Jurisdiction of Three Judge District Court A three judge district court is required for the granting of "An interlocutory or permanent injunction restraining the enforcement, operation or execution of any State statute by restraining the action of any officer of such State". 28 U.S.C.A. § 2281. According to the complaint and the answers, the separation of the races on the buses is required both by State statutes and by City ordinances. Admittedly, therefore, State statutes are involved. The defendants claim, however, that the statutes and ordinances are being enforced by municipal officers only, and not by "any officer of such State". 28 U.S. C.A. § 2281, supra. If the members of the Alabama Public Service Commission are proper parties defendant, a matter to be hereinafter discussed, then it must be conceded that the objection to the jurisdiction of the three judge district court fails. Irrespective of the answer to that question, however, we think that the three judge district court has jurisdiction. The State statutes, footnote 1, supra, vest in the defendant bus drivers the authority to enforce, and, notwithstanding their insistence to the contrary, we think that when so engaged the bus drivers clearly are officers of the State. [2-4] The City Commissioners have important duties to perform in connection with the enforcement, operation, and execution of State statutes. Under Alabama law, a municipal corporation "is essentially a public agency, a local unit of gov 9. Spielman Motor Sales Co. v. Dodge, 295 U.S. 89, 55 S.Ct. 678, 680, 79 L.Ed. 1322; Rorick v. Board of Commissioners, 307 U.S. 208, 212, 59 S.Ct. 808, 83 L.Ed. 1242; City of Cleveland v. United States, 323 U.S. 329, 332, 65 S.Ct. 280, 89 L.Ed. 274; Watch Tower Bible & Tract Society v. City of Bristol, D.C.Conn., 24 F. Supp. 57, affirmed 305 U.S. 572, 59 S.Ct. 246, 83 L.Ed. 361; Suncrest Lumber Co. v. North Carolina Park Commission, 4 Cir., 29 F.2d 823. 10. If, however, the proceedings were not such as to require the presence of three judges, the judgment would still be valid 142 F.Supp.-45% ernment, invested with a portion of the sovereign power of the state, for the benefit of its inhabitants." Cooper v. Town of Valley Head, 212 Ala. 125, 101 So. 874, 875. The defendant Chief of Police has authority to make arrests for violations of State statutes, 1940 Code of Alabama, Title 15, § 152. The City Recorder in criminal cases has the power of an exofficio justice of the peace. 1940 Code of Alabama, Title 37, § 585. All of the City officials admit in their answers that they are enforcing the State statutes. An official, though localized by his geographic activities and the mode of his selection, is performing a State function when he enforces a statute which "embodies a policy of state-wide concern". Very clearly, the three judge district court has jurisdiction.10 Comity V. [5] The defendants, relying on Alabama Public Service Commission Southern Railway Co., 341 U.S. 341, 71 S.Ct. 762, 95 L.Ed. 1002, insist that even if the Federal court has jurisdiction, it should, in its discretion as a court of equity, and for reasons of comity, decline to exercise such jurisdiction until the State courts have ruled on the construction and validity of the statutes and ordi nances. The short answer is that doctrine has no application where the plaintiffs complain that they are being deprived of constitutional civil rights, for the protection of which the Federal courts have a responsibility as heavy as that which rests on the State courts."1 as the act of the court of one judge, since that judge concurs and joins in the rendition of the judgment. Public Service Commission v. Brasher Freight Lines, Inc., 312 U.S. 621, 626, 61 S.Ct. 784, 85 L.Ed. 1083; O'Malley v. U. S., 8 Cir., 128 F.2d 676, 687. II. Lane v. Wilson, 307 U.S. 268, 274, 50 S.Ct. 872, 83 L.Ed. 1281; Mitchell v. Wright, 5 Cir., 154 F.2d 924, 926; Romero v. Weakley, 9 Cir., 226 F.2d 399, 402: Wilson v. Beebe, D.C.Del., 99 F. Supp. 418, 420. Cf. Doud v. Hodge, 350 U.S. 485, 