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 maintain 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 was 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 tax warrants 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: