preventing the plaintiff, or any other person, from importing, holding, possessing, and using the said liquors so imported.

After argument, a preliminary injunction was issued on May 9, 1895. 67 Fed. 854. The plaintiff had leave to amend his bill by adding the averment that the other said persons on behalf of whom he sues, to wit, importers for their own use and consumers in the state of South Carolina of such ales, wines, and spirituous liquors as aforesaid, are too numerous to make parties complainant to the bill, and that some of them are unknown.

Subsequently, the defendants pleaded to the jurisdiction of the court: (1) Because the suit is, in effect, a suit against the state; (2) because the bill presents no question arising under the constitution or laws of the United States; (3) because the bill presents no case upon which the jurisdiction of a court of equity can be founded, there being plain and adequate remedies at law for the injuries complained of; and (4) because plaintiff hath not made or stated in his bill a case to entitle him to the relief prayed for. They also answered, admitting some, and denying others, of the allegations of the bill. A replication was filed. Afterwards an agreed statement of facts was filed. Among the facts so stated was the fact that, in the several actions at law mentioned in the bill, final judgments against the defendants had upon trial been obtained; that notwithstanding said recoveries, and notwithstanding the pendency of this bill, other seizures of wines and liquors imported by the plaintiff and by other persons named had been made; that the plaintiff testified that he intends to import for his own use, from time to time, as he may need the same, ales, wines, and liquors, the products of other states, of the value exceeding $2,000, which are threatened to be seized by the state constables, claiming to act under the dispensary law; that the value of the right of importation of ales, wines, and other liquors, products of other states and countries, is of the value of $2,000 and upward; that the difference in the price to the consumer, like the plaintiff, of such liquor bought at the state dispensary of South Carolina, and that bought out of the state, is about 50 to 75 per cent. in favor of imported liquors; that the defendants, state constables, who have made the seizures, are all insolvent and financially irresponsible, except Chief Constable Holley, who had not personally made any seizure of plaintiff's liquors, except the first seizure.

The case came on to be heard on the pleadings and the agreed statement of facts, and thereupon the injunction theretofore granted was made perpetual. An assignment of errors was filed, and an appeal was allowed to this court.

Wm. A. Barber, for appellants. J. P. Kennedy Bryan, for appellee.

Mr. Justice SHIRAS, after stating the facts in the foregoing language, delivered the opinion of the court.

Having, in the cases at law, in which the opinion has just been delivered, and for reasons therein given, reached the conclusion that the dispensary law of South Carolina, approved January 2, 1895, is so far unconstitutional and void that this plaintiff can main-♫ tain an action at law against these defendants for seizing his liquors, we are called upon now to consider whether there is a valid remedy, by way of injunction, to restrain executive officers from continued and repeated acts of trespass in seizing and carrying away, and confiscating for the use of the state, the property of the complainant so imported.

The bill prays for an injunction, on the several grounds of irreparable damage; that the acts complained of prevent the exercise by the complainant of his right to import without molestation lawful commodities, the products of other states; to avoid multiplicity of suits; the want of adequate remedies at law.

The objections to proceedings against state officers by injunction are that it is, in effect, proceeding against the state itself, and that it interferes with the official discretion vested in the officers. The answer to such objections is found in a long line of decisions of this court: Osborn v. Bank, 9 Wheat. 738; Dodge v. Woolsey, 18 How. 331; Board v. McComb, 92 U. S. 531; Cumings v. Bank, 101 U. S. 153; Memphis & L. R. Co. v. Railroad Com'rs, 112 U. S. 609, 5 Sup. Ct. 299; Virginia Coupon Cases, 114 U. S. 295, 315, 5 Sup. Ct. 903, 923-925, 928, 931, 932, 962, 1020; Pennoyer v. McConnaughy, 140 U. S. 1, 11 Sup. Ct. 699; Belknap v. Schild, 161 U. S. 10, 18, 16 Sup. Ct. 443.