487, 76 S.Ct. 491. Parties [6] Without repeating the averments of the complaint we hold that they are clearly sufficient to constitute this a class action on behalf of the four individual plaintiffs and of all other Negro citizens similarly situated. See Rule 23(a), F.R. C.P. [7,8] It was probably not necessary for the plaintiffs to sue the members of the Board of Commissioners and the Chief of Police, not only as such but also individually, when no relief is sought against them by way of damages. If, however, the plaintiffs' contentions are sustained, these defendants are acting not only in their capacities as municipal officers, but also as officers of the State; and, further, are possibly transcending the scope of their office in any capacity when they compel obedience to statutes and ordinances attacked as unconstitutional. Moreover, in issuing and enforcing an injunction, a court of equity acts in personam. If, as we trust will be true, no relief becomes necessary against any of them in their individual capacities, their joinder as individuals will prove harmless. The motion to strike said parties in their individual capacities is therefore denied. [9] The members of the Alabama Public Service Commission object to their joinder as parties defendant and move to dismiss the action as against them because they say that neither they nor the Commission have any jurisdiction over the buses which are being operated within the City of Montgomery and its police jurisdiction.12 In the Act approved July 6, 1945, General Acts of Alabama 1945, p. 731, now carried into the pocket supplement of the 1940 Code of Alabama as Title 48, § 301 (31a), see footnote 1, supra, appears the 12. Compare Code of Alabama 1940, Title 48, 239 with 2 of the Alabama Motor Carrier Act of 1939 carried into the pocket supplement of the Alabama Code as Title 48, § 301(2). following significant paragraph: “The provisions of this section shall be administered and enforced by the Alabama public service commission in the manner in which provisions of the Alabama Motor Carrier Act of 1939 are administered and enforced." Testifying as a witness, the President of the Alabama Public Service Commission admitted that on April 24, 1956, he sent a telegram to the National City Lines of Chicago, of which the Montgomery City Lines, Inc., is a subsidiary, reading as follows: "As President of the Alabama Public Service Commission, elected by the people of Alabama, sworn to uphold the segregation laws of this state, which include all forms of public transportation, I hereby defy ruling handed down by the United States Supreme Court ordering desegregation on public carriers. Alabama state law requiring segregation of the races on buses still stands. All public carriers in Alabama are hereby directed to strictly adhere to all present existing segregation laws in our state or suffer the consequences. "/s/ C. C. (Jack) Owen, President Alabama Public Service" That telegram was sent without the knowledge or concurrence of the other two Commissioners. Since the 1945 Act expressly imposes on the Alabama Public Service Commission the duty of administering and enforcing its requirements as to segregation of the races, and since the President of the Commission has acted so positively and affirmatively to that end, the motion to dismiss the action as against the members of the Alabama Public Service Commission should be and the same is hereby denied.13 13. If, in law and fact, the Commission has no jurisdiction over the operation of the buses here involved, the retention of the members of the Commission as parties defendant will be harmless to them, even if erroneous. Validity of Separate But Equal Doctrine as Applied to Intrastate Transportation The ultimate question is whether the statutes and ordinances requiring the segregation of the white and colored races on the common carrier motor buses in the City of Montgomery and its police jurisdiction are unconstitutional and invalid. Unless prohibited by the Constitution of the United States, the power to require such segregation is reserved to the States or to the people.