California v. Southern Pacific Company (157 U.S. 229)/Opinion of the Court

by Melville Fuller

United States Supreme Court

157 U.S. 229

California  v.  Southern Pacific Company

By the third of our general rules it is provided: 'This court considers the former practice of the courts of king's bench and of chancery, in England, as affording outlines for the practice of this court; and will, from time to time, make such alterations therein as circumstances may render necessary.' 3 Sup. Ct. v. This rule is, with the exception of some slight verbal alterations, and the addition of the word 'former' before the word 'practice,' in the first line, the same as original general rule 7, adopted August 8, 1791. 1 Cranch, vii; 2 Dall. 411. And in cases of original jurisdiction it has been determined that this court will frame its proceedings according to those which had been adopted in the English courts in analogous cases, and that the rules of court in chancery should govern in conducting the case to a final issue (Rhode Island v. Massachusetts, 12 Pet. 657, 13 Pet. 23, 14 Pet. 210, and 15 Pet. 233; Georgia v. Grant, 6 Wall. 241), although the court is not bound to follow this practice when it would embarrass the case by unnecessary technicalities, or defeat the purposes of justice. Florida v. Georgia, 17 How. 478.

It was held in Mallow v. Hinde, 12 Wheat. 193, that where an equity cause may be finally decided between the parties litigant without bringing others before the court, who would, generally speaking, be necessary parties, such parties may be dispensed with in the circuit court, if its process cannot reach them, or if they are citizens of another state; but if the rights of those not before the court are inseparably connected with the claim of the parties litigant, so that a final decision cannot be made between them without affecting the rights of the absent parties, the peculiar constitution of the circuit court forms no ground for dispensing with such parties. And the court remarked: 'We do not put this case upon the ground of jurisdiction, but upon a much broader ground, which must equally apply to all courts of equity, whatever may be their structure as to jurisdiction. We put it upon the ground that no court can adjudicate directly upon a person's right without the party being actually or constructively before the court.'

In Shields v. Barrow, 17 How. 130, the subject is fully considered by Mr. Justice Curtis, speaking for the court. The case of Russell v. Clark's Ex'rs, 7 Cranch, 89, is there referred to as pointing out three classes of parties to a bill in equity: '(1) Formal parties. (2) Persons having an interest in the controversy, and who ought to be made parties, in order that the court may act on that rule which requires it to decide on and fi ally determine the entire controversy, and do complete justice, by adjusting all the rights involved in it. These persons are commonly termed 'necessary parties'; but if their interests are separable from those of the parties before the court, so that the court can proceed to a decree, and do complete and final justice, without affecting other persons not before the court, the latter are not indispensable parties. (3) Persons who not only have an interest in the controversy, but an interest of such a nature that a final decree cannot be made without either affecting that interest, or leaving the controversy in such a condition that its final termination may be wholly inconsistent with equity and good conscience.' Reference is made to the act of congress of February 28, 1839 (5 Stat. 321, c. 36), and the forty-seventh rule of equity practice. The first section of the statute, carried forward into section 738 of the Revised Statutes, enacted: 'That where, in any suit at law or in equity, commenced in any court of the United States, there shall be several defendants, any one or more of whom shall not be inhabitants of, or found within the district where the suit is brought or shall not voluntarily appear thereto, it shall be lawful for the court to entertain jurisdiction, and proceed to the trial and adjudication of such suit between the parties who may be properly before it; but the judgment or decree rendered therein shall not conclude or prejudice other parties, not regularly served with process, or not voluntarily appearing to answer; and the non-joinder of parties who are not so inhabitants, or found within the district, shall constitute no matter of abatement, or other objection to said suit.' But Mr. Justice Curtis remarked that, while the act removed any difficulty as to jurisdiction between competent parties regularly served with process, it did not attempt to displace that principle of jurisprudence on which the court rested Mallow v. Hinde, and, so far as the forth-seventh rule was concerned, that was only a declaration for the government of practitioners and courts of the effect of the act of congress, and of the previous decisions of the court on the subject of that rule. And Mr. Justice Curtis added: 'It remains ture, notwithstanding the act of congress and the forty-seventh rule, that a circuit court can make no decree affecting the rights of an absent person, and can make no decree between the parties before it, which so far involves or depends upon the rights of an absent person that complete and final justice cannot be done between the parties to the suit without affecting those rights. To use the language of this court in Elmendorf v. Taylor, 10 Wheat. 167: 'If the case may be completely decided, as between the litigant parties, the circumstance that an interest exists in some other person, whom the process of the court cannot reach, as if such party be a resident of another state, ought not to prevent a decree upon its merits.' But if the case cannot be thus completely decided the court should make no decree.'