In re Tyler, 149 U. S. 164, 13 Sup. Ct. 785, was a case where the receiver of the South Carolina Railway Company filed a bill in equity in the circuit court of the United States against the treasurers and sheriffs, 18 in number, in the counties through which the railroads in his possession passed, alleging that the treasurers were about to issue tax executions, and the sheriffs about to levy and seize thereunder property of the railway company for the taxes for the fiscal year beginning November 1, 1890. The bill alleged that the taxes for that fiscal year were unconstitutional and illegal in part upon various grounds; that the levy and sale of the road would cause irreparable injury; that there was no adequate remedy at law; that a multiplicity of suits would be necessary to protect his rights if he sued at law; and prayed for an injunction against the issue and levy of the taxwarrants in question. After answer and full hearing, the court issued an injunction restraining M. V. Tyler, sheriff of Aiken county, his deputies and agents, from further intermeddling, interfering with, keeping, and

holding the personal property distrained upon by him belonging to the petitioner, as receiver, and ordering that the said property should be restored to the custody of the receiver. It being shown subsequently by affidavits that Tyler refused to comply with the injunction, and continued to hold and detain said property, the court adjudged him guilty of contempt, imposed a fine upon him, and committed him to the custody of the marshal of the court until he should pay said fine or purge himself of his contempt. A petition for a writ of habeas corpus was filed in this court, and, upon the hearing of the cause, it was mainly argued, on behalf of the petitioner, that the proceedings in the circuit court were substantially a suit against the state of South Carolina, and that, by its mandatory injunction upon its officers, the court divested the state of its possession.

This court denied the writ, and, speaking through the chief justice, thus expressed the conclusion reached in the previous cases, many of which were cited in the argument:

"The object of this petition was to protect the property, but, even if it were to be regarded as a plenary bill in equity properly brought for the purpose of testing the legality of the tax, we ought to add that, in our judgment, it would not be obnoxious to the objection of being a suit against the state. It is unnecessary to retravel the ground so often traversed by this court in exposition and application of the eleventh amendment. The subject was but recently considered in Pennoyer v. McConnaughy, 140 U. S. 1, 11 Sup. Ct. 699, in which Mr. Justice Lamar, delivering the opinion of the court, cites and reviews a large number of cases. The result was correctly stated to be that where a suit is brought against defendants who claim to act as officers of a state, and, under color of an unconstitutional statute, commit acts of wrong and injury to the property of the plaintiff, to recover money or property in their hands unlawfully taken by them in behalf of the state, or for compensation for damages, or, in a proper case, for an*injunction to prevent such wrong and injury, or for a mandamus in a like case to enforce the performance of a plain legal duty, purely ministerial, such suit is not, within the meaning of the amendment, an action against the state.

"And while it is conceded that the principle stated by Chief Justice Marshall in the leading case of Osborn v. U. S., 9 Wheat. 738, that, 'in all cases where jurisdiction depends on the party, it is the party named in the record,' and that the 'eleventh amendment is limited to those suits in which a state is a party to the record,' had been qualified to a certain degree in some of the subsequent decisions of this court, yet it was also rightly declared that the general doctrine there announced, that the circuit courts of the United States will restrain a state officer from executing an unconstitu

tional statute of the state when to execute it would be to violate rights and privileges of the complainant that had been guarantied by the constitution, and would do irreparable damage and injury to him, has never been departed from."