-See Tenth Amendment. [10] In their private affairs, in the conduct of their private businesses, it is clear that the people themselves have the liberty to select their own associates and the persons with whom they will do business, unimpaired by the Fourteenth Amendment. The Civil Rights Cases, 109 U.S. 3, 3 S.Ct. 18, 27 L.Ed. 835. Indeed, we think that such liberty is guaranteed by the due process clause of that Amendment. [11] There is, however, a difference, a constitutional difference, between voluntary adherence to custom and the perpetuation and enforcement of that custom by law. Shelley v. Kraemer, 334 U.S. 1, 13, 68 S.Ct. 836, 92 L.Ed. 1161. The Fourteenth Amendment provides that "No State shall deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." * [12, 13] Those provisions do not interfere with the police power of the States so long as the state laws operate alike upon all persons and property similarly situated. Barbier v. Connolly, 113 U.S. 27, 31, 32, 5 S.Ct. 357, 28 L.Ed. 923. That Amendment "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." Marchant v. Pennsylvania Railroad Co., 153 U.S. 380, 390, 14 S.Ct. 894, 897, 38 L.Ed. 751. The equal protection clause requires equality of treat ment before the law for all persons without regard to race or color. See e. g. Strauder v. West Virginia, 100 U.S. 303, 25 L.Ed. 664; Buchanan v. Warley, 245 U.S. 60, 38 S.Ct. 16, 62 L.Ed. 149; Gong Lum v. Rice, 275 U.S. 78, 48 S.Ct. 91, 72 L.Ed. 172; Shelley v. Kraemer, 334 U.S. 1, 68 S.Ct. 836, 92 L.Ed. 1161. In Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U.S. 537, 16 S.Ct. 1138, 41 L.Ed. 256, decided in 1896, the Supreme Court held as to intrastate commerce that a Louisiana statute, LSA-R.S. 45:528 et seq., requiring railway companies to provide equal but separate accommodations for the white and colored races was not in conflict with the provisions of the Fourteenth Amendment. That holding was repeatedly followed in later cases. Chesapeake & Ohio Ry. Co. v. Kentucky, 1900, 179 U.S. 388, 21 S.Ct. 101, 45 L.Ed. 244; Chiles v. Chesapeake & Ohio Ry. Co., 1910, 218 U.S. 71, 30 S.Ct. 667, 54 L.Ed. 936; McCabe v. Atchison, T. & S. F. Ry. Co., 1914, 235 U.S. 151, 35 S.Ct. 69, 59 L.Ed. 169. In Morgan v. Virginia, 1946, 328 U.S. 373, 66 S.Ct. 1050, 90 L.Ed. 1317, the Court held that a state statute requiring segregated seats for Negro passengers on interstate buses was an unconstitu tional burden of interstate commerce. In Henderson v. United States, 1950, 339 U.S. 816, 70 S.Ct. 843, 94 L.Ed. 1302, the Court held that interstate railroad regulations and practices assigning a separate table in a dining car to Negroes contravened the Interstate Commerce Act, 49 U.S.C.A. § 1 et seq. The Court referred to the statutory right as "a fundamental right of equality of treatment," and cited cases construing the Fourteenth Amendment, see 339 U.S. 825, 70 S.Ct. 847, though the Court did not reach the constitutional question. The reasoning applied was similar to that employed in Shelley v. Kraemer, 334 U.S. 1, 22, 68 S.Ct. 836, 92 L.Ed. 1161, where the Court recognized that the underlying philosophy of the Fourteenth Amendment is the equality before the law of each individual. In the field of college education, beginning in 1938 and continuing to the pres 693, 98 L.Ed. 884, the separate but equal doctrine was repudiated in the area where it first developed, i. e., in the field of public education. On the same day the Supreme Court made clear that its ruling was not limited to that field when it remanded "for consideration in the light of the Segregation Cases and conditions that now prevail" a case involving the rights of Negroes to use the recreational facilities of city parks. Muir v. Louisville Park Theatrical Association, 1954, 347 U.S. 971, 74 S.Ct. 783, 98 L.Ed. 1112. ent time, the Court has first weakened v. Sharpe, 1954, 347 U.S. 497, 74 S.Ct. the vitality of, and has then destroyed, the separate