Mr. Daniell thus lays down the general rule: 'It is the constant aim of a court of equity to do complete justice, by deciding upon and settling the rights of all persons interested in the subject of the suit, so as to make the performance of the order of the court perfectly safe to those who are compelled to obey it, and to prevent future litigation. For this purpose all persons materially interested in the subject ought generally, either as plaintiffs or defendants, to be made parties to the suit, or ought, by service upon them of a copy of the bill or notice of the decree, to have an opportunity afforded of making themselves active parties in the cause, if they should think fit.' 1 Daniell, Ch. Pl. & Prac. (4th Am. Ed.) 190.

The rule, under some circumstances, not important to be considered here, may be dispensed with when its application becomes extremely difficult or inconvenient. Equity Rule 48.

Sitting as a court f equity, we cannot, in the light of these well-settled principles, escape the consideration of the question whether other persons who have an immediate interest in resisting the demand of complainant are not indispensable parties, or at least so far necessary that the cause should not go on in their absence. Can the court proceed to a decree, as between the state and the Southern Pacific Company, and do complete and final justice, without affecting other persons, not before the court, or leaving the controversy in such a condition that its final termination might be wholly inconsistent with equity and good conscience? The boundaries of the state of California, as defined and established in the constitution under which the state was admitted into the Union, by the act of congress approved September 9, 1850, embraced all the soil of the beds of the Bay of San Francisco, and the arms of the bay, including what was and is known as 'San Antonio Estuary,' or 'San Antonio Creek,' on the eastern side of the bay, opposite to San Francisco. The tide ebbs and flows naturally in the estuary, which contains a natural tidal basin, and the bay and estuary are connected with the waters of the Pacific Ocean by the Golden Gate.

The contention of the state was that the legislature did not have the power to grant the water front to the town of Oakland, nor to any one, so as to create any title or interest in the grantee, nor to authorize the town to grant the entire water front to any person, to be held and owned as his private property; that the act of May 4, 1852, did not authorize the town to grant its water front, namely, the lands lying within the limits of that town between high tide and ship channel, to Carpentier, nor to any one to be held as private property; that the ordinance of May 27, 1852, was not designed to confer on Carpentier an interest in the Oakland water front beyond 37 years; that the ordinance was against public policy and void; that the deed of the president of the board of trustees was his individual deed, and, if valid, only conveyed for the life of Carpentier, because it did not run to him and his heirs; that the alleged grant was not consistent with the policy of the state; that the grant was revoked by the act of March 25, 1854, and was not confirmed by the act of May 15, 1861; that the act of March 21, 1868, did not authorize the city of Oakland to convey away the water front, or to settle existing controversies in that way; that such a settlement would be contrary to public policy, and contrary to the charter of the city.