Suppose it established that the objections just mentioned fail, it is suggested that jurisdiction did not exist in the circuit court because the value in controversy did not exceed the sum of $2,000. It is alleged in the bill, and there was evidence to show, that the complainant intends to import for his own use, from time to time, as he may need the same, ales, wines, and liquors, the products of other states, of the value exceeding $2,000, which are threatened to be seized by the state constables, claiming to act under the dispensary law. And the agreed statement of facts contains the following statements: "Previous to filing of bill and temporary injunction granted in this case, the state constable seized, intended and threatened to seize in future, all intoxicating liquors whatsoever coming into the state from other states and foreign countries, and to carry out in full all the provisions of the dispensary law of January 2, 1895; and the value of the right of importation of ales, wines, and other liquors, products of other states and countries, is of the value of two thousand dollars and upward; and the difference in the price to the con-, sumer, like the plaintiff, of such liquor) "bought at the state dispensary of South Carolina, and bought out of the state, is about fifty to seventy-five per cent. in favor of imported liquors."

Such statements sufficiently concede that the pecuniary value of plaintiff's rights in controvery exceeds the value of $2,000. Nor can it be reasonably claimed that the plaintiff must postpone his application to the circuit court, as a court of equity, until his property to an amount exceeding in value $2,000 has been actually seized and confiscated, and when the preventive remedy by injunction would be of no avail.

But while we think that the complainant was entitled to an injunction against those defendants who had despoiled him of his property, and who were threatening to continue so to do, we are unable to wholly approve the decree entered in this case.

The theory of the decree is that the plaintiff is one of a class of persons whose rights are infringed and threatened, and that he so represents such class that he may pray an injunction on behalf of all persons that constitute it. It is, indeed, possible that there may be others in like case with the plaintiff, and that such persons may be numerous; but such a state of facts is too conjectural to furnish a safe basis upon which a court of equity ought to grant an injunction. We prefer to accept, in this respect, the views expressed by Mr. Justice Nelson, in the case of Cutting v. Gilbert, 5 Blatchf.

116

259, Fed. Cas. No. 3,519. There a bill had been filed by several bankers, as well for themselves as all others in the same interest, against the assessor and collector of a certain tax, under the ninety-ninth section of the internal revenue act of June 30, 1861, seeking to restrain the collection of such tax as illegal, and the learned justice disposed of the question in the following language:

"This is a bill of peace to quiet the rights of parties, and to put an end to future litigation. The bill is founded on the idea that all persons in business as bankers, charged with the tax in question, have such a unity or joinder of interest in contesting it that all may join in the bill for that purpose; and that, as the parties are so numerous as to make it inconvenient to join all of them, a determinate number may appear in the name of themselves and for the rest. I have not been able to concur in this view. The interest that will allow parties to join in a bill of complaint, or that will enable the court to dispense with the presence of all the parties, when numerous, except a determinate number, is not only an interest in the question, but one in common in the subject-matter of the suit; such as the case of disputes between the lord of a manor and his tenants, or between the tenants of one manor and those of another, or in a suit to settle a general fine to be paid by all the copyhold tenants of a manor, in order to prevent a multiplicity of suits. In all these and the like instances given in the books, there is a community of interest growing out of the nature and condition of the right in dispute; for, although there may not be any privity between the numerous parties, there is a common title out of which the question arises, and which lies at the foundation of the proceedings. * * In the case before me, the only matter in common among the plaintiffs, or between them and the defendants, is an interest in the question involved, which alone cannot lay a foundation for the joinder of parties. There is scarcely a suit ac law or in equity which settles a principle, or applies a principle to a given state of facts, or in which a general statute is interpreted, that does not involve a question in which other parties are interested; as, for instance, the doctrine of trusts, and the statutes of descents, frauds, of wills, and the like. Yet no lawyer would contend that such an interest would justify a joinder of parties as plaintiffs, in a case arising under the laws of trusts, or under any of the statutes mentioned. The same may be said of questions arising under the revenue laws, such as the tariff and excise laws, and which are the subject of litigation in the courts almost daily. Large classes of persons, other than the parties to the suit, are interested in the questions involved and determined. To allow them to be made parties to the suit would confound the estab

lished order of judicial proceedings, and lead to endless perplexity and confusion." Similar views prevailed in the case of Baker v. City of Portland, 5 Sawy. 566, Fed. Cas. No. 777, where it was held by District Judge Deady (Mr. Justice Field concurring) that any number of persons who may from time to time engaged in making street improvements under several and distinct contracts with a city are not therefore a class of persons having a common interest in the subject of street improvements, concerning which any one or more may sue for the whole.

