the jurisdictional amount], because [such aggregation] . . . is necessarily only applicable to those class actions in which several claimants to a fund are joined as plaintiffs asserting common and undivided rights therein." 21 Appellees assert no common and undivided rights in any fund 22 or property; 23 "the amount payable to each [by the Society] depends upon his contract alone." 24 Neither does appellees' bill seek, as would the traditional class or representative bill in equity, to protect group rights all claimed under and traceable to a single decree,25 or rights "which . . . [no one plaintiff] can enforce in the absence of the" others because derived from a single security instrument.26 In this proceeding, all that members of the Society have in common is their alleged right to violate with impunity the Florida statute against price fixing. Unless opposition to and violation of the statute can be their bond of unity, appellees have “separate and distinct demands. . . [united] for convenience and economy in a single suit, [and] it is essential that the demand of each be of the requisite jurisdictional amount." 27

...
..

Permissible joinder of many plaintiffs as a matter of convenience and economy is not a means of enlarging the jurisdiction of the District Court. Rule 38, under which this class or representative suit was brought, did

21 Eberhard v. Northwestern Mutual Life Ins. Co., 241 F. 353, 356, referred to with apparent approval in Lion Bonding Co. v. Karatz, supra.

Smith v. Swormstedt, 16 How. 288.

"Beatty v. Kurtz, 2 Pet. 566.

24 Eberhard case, supra, 356.

Shields v. Thomas, 17 How. 3, but see Chapman v. Handley, 151 U. S. 443.

20 Troy Bank v. Whitehead & Co., 222 U. S. 39, 41.

" Id. 40.

not, in fact could not, extend that jurisdiction which depends solely upon Acts of Congress.2

29

28

A common desire to disregard a state law cannot serve as a common and undivided interest for purposes of federal jurisdiction; 20 otherwise, all who oppose such a law can aggregate the values of their alleged individual rights so as to disregard the law, in order that they may escape the courts of a State and bring its law before a federal court. And the fact that a state law inflicts pecuniary loss upon members of a non-profit association because of their membership does not permit aggregation of the members' pecuniary interests as a basis for attack upon the law in a federal court by some members "on behalf and with the authority of all." 30 Here, the individual members have made no showing of what they as indiIviduals have at stake or of what all the members as a class stand to lose by virtue of the Florida law.

The enjoined state officials have only the duty to prosecute appellees if they continue to fix prices (i. e., to issue licenses) through monopolistic combinations, and these officials have expressly disavowed any intention to do more. Appellees are left free to form such combinations as they please in Florida for the purpose of protecting against copyright infringements. They are here deprived by the Florida statute only of the right to com

Alaska Packers Assn. v. Pillsbury, 301 U. S. 174, 177; Christopher v. Brusselback, 302 U. S. 500, 505; see, KVOS, Inc. v. Associated Press, 299 U. S. 269, 279.

29

Pope v. Blanton, 10 F. Supp. 15, 18, dismissed per curiam for lack of requisite jurisdictional amount in controversy, 299 U. S. 521; Gavica v. Donaugh, 93 F. 2d 173.

30

Rogers v. Hennepin County, 239 U. S. 621. The complaint appears in the original records of this Court, No. 411, Oct. Term 1915. Cf., Robbins v. Western Auto Ins. Co., 4 F. 2d 249, cert. den., 268 U. S. 698; Woods v. Thompson, 14 F. 2d 951, and Illinois Bankers' Life Assn. v. Farris, 21 F. 2d 1014, cert. den., 276 U. S. 621.

81

"Cf., Carroll v. Greenwich Ins. Co., supra, 412.

bine to fix prices, and the value of that right must determine the amount in controversy.32 That right was the object which appellees' bill for injunction sought to protect from allegedly unconstitutional interference.33 Yet, there is no evidence at all in the record from which even an inference can be drawn as to the amount, if any, individual appellees or other members might lose in Florida by selling or licensing their copyrighted articles individually (which the law permits) instead of fixing prices by monopolistic combination (which the law prohibits). No showing was made that appellees ever have made or ever will make any profit from the operations of the Society in Florida. As stated by the majority opinion, the record discloses that the business of the Society in the entire United States and sixteen foreign countries is a profitable one. But we cannot assume from this that its Florida operations are as a unit profitable. In fact, the record shows only that the entire Society had sixty thousand dollars worth of contracts in Florida in 1936. We are not told what ratable share of this sixty thousand dollars would come to any individual in the division of the entire amount among the forty-five thousand odd members affiliated with the Society (in America and abroad). Each individual member's gross income from Florida might be less than $1.50 per year.

