Petitioners brought this suit in the United States District Court for Western Pennsylvania to restrain threatened criminal prosecution of them in the state courts by respondents, the City of Jeannette (a Pennsylvania municipal corporation) and its Mayor, for violation of a city ordinance which prohibits the solicitation of orders for merchandise without first procuring a license from the city authorities and paying a license tax. The ordinance as applied is held to be an unconstitutional abridgment of free speech, press and religion in Nos. 480-487, Murdock et al. v. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, 319 U.S. 105, 63 S.Ct. 870, 87 L.Ed. --, decided this day. The questions decisive of the present case are whether the district court has statutory jurisdiction as a federal court to entertain the suit, and whether petitioners have by their pleadings and proof established a cause of action in equity.
The case is not one of diversity of citizenship, since some of the petitioners, like respondents, are citizens of Pennsylvania. The bill of complaint alleges that the named plaintiffs are Jehovah's Witnesses, persons who entertain religious beliefs and engage in religious practices which it describes; that the suit is a class suit brought in petitioner's own behalf and in behalf of all other Jehovah's Witnesses in Pennsylvania and adjoining states to restrain respondents from enforcing ordinance No. 60 of the City of Jeannette against petitioners and all other Jehovah's Witnesses because, as applied to them, the ordinance abridges the guaranties of freedom of speech, press, and religion of the First Amendment made applicable to the states by the Fourteenth.
The suit is alleged to arise under the Constitution and laws of the United States, including the Civil Rights Act of 1871, 17 Stat. 13. The complaint sets up that in the practice of their religion and in conformity to the teachings of the Bible, Jehovah's Witnesses make, and for many years have made, house to house distribution, among the people of the City of Jeannette, of certain printed books and pamphlets setting forth the Jehovah's Witnesses' interpretations of the teachings of the Bible. Municipal Ordinance No. 60 provides: 'That all persons canvassing or soliciting within said Borough (now City of Jeannette) orders for goods * * * wares or merchandise of any kind, or persons delivering such articles under orders so obtained or solicited' without first procuring a license and paying prescribed license taxes, shall be punished by fine not exceeding $100 and costs, or if the fine is not paid, by imprisonment from five to thirty days. It is alleged that in April, 1939, respondents arrested and prosecuted petitioners and other Jehovah's Witnesses for violation of the ordinance because of their described activities in distributing religious literature, without the permits required by the ordinance, and that respondents threaten to continue to enforce the ordinance by arrests and prosecutions-all in violation of petitioners' civil rights.
No preliminary or interlocutory injunction was granted but the district court, after a trial, held the ordinance invalid, 39 F.Supp. 32, on the authority of Reid v. Borough of Brookville, 39 F.Supp. 30, in that it deprived petitioners of the rights of freedom of press and religion guaranteed by the First and Fourteenth Amendments. The court enjoined respondents from enforcing the ordinance against petitioners and other Jehovah's Witnesses.
The Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit sustained the jurisdiction of the district court, but reversed on the merits, 130 F.2d 652, on the authority of Jones v. Opelika, 316 U.S. 584, 62 S.Ct. 1231, 86 L.Ed. 1691, 141 A.L.R. 514. One judge dissented on the ground that the complaint did not sufficiently allege a violation of the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment so as to entitle petitioners to relief under the Civil Rights Act. We granted certiorari, 318 U.S. 749, 63 S.Ct. 660, 87 L.Ed. --, and set the case for argument with Nos. 480-487, Murdock et al. v. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, supra.