The decree is also objectionable because it enjoins persons not parties to the suit. This is not a case where the defendants named represent those not named. Nor is there alleged any conspiracy between the parties defendant and other unknown parties. The acts complained of are tortious, and do not grow out of any common action or agreement between constables and sheriffs of the state of South Carolina. We have, indeed, a right to presume that such officers, though not named in this suit, will, when advised that certain provisions of the act in question have been pronounced unconstitutional by the court to which the constitution of the United States refers such questions, voluntarily refrain from enforcing such provisions; but we do not think it comports with well-settled principles of equity procedure to include them in an injunction in a suit in which they were not heard or represented, or to subject them to penalties for contempt in disregarding such an injunction. Fellows v. Fellows, 4 Johns. Ch. 25, citing Iveson v. Harris, 7 Ves. 257.

The decree of the court below should therefore be amended by being restricted to the parties named as plaintiff and defendants in the bill, and this is directed to be done, and it is otherwise affirmed.

Mr. Justice BROWN dissents.

Mr. Justice BREWER did not hear the argument, and took no part in the decision of this case.

(165 U. 8. 58) SCOTT v. DONALD (two cases). GARDNER et al. v. DONALD. (January 18, 1897.) Nos. 411, 412, and 413. SUIT AGAINST STATE JURISDICTION OF FEDERAL COURTS PLEADING EXEMPLARY DAMAGES SOUTH CAROLINA DISPENSARY LAW-VALIDITY. 1. A suit for damages against state officers who, under color of an unconstitutional statute, have seized and carried away liquors belonging to plaintiff, is not a suit against the state, within the prohibition of the eleventh amendment to the federal constitution.

2. Where the federal supreme court has ac quired jurisdiction on the ground that the constitutionality of a state law is involved, it may dispose of all questions in the case.

3. Plaintiff alleged, in substance, that he, in exercise of his constitutional rights, imported cer tain liquors for his own use; that defendants,

claiming to act as constables, forcibly, willfully, and maliciously, and with intent to oppress and intimidate plaintiff, seized and carried away such liquors, knowing that the act was forbidden by the federal constitution and laws, and notwithstanding notice by plaintiff that the act would be regarded an invasion of his constitutional rights, for which defendants would be held responsible. Held, that these allegations, if true, would estab lish a case in which exemplary damages might be allowed.

4. Where the jurisdiction of a federal court of a claim for damages in excess of the jurisdictional amount has once attached, it is not defeated by the fact that recovery is had for less than the jurisdictional amount.

5. A statute absolutely prohibiting the importation by citizens for their own use of intoxicating liquors, without regard to the question of their purity, is not an inspection law because it provides for the examination by a state chemist of all liquors sold in the state.

6. The provision of Act Cong. Aug., 1890, that all intoxicating liquors transported into any state, or remaining there for use, consump tion, sale, or storage, shall be "subject to the operation and effect of the laws of such state enacted in the exercise of its police powers," to the same extent as if they had been produced in such state, does not confer upon any state power to prohibit the importation of such liquors by any one except certain officers appointed by the state. Mr. Justice Brown dissenting.

7. The provisions of the South Carolina dispensary act of January 2, 1895, forbidding the importation of intoxicating liquors by any one except certain state officers appointed under the act, are invalid, as being a restriction on interstate commerce. Mr. Justice Brown dissenting.

In Error to the Circuit Court of the United States for the District of South Carolina.

In the circuit court of the United States for

the district of South Carolina, in February, 1895, two suits at law were brought by James Donald against J. M. Scott, and one by James Donald against Gardner and others, wherein the plaintiff sought to recover damages caused by the action of the defendants, who were state constables of the state of South Carolina, in seizing and carrying away several packages of wines and liquors belonging to the plaintiff, and at the time of the seizure in the possession of railroad companies which, as common carriers, had brought the packages within the state.

