Wells Fargo & Co. v. Taylor

Citations

• 254 U.S. 175
• 41 S. Ct. 93
• 65 L. Ed. 205
• 1920 U.S. LEXIS 1181

Syllabus

<p>1. Where .the District Court sustains a bill in equity against a demurrer and upon final hearing renders a decree for the plaintiff, a reversal ordered by the Circuit Court of Appeals purely because of an amendable deficiency of the bill and unaccompanied by any direction that the bill be dismissed or implication forbidding its amendment, leaves the District Court free to permit the amendment; and the fact that the Circuit Court of Appeals, in denying a petition .for rehearing, refused to direct the allowance of the amendment signifies merely that it saw no occasion to control, the District Court’s discretion in the matter. P.181.</p> <p>2. The provisión of the Judicial Code (§ 265, formerly Rev. Stats., § 720) forbidding any court of the United States to grant an injunction to stay proceedings in any court of a State, is intended to give effect to the principle of comity and to prevent unseemly interference with the orderly disposal of litigation in the state courts, but not to hamper the federal courts in the discharge of duties otherwise plainly cast upon them by the Constitution and by the laws of Congress. P. 182.</p> <p>3. The inhibition does not forbid the federal courts to enjoin a party from collecting a judgment obtained in a state court where its enforcement would be contrary to recognized principles of equity' and the standards of good conscience. P. 183. See headnote 6, infra.</p> <p>4. An arrangement between a railroad company and an express company whereby, in consideration of stipulated payments, the former grants to the latter the exclusive privilege of conducting the express business over its line, and transports, by cars provided by it and attached to its passenger trains, the express matter and accompanying messengers of the latter, besides furnishing room in its stations for the express company’s use, and under which the latter assumes ail risk of damage to its property and express matter so transported and of injury to its agents and employe