The defendant contended that it is the settled law of this country that the ownership of and dominion and sovereignty over lands covered by tide waters belong to the respective states within which they are found, with the consequent right to use or dispose of any portion thereof when that can be done without substantial impairment of the interests of the public in such waters, and subject to the paramount right of congress to control their navigation so far as might be necessary for the regulation of commerce; that the state of California, in and by the act of May 5, 1852, made an irrevocable grant, in praesenti, to the town of Oakland, of the title and property in all the lands lying within the corporate limits of the town, between high tide and ship channel, with the power and right to alien and convey the lands, or any part of them, for the purposes contemplated by the act; that the act of March 25, 1854, did not, by its own terms or otherwise, operate as a repeal of that grant; that the grant was confirmed and ratified by the legislature of California by the act of May 15, 1861, and by the council of the city of Oakland by and under the authority of the act of March 21, 1868; that the grant was made in pursuance of the settled policy of the state, and created no interference with or impairment to the Bay of San Francisco, nor impaired or interfered with the interests of the public in the waters of that bay, r any part thereof, or with the legislative power of the state to regulate or use all the waters, in behalf of the public, for the purposes of navigation. It was further contended that the state was estopped from denying the effect of the act of May 4, 1852, to convey and pass a valid title to the lands embraced by it to the town of Oakland, and estopped by the acts of May 15, 1861, and of March 21, 1868, respectively, to deny the validity of the title of Carpentier and those claiming under him, and that the city of Oakland was also estopped to deny the effect of the ordinances of the town of Oakland of May 27, 1852, January 1, 1853, August 27, 1853, and of the deed of conveyance by the president of the board of trustees of the town, to grant and convey a vand title in fee simple in the lands in controversy to Carpentier, by the operation of the ordinances of the city of April 1 and 2, 1868, under the act of the legislature of March 21, 1868, authorizing the city to settle its controversies with Carpentier. And, further, that the confirmation of the ordinances and deed of the town of Oakland by the ordinances of the city of Oakland under the act of 1868, besides again validating the ordinances and the deed of conveyance of the town, operated as a grant by the city of Oakland and the state of California of the land, in fee simple sbsolute, to the Oakland Water-Front Company, as grantee or alienee of Carpentier.

On behalf of the city of Oakland, which was permitted to be heard at the bar by counsel, as amici curiae, it was insisted that the original grant of the water front to the town of Oakland had never been revoked; that the city was simply the town's successor in that regard; and that its rights thereunder, of whatever nature, had in no manner been affected by any exertion of the legislative power of the state. Admitting that a municipal corporation, as such, has no proprietary interest or riparian rights in tide lands situated within its corporate limits, the city claimed that title had passed to it from the state; that, regarded as holding in trust as a governmental agency, nevertheless it had an interest in the grant of individual advantage, and that, in any view, as an existing corporate entity, clothed with powers to be locally exercised, though for the general public good, it could not be divested thereof, in the absence of legislation to that end, by proceedings in which it was not allowed to participate as a litigant. But counsel for the state argued that whatever construction might be put upon the acts of the legislature relating to the city of Oakland, in connection with the water front, the state retained its sovereign power to preserve it for the use of the public free from obstruction, and could alone, by its attorney general, maintain the action; that the city was no more interested in the suit, directly or collaterally, than any administrative agency would be; that the grant by the act of May 4, 1852, was not in absolute ownership, but in trust for improvement; and that the grant was revoked by the repeal of the act of May 4, 1852, by section 19 of the act of March 25, 1854.

The prayer of the bill was, among other things, for a decree adjudging that the state could not make such a grant to the town; that the town of Oakland had no authority to grant or convey all its water front, or any part thereof; and that any control conferred ferred on the town by the act of 1852 was annulled by the act of 1854.

But it was said that, notwithstanding the breadth of the prayer, relief, if accorded, would be confined to the seven specified parcels, and that the decree would not bind those claiming interests in other parts of the water front, although, as to the particular parcels, defendant's lessors, the Central Pacific Railroad Company and the South Pacific Coast Railway Company, and its grantor, the Oakland Water-Front Company, all corporations and citizens of California, would be bound. Considered, however, in reference to the main contention of the state, n mely, the want of power to make the grant of the entire water front at all, the argument treated the water front as one and indivisible, for the purposes of the case. Indeed, it was insisted that even if it were conceded that the legislature could empower a municipality to deal with parts of its water front, in the interest of the public, by authorizing the construction of improvements to a certain extent, creating so far a proprietary interest in those thus authorized, yet that such action, as to portions of the grant, though sustainable if independent thereof, must be regarded as involved in the invalidity of the entire grant. Irrespective, then, of the extent, technically speaking, of the effect and operation of a decree as to the seven parcels, based on that ground, as res adjudicata, it is impossible to ignore the inquiry whether the interests of persons not before the court would be so affected, and the controversy so left open to future litigation, as would be inconsistent with equity and good conscience.

