Lapas attēli
PDF
ePub

472

Opinion of the Court.

state law should have that issue submitted to state courts for decision. See the later decision in the same case, Tompkins v. Erie R. Co., 98 F. 2d 49.

The cases mentioned above where this Court required submission of single issues, excised from the controversy, to state courts were cases in equity. The discretion of equity as to the terms upon which it would grant its remedies, in the light of our rule to avoid an interpretation of the Federal Constitution unless necessary, was relied upon to justify a departure from normal procedure. In the Magnolia case, we directed that the trustee file plenary proceedings to determine title in a state court litigation necessarily complete in itself. The complaint here in a single count seeks recovery of the debt from ASCAP and determination of the Custodian's title to the claim vis-à-vis the receiver. Assuming that quieting title to a chattel is an equitable proceeding and that the District Court can, by cutting out the title issue and by refusing to proceed in the controversy unless obeyed, compel the Custodian by whatever proceedings New York may provide to litigate only the narrow issue of title in the temporary receiver, there would remain the problem of control of the receiver, by threats of contempt action, to keep him from raising in such proceedings federal issues such as the right to secure title as permanent receiver through state judicial action after the freezing or immobilization order. This federal issue we decided above. Furthermore, as the state court could reasonably require complete adjudication of the controversy, the District Court would perhaps be compelled to stay proceedings in the state court to protect its own jurisdiction. U. S. C. § 2283. Otherwise, in sending a fragment of the litigation to a state court, the federal court might find itself blocked by res judicata, with the result that the entire federal controversy would be ousted from the

28

Opinion of the Court.

337 U.S.

federal courts, where it was placed by Congress. See note 17, supra.

The submission of special issues is a useful device in judicial administration in such circumstances as existed in the Magnolia, Spector, Fieldcrest and Pullman cases, supra, but in the absence of special circumstances, 320 U. S. at 236, 237, it is not to be used to impede the normal course of action where federal courts have been granted jurisdiction of the controversy.

We reject the suggestion that a decision in this case in the federal courts should be delayed until the courts of New York have settled the issue of state law.

Third. The petitioner makes the further point that the judgment below determining that he had no right, title or interest to the claim of AKM against ASCAP is beyond the competence of the federal district court because that property was in the hands of the state court by virtue of the receivership. Even if title did not pass, he argues, he, and through him the state court, had possession of the claim by virtue of his appointment as temporary receiver before the promulgation of the freezing order. Reliance is placed on the rulings of cases like Kline v. Burke Construction Co., 260 U. S. 226, 229, 231; Princess Lida v. Thompson, 305 U. S. 456, 466; and Farmers' Loan Co. v. Lake St. R. Co., 177 U. S. 51, 61. The rule declared by these cases is that when one court has taken possession and control of a res, a second court is disabled from exercising a power over that res. The circumstances of this controversy do not present such an interference with state control of a res. We are dealing with a situation more closely resembling determinations of rights to participate in res in the hands of state courts.25 What

25 See Markham v. Allen, 326 U. S. 490; Commonwealth Trust Co. v. Bradford, 297 U. S. 613; Clark v. Tibbetts, 167 F. 2d 397, 401.

472

FRANKFURTER, J., dissenting in part.

the state court had, at most, was a claim against a debtor, ASCAP. The judgment enabled the Custodian to collect the debt that ASCAP owed AKM. Although this judgment determined title to AKM's claim against ASCAP when the adverse claimant was a state receiver, those facts did not prevent the federal court from giving a judicial declaration of the right to the claim. The scheme of the Trading with the Enemy Act contemplates that federal courts may provide such determinations. § 17; cf. Markham v. Allen, 326 U. S. 490, 495. The congressional purpose to put control of foreign assets in the hands of the President through the Custodian, so that there might be a unified national policy in the administration of the Act, argues strongly for federal determination of issues of rights in the blocked assets. Comity does not require abnegation to the extent that a federal court cannot adjudicate rights to the claim involved. Affirmed.