It appeared that one of the packages, consisting of a case of domestic California wine, came by rail from Savannah, Ga., whither it had been imported by the plaintiff; another, consisting of a case of whisky, in bottles, made in Maryland, and imported by the plaintiff by way of the Baltimore Steam Packet Line; and another, consisting of one barrel of bottled beer, made at Rochester, N. Y., and imported by the plaintiff into the state of South Carolina by way of the Old Dominion Steamship Line.

Demurrers to the several declarations or complaints were interposed and overruled. Thereupon issues of fact were joined, and, trial by jury having been duly waived, the causes were tried and determined by the court, and resulted in findings and judgments in favor of the plaintiff for the sum of $300 and costs in each case, respectively.

Writs of error from this court were then sued out and allowed.

Wm. A. Barber, for plaintiffs in error. J. P. Kennedy Bryan, for defendant in error.

Mr. Justice SHIRAS, after stating the facts in the foregoing language, delivered the opinion of the court.

The records in these cases present the question of the validity, under the constitution of the United States, of the act of the general assembly of the state of South Carolina, approved January 2, 1895, generally known as the "State Dispensary Law,” and a copy of which is in the margin.1

*A preliminary question is raised by the proposition that these are in fact suits against the state of South Carolina, and forbidden by the eleventh amendment. This question is sufficiently disposed of by refer ring to the late case of In re Tyler, 149 U. S. 164, 13 Sup. Ct. 785, where the conclusion of numerous previous cases was stated to beg that, where a suit is brought*against defendants, who claim to act as officers of a state, and, under color of an unconstitutional statute, commit acts of wrong and injury to the property of the plaintiff, to recover money or * property in their hands unlawfully taken by them in behalf of the state, or for compensation for damages, such suit is not, within the meaning of the amendment, an action against the state.

It is also argued that the amounts involved in the respective suits were not sufficient to give jurisdiction to the circuit court. Although the question of the jurisdiction of the court below has not been certified to us in the manner provided by the fifth section of the judiciary act of March 3, 1891, yet, as the case is before us, in a case in which the law of a state is claimed to be in contravention of the constitution of the United States, under another clause of that statute, we have jurisdiction of the entire case, and of all questions involved in it. Horner v. U. S., 143 U. S. 570, 12 Sup. Ct. 522; Carey v. Railway, 150 U. S. 181, 14 Sup. Ct. 63; Chappell v. U. S., 160 U. S. 499, 16 Sup. Ct. 397.

Our inspection of these records does not satisfy us that this objection is well founded. The declaration or complaint alleges, in each case, that the plaintiff has been injured and damaged in the sum of $6,000, and demands judgment for that amount. It is urged that, as the value of the goods and chattels taken was alleged and shown to be but comparatively a few dollars, and as the recovery in each case was only in the sum of $300, we are obliged to infer that the damages alleged and demanded were without just foundation, and in the nature of a fraud upon the jurisdiction of the court.

The declarations contain allegations which, if true, bring the cases within the well-settled doctrine that exemplary damages may

1 See note at end of case.

09.

⚫79

In certain cases be assessed. After alleging that the plaintiff, in importing for his own use the articles mentioned, was in the exercise of his legal rights guarantied by the constitution of the United States, it is averred, in the several declarations, that the defendants were notified that any seizure of said goods, under any pretense of authority, would be a grievous trespass, and in disregard of constitutional rights, for which they would be held responsible; that the defendants, notwithstanding such notice, and claiming to act as constables of the state of South Carolina, forcibly seized and carried away the said packages; and that, in committing the said unlawful acts, the said defendants acted knowingly, willfully, and maliciously, and with intent to oppress and humiliate and Intimidate the plaintiff, and make him • afraid to rely upon the constitution and laws of the United States, and the judicial power thereof, for his protection in the rights, privileges, and immunities secured to him by the constitution and laws of the United States; and that the defendants well knew, when they made said seizures and committed said trespasses, that said acts were unlawful, and forbidden by the laws and constitution of the United States, but that they so acted, trusting and believing that they would be shielded and protected from all harm by their official superiors in the state of South Carolina; and that they made such seizures and committed such trespasses willfully and maliciously, with the purpose and intent to trample on the plaintiff's rights under the law, and to do him all the injury in the power of the defendants.