but equal concept. State of Missouri ex rel. Gaines v. Canada, 1938, 305 U.S. 337, 59 S.Ct. 232, 83 L.Ed. 208; Sipuel v. Board of Regents of University of Oklahoma, 1948, 332 U.S. 631, 68 S.Ct. 299, 92 L.Ed. 247; Fisher v. Hurst, 1948, 333 U.S. 147, 68 S.Ct. 389, 92 L.Ed. 604; Sweatt v. Painter, 1950, 339 U.S. 629, 70 S.Ct. 848, 94 L.Ed. 1114; McLaurin v. Oklahoma State Regents, 1950, 339 U.S. 637, 70 S.Ct. 851, 94 L.Ed. 1149; State of Florida ex rel. Hawkins v. Board of Control of Florida, 1954, 347 U.S. 971, 74 S.Ct. 783, 98 L.Ed. 1112; Tureaud v. Board of Supervisors of Louisiana State University, 1954, 347 U.S. 971, 74 S.Ct. 784, 98 L.Ed. 1112; Lucy v. Adams, 1955, 350 U.S. 1, 76 S.Ct. 33; State of Florida ex rel. Hawkins v. Board of Control, 350 U.S. 413, 76 S.Ct. 464; Board of Trustees of University of North Carolina v. Frasier, 1956, 350 U.S. 979, 76 S.Ct. 467. The separate but equal concept had its birth prior to the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment in the decision of a Massachusetts State court relating to public schools. Roberts v. City of Boston, 1849, 5 Cush. 198, 59 Mass. 198. The doctrine of that case was followed in Plessy v. Ferguson, supra. In the School Segregation Cases, Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, 1954, 347 U.S. 483, 74 S.Ct. 686, 98 L.Ed. 873 and Bolling 14. This principle is aptly illustrated by the difference with which the Fourth Circuit treated Plessy v. Ferguson as a binding precedent in 1950, Boyer v. Garrett, 183 F.2d 582 and in 1955, Flemming v. South Carolina Electric & Gas Co., 224 F.2d 752. In their change of views that distinguished Court headed by Chief Judge Parker was governed by the rule best stated by Judge Parker himself, speaking for a three judge district court in Barnette v. West Virginia State Board of Education, D.C., 47 F.Supp. 251, 252253: "Ordinarily we would feel constrained to follow an unreversed decision of the Supreme Court of the United States, whether we agreed with it or not. It is true that decisions are but evidences of the law and not the law itself; but the Later the Fourth Circuit expressly repudiated the separate but equal doctrine as applied to recreational centers. Dawson v. Mayor and City Council of Baltimore, 4 Cir., 220 F.2d 386, 387. Its judgment was affirmed by the Supreme Court, 350 U.S. 877, 76 S.Ct. 133. The doctrine has further been repudiated in holdings that the cities of Atlanta and of Miami cannot meet the test by furnishing the facilities of their municipal golf courses to Negroes on a segregated basis. Rice v. Arnold, 340 U.S. 848, 71 S.Ct. 77, 95 L.Ed. 621; Holmes v. City of Atlanta, 350 U.S. 879, 76 S.Ct. 141. [14, 15] Even a statute can be repealed by implication. A fortiori, a judicial decision, which is simply evidence of the law and not the law itself, may be so impaired by later decisions as no longer to furnish any reliable evidence.14 decisions of the Supreme Court must be accepted by the lower courts as binding upon them if any orderly administration of justice is to be attained. The developments with respect to the Gobitis case [Minersville School District v. Gobitis, 310 U.S. 586, 60 S.Ct. 1010, 84 L.Ed. 1375) however, are such that we do not feel that it is incumbent upon us to accept it as binding authority. Of the seven justices now members of the Supreme Court who participated in that decision, four have given public expression to the view that it is unsound, the present Chief Justice in his dissenting opinion rendered therein and three other justices in a special dissenting opinion in Jones v. City of Opelika, 316 U.S. 584, 62 S.Ct. 1231, 1251, 86 L.Ed. 1691. The majority of the court in Jones v. City of Opelika, more We cannot in good conscience perform our duty as judges by blindly following the precedent of Plessy v. Ferguson, supra, when our study leaves us in complete agreement with the Fourth Circuit's opinion 15 in Flemming v. South Carolina Electric & Gas Co., 224 F.2d 752, appeal dismissed April 23, 1956, 351 U.S. 901, 76 S.Ct. 