Felix Frankfurter

“ It is indulging in the merest fiction to suggest that the doctrine which for the first time we are asked to pronounce with our eyes open and in the light of full consideration, was so obviously and firmly part of the texture of our law that Congress in effect enacted it through its silence. There is no occasion here to regard the silence of Congress as more commanding than its own plainly and unmistakably spoken words. ”

“ Randolph explained that this clause 'will debar the district court from interfering with the judgments at law in the State courts; for if the plaintiff and defendant rely upon the State courts, as far as the judgment, they ought to continue there as they have begun. It is enough to split the same suit into one at law, and another in equity, without adding a further separation, by throwing the common law side of the question into the State courts, and the equity side into the federal courts'. ”

“ Strong equities do induce departure from the ordinary course where the purpose of the Congress appears plain. [22] It is hard to conceive of a statute, new or old, which has a meaning totally disassociated from supporting legislation or the body of adjudications within its ambit. This statute is in a posture much more favorable for the interpretation that it authorizes injunctions against relitigation in state courts than were the statutes construed in any of the cases cited in the preceding note for the interpretation given them. ”

“ Does a federal court have power to stay a proceeding in a state court simply because the claim in controversy has previously been adjudicated in the federal court?
No. 16. In 1935, Toucey brought suit against the New York Life Insurance Company in a Missouri state court. He alleged that in 1924 the company issued him a life insurance policy providing for monthly disability benefits and for the waiver of premiums during disability; that he became disabled in April, 1933, and that the defendant fraudulently concealed the disability provisions from him ”

“ The controlling issue in both the Toucey and the Phoenix Finance cases is the power of a federal court to protect those who have obtained its decrees against an effort to force relitigation of the same causes of action in the state courts. Questions of res judicata seem inapposite for the conclusion. ”

“ In 1933, the trustees, an Iowa corporation and a Wisconsin citizen, filed a bill of foreclosure in the federal District Court for the Northern District of Iowa. One of the Bridge Company's stockholders intervened as a party defendant, alleging that the bonds and mortgage were fraudulent and without consideration. Upon his motion, the Phoenix Finance Corporation, a Delaware corporation which held almost 90% of the bonds, was joined as a plaintiff. ”

“ Left to the four corners of the act, for lack of legislative materials, for deductions as to the purpose and intention of the enacting Congress, and faced with the absolute prohibition of its words, it might well be concluded that the intention was to bar an injunction running against the court itself as distinguished from the parties. [14] The fact that courts of equity had long exercised the power to entertain bills to carry their decrees into execution by injunction against the parties adds strength to such a supposition. ”

“ No articles in periodicals suggest the propriety or desirability of so positive a change, except a single query as to the logic of the relitigation development. [29] Though the Judicial Code received careful analysis before adoption, [30] no language was inserted to disavow the settled construction of the reenacted section. Dial v. Reynolds, 96 U.S. 340, 24 L.Ed. 644, said by the Court to be a 'relitigation' case, did not involve a decree. In a federal suit to quiet title an injunction was sought to forbid a state action in ejectment. ”

“ Inasmuch, however, as the cases hereafter cited concern rights arising from claims already adjudicated, and since, in the cases where a res was at one time involved, the property was no longer in the possession of the court issuing the injunction, the theory of preventing an unseemly clash over physical possession has no basis. The principle for which the following authorities stand is that a court has the right to execute its decrees to avoid relitigation and forced reliance on res judicata. ”

“ Woolworth, 150 U.S. 401, 14 S.Ct. 136, 37 L.Ed. 1123, is erroneously regarded as illustrating a 'relitigation' exception to § 265. The case holds merely that courts of equity have jurisdiction to 'effectuate their own decrees by injunctions or writs of assistance, in order to avoid the relitigation of questions once settled between the same parties'. 150 U.S. at pages 411, 412, 14 S.Ct. at pages 138, 139, 37 L.Ed. 1123. The Court did not uphold a federal injunction against a state suit to relitigate a claim already settled by a previous federal decree-no such state suit had been brought. ”

“ The Iowa-Wisconsin Bridge Company, a Delaware corporation, in 1932 executed a deed of trust conveying all of its property, principally a bridge across the Mississippi River between Iowa and Wisconsin, to secure a $200,000 bond issue. ”

“ Interpleader. The Interpleader Act of 1926, 44 Stat. 416, amended the 1917 Interpleader Act, 39 Stat. 929, to provide as follows: 'Notwithstanding any provision of the Judicial Code to the contrary, said (district) court shall have power to issue its process for all such claimants and to issue an order of injunction against each of them, enjoining them from instituting or prosecuting any suit or proceeding in any State court or in any other Federal court * * *.' See Dugas v. ”

“ Whatever justification there may be for turning past error into law when reasonable expectations would thereby be defeated, no such justification can be urged on behalf of a procedural doctrine in the distribution of judicial power between federal and state courts. It denies reality to suggest that litigants have shaped their conduct in reliance upon some loose talk in past decisions in the application of § 265 or, more concretely, upon erroneous implications drawn from Looney v. ”

“ The history of this provision in the Judiciary Act of 1793 is not fully known. We know that on December 31, 1790, Attorney General Edmund Randolph reported to the House of Representatives on desirable changes in the Judiciary Act of 1789. Am.State Papers, Misc., vol. 1, No. 17, pp. 21-36. ”

“ Phoenix denied all allegations of fraud.
The case was tried before a master, whose modified conclusions were adopted by the court. Finding that the mortgage and bonds were fraudulently issued and that almost all the bonds were without consideration, the court denied foreclosure. The Circuit Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit affirmed, First Trust & Savings Bank v. Iowa-Wisconsin Bridge Co., 98 F.2d 416, and certiorari was denied Phoenix Finance Corp. v. Iowa-Wisconsin Bridge Co., 305 U.S. 650, 59 S.Ct. ”

“ Central Trust Co., 4 Cir., 98 F. 489; Chicago, R.I. & P.R. Co. v. St. Joseph Union Depot Co., C.C., 92 F. 22; State Trust Co. v. Kansas City, P. & G.R. Co., C.C., 110 F. 10.↑ Dietzsch v. Huidekoper, 103 U.S. 494, 498, 26 L.Ed. 497.↑ Cf. Princess Lida v. Thompson, 305 U.S. 456, 466, 59 S.Ct. 275, 280, 83 L.Ed. 285.↑ E.g., In re Chiles, 22 Wall. 157, 166, 22 L.Ed. 819; Sharon v. Terry, C.C., 36 F. 337, 345, 1 L.R.A. 572.↑ Cf. Southern Railway Co. v. ”