These allegations must, for the purpose of disposing of the present question, be accepted by us as true, or, at least, as susceptible of proof.

Damages have been defined to be the compensation which the law will award for an Injury done, and are said to be exemplary and allowable in excess of the actual loss where a tort is aggravated by evil motive, actual malice, deliberate violence, or oppression. While some courts and text writers have questioned the soundness of this doctrine, it has been accepted in England, in most of the states of this Union, and has received the sanction of this court.

In the case of Wilkes v. Wood, Lofft, 19, which was an action of trespass for breaking into the plaintiff's house, and seizing his papers, under color of a general warrant by a secretary of state, Chief Justice Pratt, in charging the jury, and in replying to the contention of the solicitor general that damages nominal or merely compensatory were all that could be allowed, said: "Notwithstanding what the solicitor general has said, I have formerly delivered it as my opinion on another occasion, and I still continue of the same mind, that a jury have it in their power to give damages for more than the injury received. Damages are designed, not only as a satisfaction

to the injured person, but likewise as a punishment to the guilty, to deter from any such proceeding for the future, and as a proof of the detestation of the jury to the action itself." The jury found a verdict with £1,000 damages.

In the case of Huckle v. Money, 2 Wils. 205, there was a motion for a new trial, on the ground that the jury had allowed excessive damages. It was proved on the trial that the plaintiff was a journeyman printer, and was taken in custody by the defendant, under the general warrant of a secretary of state, upon suspicion of having printed a certain libelous paper; that the defendant kept him in custody about six hours, but used him very civilly, by treating him with beefsteaks and beer, so that he suffered very little or no damages. The jury gave him a verdict in £300 damages. In disposing of the motion, the Lord Chief Justice Pratt said: "That, if the jury had been confined by their oath to consider the mere personal injury only, perhaps twenty pounds damages would have been thought sufficient; but the small injury done to the plaintiff, or the inconsiderableness of his station and rank in life, did not appear to the jury in that striking light in which the great point of law touching the liberty of the subject appeared to them at the trial. * I cannot say what damages I should have given if I had been upon the jury, but I directed and told them they were not bound to any certain damages. Upon the whole, I am of opinion, the damages are not excessive, and that it is very dangerous for the judges to intermeddle in damages for torts. It must be a glaring case, indeed, of outrageous damages in a tort, and which all mankind at first blush must think so, to induce a court to grant a new trial for excessive damages."

In Day v. Woodworth, 13 How. 371, which was an action of trespass charging the defendants with tearing down and destroying the plaintiff's milldam, this court, through Mr. Justice Grier, said:

"It is a well-established principle of the common law that, in actions of trespass and all actions on the case for torts, a jury may inflict what are called 'exemplary,' 'punitive,' or 'vindictive' damages upon a defendant, having in view the enormity of his offense rather than the measure of compensation to the plaintiff. We are aware that the propriety of this doctrine has been questioned by some writers, but, if repeated judicial decisions for more than a century are to be received as the best exposition of what the law is, the question will not admit of argument. By the common, as well as by the statute, law, men are often punished for aggravated misconduct or lawless acts, by means of a civil action, and the damages inflicted by way of penalty or punishment given to the party injured. In many civil actions, such as libel, slander, seduction, &c., the wrong done to the plaintiff is incapable of being measured by a money