The loss of a right to an annual gross income of $1.50 cannot amount to the loss of a right valued at ten thousand dollars as appellees allege-on the theory that it would cost ten thousand dollars to collect the $1.50 income individually. And it is, of course, possible that if the Society in fact has no net income from Florida but operates there at a loss, each member's ratable share of

32

Scott v. Donald, 165 U. S. 107, 114, 115.

* Cf., Glenwood Light & W. Co. v. Mutual Light Co., 239 U. S. 121, 125, 126; KVOS, Inc. v. Associated Press, 299 U. S. 269, 277.

income from the Society will actually be increased when the unprofitable Florida operations cease because of the statute. Measuring the amount in controversy on the above theory, jurisdiction might be obtained by a federal court to enforce rights of a value far less than the jurisdictional $3,000 required by Congress. For illustration, a statute might prohibit parking of automobiles on certain city streets; an automobile owner assailing the law might be admitted to the jurisdiction of the federal court by alleging that it would cost him more than three thousand - dollars to purchase a parking lot in which to park off the streets of the prohibited area. He would thus "comply" with the statute and abandon the streets in obedience to it. I do not believe that jurisdiction of a federal court can be rested on measurements of the imagined cost of what a complainant conceivably could but certainly would never do as an alternative to action forbidden by statute.

The statutory monetary standard is precise and the amount in controversy therefore cannot be conjectural. "It is impossible to foresee into what mazes of speculation and conjecture we may not be led by a departure from the simplicity of the statutory provision.

"Accordingly this Court has uniformly been strict to adhere to and enforce it." 35

"Cost of compliance" with an assailed legislative act may be considered the measure of the amount in controversy when a right of complainant is regulated, or where he is required to take affirmative action. Cf., Kroger Grocery Co. v. Lutz, 299 U. S. 300, 301; McNutt v. General Motors Acceptance Corp., 298 U. S. 178, 181. But appellees have not been required to take any affirmative steps, nor are they permitted to fix prices on condition that they "comply" with regulations. The fixing of prices through combinations has been prohibited. Obviously, appellees cannot be prohibited from doing that which they may also do by "complying" with the statute. Elgin v. Marshall, 106 U. S. 578, 581.

85

Without proof of the amount each appellee or member has in issue, how can the "aggregate amount" be fixed at any figure?

Rigid enforcement of the jurisdictional requirement will limit the interference of federal courts in state legislation and will accord with the policy of Congress in narrowing the jurisdiction of federal courts by successive increases in the jurisdictional amount.3" "The policy of the statute calls for its strict construction." 37 Since no individual complainant has established that he has the statutory jurisdictional amount in controversy, to rest jurisdiction of a federal court on no more than the unified desire of many complainants to violate a state statute prohibiting monopolistic price fixing, does constitute a "novel, if not unique," and "grave" judicial departure from the jurisdictional requirement fixed by Congress.

Third. The otherwise complete suspension of Florida's law was limited only by the condition that appellees make bond of five thousand dollars payable to the Attorney General of Florida and the District Attorneys of the State. Manifestly, these officials have no individual interest in the monopoly prohibited by the Florida law. The major injuries accruing from the suspension of the law will not be inflicted upon them, but upon the people of Florida who are required to pay monopoly prices while the law remains enjoined. Thus, while the law is suspended, these non-resident appellees can carry on a monopolistic business in Florida contrary to its prohibitions, and the people of Florida who must pay monopoly prices are granted no protection. We have recently declared the governing principle that "it is the duty of a court of equity granting injunctive relief to do so upon conditions that will protect all-including the public-whose inter

36

See Healy v. Ratta, 292 U. S. 263, 270.