Without questioning in any way the authority of the attorney general of the state of California to institute this suit, it is admitted that it was not directed to be commenced by any act of the legislature of that state. If this court were of opinion that the city of Oakland occupied the position of the successor merely of the town of Oakland, that the grant of the water front to the town was as comprehensive as is claimed by defendant, and that it had not been annulled by any act of the legislature, but also held that the state had no power to make such grant, then the city of Oakland would be deprived of the rights it claims under the grant, not by the exercise of the legislative power of the state, as between it and its municipality, but by a judicial decree in a suit to which the city was not a party.

And if the proceedings which purported to vest title in the Oakland Water-Front Company were held ineffectual, for the same reason, then the latter company would find the foundation of its title swept away in a suit to which it also was not a party.

This is not an action of ejectment, or of trespass quare clausum, but a bill in equity; and the familiar rule in equity, as we have seen, is the doing of complete justice by deciding upon and settling the rights of all persons materially interested in the subject of the suit, to which end such persons should be made parties.

We are constrained to conclude that the city of Oakland and the Oakland Water-Front Company are so situated in respect of this litigation that we ought not to proceed in their absence.

When, heretofore, the city of Oakland applied to be made a co-complainant herein, the question of parties was necessarily suggested, although that application was such, and presented at such a stage of the case, that the court was neither called on to, nor could properly, deal with the general subject. As original jurisdiction only subsisted in that the state was party, and the moving party (eleventh amendment; Hans v. Louisiana, 134 U.S. 1, 10 Sup. Ct. 504), the motion of the city was denied. But we at the same time granted leave to the city to file briefs, accompanied by such maps and documents illustrative of its alleged title as it might be advised. The matter was thus left to the consideration of counsel as to whether indispensable or necessary parties had not been joined, while if the case was permitted to go to a hearing the court would then be able to dispose of it understandingly. We may add, that even if reference could be made to the forty-seventh rule in equity, by way of analogy, that rule does not apply when indispensable parties are lacking, and that in respect of necessary parties the cause may or many not be proceeded in without them, as the court may determine in the exercise of sound discretion. We have no hesitation in holding that when an original cause is pending in this court, to be disposed of here in the first instance, and in the exercise of an exception l jurisdiction, it does not comport with the gravity and finality which should characterize such an adjudication to proceed in the absence of parties whose rights would be in effect determined, even though they might not be technically bound in subsequent litigation in some other tribunal.

This brings us to consider what the effect would be if the Oakland Water-Front Company and the city of Oakland were made parties defendant. The case would then be between the state of California, on the one hand, and a citizen of another state and citizens of California, or the other. Could this court exercise original jurisdiction under such circumstances?

By the first paragraph of section 2 of article 3 of the constitution, it is provided that 'the judicial power shall extend to all cases, in law and equity, arising under this constitution, the laws of the United States, and treaties made, or which shall be made, under their authority; to all cases affecting ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls; * * * to controversies to which the United States shall be a party; to controversies between two or more states; between a state and citizens of another state; between citizens of different states * * *.' And by the second clause that 'in all cases affecting ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls, and those in which a state shall be party, the supreme court shall have original jurisdiction. In all the other cases before mentioned, the supreme court shall have appellate jurisdiction * * *.' The language, 'in all cases in which a state shall be party,' means in all the cases above enumerated in which a state shall be a party, and this is stated expressly when the clause speaks of the other cases where appellate jurisdiction is to be exercised. This second clause distributes the jurisdiction conferred in the previous one into original and appellate jurisdiction, but does not profess to confer any. The original jurisdiction depends solely on the character of the parties, and is confined to the cases in which are those enumerated parties, and those only. Among those in which jurisdiction must be exercised in the appellate form are cases arising under the constitution and laws of the United States. In one description of cases the character of the parties is everything, the nature of the case nothing. In the other description of cases the nature of the case is everything, the character of the parties nothing. Cohens v. Virginia, 6 Wheat. 264, 393.