MR. CHIEF JUSTICE VINSON took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.

MR. JUSTICE JACKSON dissents on the ground that ASCAP is not a banking institution under the definition in Executive Order No. 8785.

MR. JUSTICE FRANKFURTER, dissenting in part.

The Court recognizes that central to determining the effect of the Alien Property Custodian's freezing and vesting orders is the effect under New York law of petitioner's appointment as temporary receiver on June 13, 1941. It observes that "The precise issue of state law involved, i. e., whether the temporary receiver under § 977-b of the New York Civil Practice Act is vested with title by virtue of his appointment, is one which has not been

FRANKFURTER, J., dissenting in part.

337 U.S.

And it concedes that

decided by the New York courts." the language of the relevant New York statutes "is easily susceptible of varying interpretations." Yet it puts its own interpretation on those statutes though that interpretation may be displaced tomorrow by the only courts which have power to render an authoritative interpretation of New York law-the courts of the State of New York.

In other cases that have come before us in which decision of a federal issue or the necessity for its decision depended on a seriously doubtful question of State law, we have directed that application should first be made to the courts of the State for final disposition of the State question. Thompson v. Magnolia Petroleum Co., 309 U. S. 478; Railroad Comm'n of Texas v. Pullman Co., 312 U. S. 496; Chicago v. Fieldcrest Dairies, 316 U. S. 168; Spector Motor Service, Inc. v. McLaughlin, 323 U. S. 101; A. F. of L. v. Watson, 327 U. S. 582. In each of these cases the discretion of a federal court of equity could practicably be exercised in a way which retained ultimate jurisdiction of the case while permitting adjudication of the State question in the State courts. In each there were available State procedures capable of provid-. ing a prompt decision, and the litigation had not already consumed such an unconscionable amount of time as to make recourse to them inexpedient. Cf. Public Utilities Comm'n v. United Fuel Gas Co., 317 U. S. 456. The present case meets all those conditions, see N. Y. Civ. Prac. Act § 473, and should receive the same disposition.

It is true that in all but one of these cases recourse to the State courts also served the purpose of avoiding what might have proved to be unnecessary decision of a constitutional issue. But see. Thompson v. Magnolia Petroleum Co., 309 U. S. 478. Even more fundamental, however, was recognition of the importance of maintain

472

FRANKFURTER, J., dissenting in part.

ing harmonious relations between parallel systems of State and federal courts in a situation where, because State law controlled, the State courts had the last word and so a federal court at best could make only an informed guess. That this was a dominant consideration in the mind of the Court appears plainly in the language of its opinions. The following passages are illustrative:

1. "The last word on the meaning of Article 6445 of the Texas Civil Statutes, and therefore the last word on the statutory authority of the Railroad Commission in this case, belongs neither to us nor to the district court but to the supreme court of Texas. In this situation a federal court of equity is asked to decide an issue by making a tentative answer which may be displaced tomorrow by a state adjudication. . . . The reign of law is hardly promoted if an unnecessary ruling of a federal court is thus supplanted by a controlling decision of a state court. . .

"Few public interests have a higher claim upon the discretion of a federal chancellor than the avoidance of needless friction with state policies, whether the policy relates to the enforcement of the criminal law, Fenner v. Boykin, 271 U. S. 240; Spielman Motor Co. v. Dodge, 295 U. S. 89; or the administration of a specialized scheme for liquidating embarrassed business enterprises, Pennsylvania v. Williams, 294 U. S. 176; or the final authority of a state court to interpret doubtful regulatory laws of the state, Gilchrist v. Interborough Co., 279 U. S. 159; cf. Hawks v. Hamill, 288 U. S. 52, 61. These cases reflect a doctrine of abstention appropriate to our federal system whereby the federal courts, 'exercising a wise discretion,' restrain their authority because of 'scrupulous regard for the rightful independence of the state governments' and for the smooth working of the federal judiciary. See Cavanaugh v. Looney, 248 U. S. 453, 457; Di Gio

« iepriekšējāTurpināt »