692, that the separate but equal doctrine can no longer be safely followed as a correct statement of the law. In fact, we think that Plessy v. Ferguson has been impliedly, though not explicitly, overruled, and that, under the later decisions, there is now no rational basis upon which the separate but equal doctrine can be validly applied to public carrier transportation within the City of Montgomery and its police jurisdiction. The application of that doctrine cannot be justified as a proper execution of the state police power.10 16 [16] We hold that the statutes and ordinances requiring segregation of the over, thought it worth while to distinguish the decision in the Gobitis case, instead of relying upon it as supporting authority. Under such circumstances and believing, as we do, that the flag salute here required is violative of religious liberty when required of persons holding the religious views of plaintiffs, we feel that we would be recreant to our duty as judges, if through a blind following of a decision which the Supreme Court itself has thus impaired as an authority, we should deny protection to rights which we regard as among the most sacred of those protected by constitutional guaranties." To like effect is the opinion of Judge Frank for the Second Circuit in Perkins v. Endicott Johnson Corporation, 128 F. 2d 208, 217-218: "We would stultify ourselves and unnecessarily burden the Supreme Court if-adhering to the dogma, obviously fictional to any reader of its history, that alterations in that court's principles of decision never occur unless recorded in explicit statements that earlier decisions are overruled-we stubbornly and literally followed decisions which have been, but not too ostentatiously, modified. "The life of the law,' as Mr. Justice Holmes said, has been experience.' Legal doctrines, as first enunciated, often prove to be inadequate under the impact of en white and colored races on the motor buses of a common carrier of passengers in the City of Montgomery and its police jurisdiction violate the due process and equal protection of the law clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. This holding does not, however, become effective until the entry of formal judgment. The parties are requested to submit to the Court in writing within two weeks from the date of this opinion their views as to the form of judgment to be entered, and as to whether such judgment should be stayed in the event of an appeal. LYNNE, District Judge (dissenting). Only a profound, philosophical disagreement with the ultimate conclusion of the majority "that the separate but equal doctrine can no longer be safely followed as a correct statement of the law" would prompt this, my first dissent. But I should consider myself recreant both to conscience and duty in withhold suing experience in their practical application. And when a lower court perceives a pronounced new doctrinal trend in Supreme Court decisions, it is its duty, cautiously to be sure, to follow not to resist it." See also United States v. Girouard, 1 Cir., 149 F.2d 760, 765, dissenting opinion of Judge Woodbury, reversed 328 U.S. 61, 66 S.Ct. 826, 90 L. Ed. 1084; New England Mutual Life Ins. Co. v. Welch, 1 Cir., 153 F.2d 260, 262; Picard v. United Aircraft Corp., 2 Cir., 128 F.2d 632, 636; opinion by Judge Learned Hand; Spector Motor Service v. Walsh, 2 Cir., 139 F.2d 809, 814, opinion by Circuit Judge Clark; Gardella v. Chandler, 2 Cir., 172 F.2d 402, 409; United States v. Ullmann, 2 Cir., 221 F.2d 760, 762; "The Attitude of Lower Courts to Changing Precedents", 50 Yale L.J. 1448. 15. That opinion is entitled to great respect, especially in view of the distinction and learning of the judges who compose that Court, Circuit Judges Parker, Soper and Dobie. 16. Shelley v. Kraemer, 334 U.S. 1, 21, 68 S.Ct. 836, 92 L.Ed. 1161: Morgan v. Virginia, 328 U.S. 373, 380, 66 S.Ct. 1050, 90 L.Ed. 1317; Buchanan v. Warley, 245 U.S. 60, 74, 38 S.Ct. 16, 62 L Ed. 149; City of Birmingham v. Monk, 5 Cir., 185 F.2d 859, 862. |