By section 13 of the judiciary act of 1789 (1 Stat. 73), it was provided 'that the supreme court shall have exclusive jurisdiction of all controversies of a civil nature where a state is a party, except between a state and its citizens, and except also between a state and citizens of other states or aliens, in which latter case it shall have original but not exclusive jurisdiction. In all the other cases above mentioned the supreme court shall have appellate jurisdiction. * * *' This was carried forward into section 687 of the Revised Statutes. Under the constitution the cases in which a state may be a party are those between two or more states; between a state and citizens of another state; between a state and foreign states, citizens, or subjects; and between the United States and a state, as held in U.S. v. Texas, 143 U.S. 621, 12 Sup. Ct. 488. By the constitution, and according to the statute, this court has exclusive jurisdiction of all controversies of a civil nature where a state is a party, but not of controversies between a state and its own citizens, and original but not exclusive jurisdiction of controversies between a state and citizens of another state or aliens.

In Pennsylvania v. Quicksilver Co., 10 Wall. 553, it was ruled that a state might bring an original suit in this court against a citizen of another state, but not against one of its own, and it has never been held that the court could take original jurisdiction of controversies between a state and citizens of another state and its own citizens.

In Geo gia v. Brailsford, 2 Dall. 402, the state of Georgia filed a bill in equity in this court against Brailsford and others, copartners, who were aliens, and Spalding, a citizen of Georgia, against whom they had obtained judgment, to restrain payment thereof to Brailsford & Co., upon the ground that the bond on which judgment had been recovered belonged to the state, Spalding having refused to sue out a writ of error. The question of jurisdiction, as presented in the case at bar, does not appear to have been suggested. And the bill, without that question being considered, was finally dismissed because the remedy of complainant was at law. Id. 415. An action at law was brought accordingly against Brailsford and others, but not against Spalding, and resulted in a verdict for the defendant. 3 Dall. 1.

In Florida v. Anderson, 91 U.S. 667, 676, a bill in equity was filed by Florida against citizens of Georgia, and the marshal of the United States for the Northern district of Florida was made a formal defendant, by reason of having in his hands an execution at the suit of some of the other defendants. Jurisdiction was sustained on the ground that the marshal was merely a formal party, against whom no relief was sought.

In Wisconsin v. Duluth, 96 U.S. 379, the bill was originally filed against the city of Duluth, as a corporation of the state of Minnesota, and the Northern Pacific Railroad Company, a corporation organized under an act of congress, but was dismissed as to the latter before the final hearing, and no question of the jurisdiction of the court over the company was passed upon.

These and other cases were considered in Wisconsin v. Pelican Ins. Co., 127 U.S. 265, 8 Sup. Ct. 1370, in which it was held that this court had not original jurisdiction of an action by a state upon a judgment recovered by it in one of its own courts against a citizen or corporation of another state for a pecuniary penalty for a violation of its municipal law.

It was asserted in argument that, in respect of the clause extending the judicial power 'to controversies between citizens of different states,' it had been decided that it is within the power of congress to confer upon the circuit courts of the United States jurisdiction over controversies between a citizen of one state and a citizen of another state joined with a citizen of the plaintiff's state, and that the same rule of construction must be applied to controversies between 'a state and citizens of another state.'

