in a specific guaranty. The guaranty was aimed at undue favor and indivdual or class privilege, on the one hand, and at hostile dis[333] crimination or the oppression of inequality, on the other. It sought an equality of treatment of all persons, even though all enjoyed the protection of due process. Mr. Justice Field, delivering the opinion of this court in Barbier v. Connolly (113 U. S. 27, 32), of the equality clause, said "Class legislation, discriminating against some and favoring others, is prohibited, but legislation which, in carrying out a public Opinion of the Court. purpose, is limited in its application, if within the sphere of its operation it affects alike all persons similarly situated, is not within the amendment." In Hayes v. Missouri (120 U. S. 68, the court speaking through the same Justice said the Fourteenth Amendment "does not prohibit legislation which is limited either in the objects to which it is directed, or by the territory within which it is to operate. It merely requires that all persons subjected to such legislation shall be treated alike, under like circumstances and conditions, both in the privileges conferred and in the liabilities imposed." Thus the guaranty was intended to secure equality of protection not only for all but against all similarly situated. Indeed, protection is not protection unless it does so. Immunity granted to a class, however limited, having the effect to deprive another class, however limited, of a personal or property right, is just as clearly a denial of equal protection of the laws to the latter class as if the immunity were in favor of, or the deprivation of right permitted worked against a larger class. Mr. Justice Matthews, in Yick Wo v. Hopkins (118 U. S. 356, 369), speaking for the court of both the due process and the equality clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, said: "These provisions are universal in their application, to all persons within the territorial jurisdiction, without regard to any differences of race, of color, or of nationality; and the equal protection of the laws is a pledge of the protection of equal laws.” [334] The accuracy and comprehensive felicity of this description of the effect of the equality clause are shown by the frequency with which it has been quoted in the decisions of this court. It emphasizes the additional guaranty of a right which the clause has conferred beyond the requirement of due process. With these views of the meaning of the equality clause, it does not seem possible to escape the conclusion that by the clauses of Paragraph 1464 of the Revised Statutes of Arizona, here relied on by the defendants, as construed by its Supreme Court, the plaintiffs have been deprived of the equal protection of the law. Opinion of the Court. It is beside the point to say that plaintiffs had no vested right in equity relief and that taking it away does not deprive them of due process of law. If, as is asserted, the granting of equitable remedies falls within the police power and is a matter which the legislature may vary as its judgment and discretion shall dictate, this does not meet the objection under the equality clause which forbids the granting of equitable relief to one man and the denying of it to another under like circumstances and in the same territorial jurisdiction. The Fourteenth Amendment, as this court said in Barbier v. Connolly, already cited, intended "not only that there should be no arbitrary deprivation of life or liberty, or arbitrary spoliation of property, but that equal protection and security should be given to all under like circumstances in the enjoyment of their personal and civil rights; that all persons should be equally entitled to pursue their happiness and acquire and enjoy property; that they should have like access to the courts of the country for the protection of their persons and property, the prevention and redress of wrongs, and the enforcement of contracts; that no impediment should be interposed to the pursuits of any one except as applied to the same pursuits by others under like circumstances; that no greater burdens should be laid upon one [335] than are laid upon others in the same calling and condition, and that in the administration of criminal justice no different or higher punishment should be imposed upon one than such as is prescribed to all for like offences." If, as claimed, the legislature has full discretion to grant or withhold equitable relief in any class of cases, indeed to take away from its courts all equity jurisdiction and leave those who are wronged of suits at law or to protection by the criminal law, the legislature has the same power in respect to the declaration of crimes. Suppose the legislature of the State were to provide that such acts as were here committed by defendants, to wit, the picketing or patrolling of the sidewalk and street in front of the store or business house of any person and the use of handbills of an abusive and libelous character against the owner and present and future customers with intent to injure the business of the owner, should be a public nuisance and be punishable by fine and imprisonment, and were to except ex-employees from its penal provisions. Is it not clear that any defendant could escape punishment under it on the ground that the Opinion of the Court. statute violated the equality clause of the Fourteenth Amendment? That is the necessary effect of Connolly v. Union Sewer Pipe Co. (184 U. S. 540), where an anti-trust act was held invalid under this same clause because it contained the excepting provision that it should "not apply to agricultural products or live stock while in the hands of the producer or raiser." That was a stronger case than this because the whole statute was one dealing with economic policy and was a declaration of mala prohibita that had theretofore been lawful, from which it was strongly argued that the exception was justified in the interest of agriculture, and was a proper exception by permissible classification. Here is a direct invasion of the ordinary business and property rights of a person, unlawful when committed by any one, and remediable because [336] of its otherwise irreparable character by equitable process, except when committed by ex-employees of the injured person. If this is not a denial of the equal protection of the laws, then it is hard to conceive what would be. To hold it not to be, would be, to use the expression of Mr. Justice Brewer in Gulf, Colorado & Santa Fe Ry. Co. v. Ellis (165 U. S. 150, 154), to make guaranty of the equality clause "a rope of sand." the In Missouri v. Lewis (101 U. S. 22), we find one of the earlier and one of the most helpful discussions of the application of the equality clause to judicial procedure by Mr. Justice Bradley speaking for this court. In that case one who had been disbarred by the Court of Appeals of St. Louis sought to avoid the effect of this action by the contention that he was denied the equal protection of the laws because he was not given the right of appeal to the Supreme Court of the State, granted to litigants in the State, except in St. Louis and three other counties. It was held that the equality clause did not apply because the state legislature had the right to vary the system of courts and procedure in various parts of the State. Mr. Justice Bradley said (p. 30): "The last restriction, as to the equal protection of the laws, is not violated by any diversity in the jurisdiction of the several courts as 12822°-24-vol. 9 -27 |