But the decisions referred to relate to the removal of cases from state courts, and prior to the act of March 3, 1875 (18 Stat. 470, c. 137), the uniform ruling was that all of the necessary parties on one side of the suit should be citizens of different states from those on the other, while under that act it has been always held that, in order to justify the removal of a suit because of 'a controversy which is wholly between citizens of different states,' the whole subject-matter of the suit must be capable of being finally determined between them, and complete relief afforded as to the separate causes of action, without the presence of other persons originally made parties to the suit, and that when there was but one indivisible controversy between the plaintiff and the defendants the suit could not be removed by one of several plaintiffs or defendants. Whether the act of March 3, 1887, as corrected by the act of August 13, 1888 (24 Stat. 553, c. 373; 25 Stat. 434, c. 866), permits one of two or more defendants to remove any case which he could not have removed under earlier statutes is a question upon which no opinion has as yet been expressed by this court. Hanrick v. Hanrick, 153 U.S. 192, 14 Sup. Ct. 835; Merchants' Cotton-Press & Storage Co. v. Insurance Co. of North America, 151 U.S. 368, 382, 14 Sup. Ct. 367; Torrence v. Shedd, 144 U.S. 530, 12 Sup. Ct. 726.

It was also contended that the clause of the constitution extending the judicial power to controversies 'between citizens of different states' as intended to secure the citizen against local prejudice which might injure him if compelled to htigate his controversy with another in the tribunal of a state not his own, and that, for the attainment of this object, congress could have vested the circuit court with original jurisdiction, although some of the defendants were citizens of the same state with the plaintiff; that a single federal principle or ground of jurisdiction would be sufficient to the exercise of the power to confer such authority; and that the federal ingredient existed here in the necessity for an impartial tribunal in suits to which a state is a party; and that, moreover, the jurisdiction in the case at bar did not rest exclusively on a controversy between the state of California and a citizen of another state, but that it was one arising under the constitution, in that the effect claimed by the state for the act of March 25, 1854, involves the decision of the question whether that act was a law impairing the obligation of a contract, and therefore invalid, and also that a question under the same constitutional prohibition arises in regard to ordinances of the city of Oakland repealing the settlement ordinances of 1868, and all others purporting to dispose of the land in question.

We are aware of no case in which this court has announced the conclusion that power is conferred on congress to authorize suits against citizens of other states joined with citizens of the same state as that of which plaintiff is a citizen to be originally commenced in, or to be removed to, the circuit courts, as arising under the constitution on the ground indicated, where there is no separable controversy, or the citizens of plaintiff's state are indispensable parties; but we are not called on to consider that question, or whether any federal question is involved, since the original jurisdiction of this court in cases between a state and citizens of another state rests upon the character of the parties, and not at all upon the nature of the case.

If, by virtue of the subject-matter, a case comes within the judicial power of the United States, it does not follow that it comes within the original jurisdiction of this court. That jurisdiction does not obtain simply because a state is a party. Suits between a state and its own citizens are not included within it by the constitution, nor are controversies between citizens of different states.

It was held at an early day that congress could neither enlarge nor restrict the original jurisdiction of this court. Marbury v. Madison, 1 Cranch, 137, 173, 174. And no attempt to do so is suggested here. The jurisdiction is limited, and manifestly intended to be sparingly exercised, and should not be expanded by construction. What congress may have power to do in relation to the jurisdiction of circuit courts of the United States is not the question, but whether, where the constitution provides that this court shall have original jurisdiction in cases in which the state is plaintiff and citizens of another state defendants, that jurisdiction can be held to embrace a suit between a state and citizens of another state and of the same state. We are of opinion that our original jurisdiction cannot be thus extended, and that the bill must be dismissed for want of parties who should be joined, but cannot be without ousting the jurisdiction.

Bill dismissed.

Mr. Justice FIELD.

It is greatly to be regretted that the controversies between the state of California, the Southern Pacific Railway Company, and the city of Oakland cannot now, in view of the limited character of the original jurisdiction of the supreme court of the United States, be heard, determined, and settled by this court, for those controversies will be a fruitful source of distrubance and vexation to the interests of the state until they are thus determined and settled. But, from the views of the court expressed in its recent decision, proceedings for such determination and settlement must find their commencement in the courts of the state, and can only reach this court from their decision upon appeal or writ of error. And the sooner proceedings are taken to reach that disposition of the controversies the earlier will be their final settlement.

Notes