(269 F.) described or to make use of any of the property belonging to this complainant without the complainant's consent." As to the district attorney, the prayer is that he be enjoined from instituting any proceeding or action under the statute above alluded to or otherwise, for any failure or refusal on the part of the plaintiff to furnish the facilities above referred to to the tenant defendants or "any other person occupying any part of the building" (belonging to plaintiff) without "its consent or permission, and holding over against its will after October 1, 1920, under color of the statutes and laws" above, referred to. Hearing is on the bill, the answer of the tenant defendants, the affidavit, verified November 17, 1920, of Mr. Joseph A. Seidman, attorney for plaintiff'. the affidavit, verified December 3, 1920, of Mr. Samuel R. Gerstein, attorney for tenant defendants, and certain public documents, viz. "Report of the Joint Legislative Committee on Housing," transmitted to the Legislature of New York on September 20, 1920, and the message (bearing the same date) of Governor Alfred E. Smith relative to "housing facilities within the state and recommending legislation in reference thereto." It thus appears as a fact satisfactorily proven that the statutes above enumerated from chapters 942-952, inclusive (except chapter 946), commonly and collectively known as the September Housing Laws), were made laws. for the reason and in response to the demand or emergency insistently presented to the Legislature by the above-mentioned report of its own joint committee and by the Governor's message. The other statutes complained of by plaintiff are collectively known as the "April Housing Laws." Assuming legislative power to enact all these laws, the April statutes have been almost wholly superseded by those of September. The importance of the earlier statutes, so far as this bill is concerned, seems to be that, should the September acts be voided, argument might be made that the April acts were revived; hence complaint is made of all the housing legislation of 1920. Joseph A. Seidman, of New York City, for plaintiff. Francis M. Scott and I. Maurice Wormser, both of New York City, amici curiæ. Samuel R. Gerstein, of New York City, for tenant defendants. William D. Guthrie and Julius Henry Cohen, Sp. Deputy Attys. Gen., both of New York City (Elmer G. Sammis and Bernard Hershkopf, both of New York City, of counsel), for Joint Legislative Committee on Housing. Robert S. Johnstone, of New York City (John Caldwell Myers, of New York City, of counsel), for defendant Swann. David L. Podell, Benjamin S. Kirsh, and Jacob Podell, all of New York City, for tenant. Before HOUGH, Circuit Judge, and MAYER and AUGUSTUS N. HAND, District Judges, sitting pursuant to Judicial Code, § 266 (Comp. St. § 1243). HOUGH, Circuit Judge (after stating the facts as above). Several objections to plaintiff's right to be heard have been insisted on and must be first considered. [1] The bill (it is said) sets forth several matters of a distinct and independent nature against several defendants and is therefore multifarious. In our opinion this is true, but it is also true that the twenty-sixth Supreme Court rule in equity (201 Fed. v, 118 C. C. A. v) has rendered that defense unavailable, whenever, in the opinion of the court, "sufficient grounds appear for uniting the causes of action in order to permit the convenient administration of justice." The rule has been thus interpreted in this district since its promulgation. And see Crawford v. Washington, etc., Co., 233 Fed. 966, 147 C. C. A. 635; Eclipse Co. v. Harley (D. C.) 244 Fed. 463, United States v. New England, etc., Exchange (D. C.) 258 Fed. 732. The separate matters in this bill are two-one a complete severable cause of action against the district attorney; the other (equally complete) against the tenant defendants-yet plainly the constitutionality or the reverse of any action by the district attorney depends wholly upon the constitutionality of these housing statutes. The rights of occupiers against landlords will, as to the services referred to in chapter 951, depend upon the constitutionality of the statutes permitting them to remain where they are not wanted. Consequently the connection between the rights of the tenant defendants and those of the district attorney is so intimate that both rights grow out of the same mass of legislation, and they should be tested together. This case affords a good example of the wisdom of abrogating the strict rule regarding multifarious pleading. [2] It is further said that the bill as affecting the tenant defendants is no more than an endeavor to bring an ejectment suit in equity. Such efforts have often been made and always failed (Smyth v. New Orleans, etc., Co., 141 U. S. 656, 12 Sup. Ct. 113, 35 L. Ed. 891), and this bill suggests no circumstances under which this court of equity would be empowered to issue mandatory injunctions which would be the equivalents of writs of possession; yet this is the futile prayer of the bill. [3] But under modern procedure the dismissal of the bill does not necessarily follow. On the contrary, the court is required by Act March 3, 1915, 38 Stat. 956 (Comp. St. § 1251a-1251c), to transfer any action wrongly brought in equity to the law side, and grant a repleader. This plaintiff might, however, have brought an action for the recovery of possession of real property (ejectment) at law and in this court. No state statute can define or limit the jurisdiction of this court; and this is true, although it be assumed that the defenses in ejectment authorized by the statutes enumerated would be as available to defendants in the United States courts sitting in New York as they are in the tribunals of the state. [4] It is next objected that the bill cannot stand as against the district attorney, because the question must be raised after indictment, and in the criminal court. Considering the actual sequence of events in Ex parte Young, 209 U. S. 123, 28 Sup. Ct. 441, 52 L. Ed. 714, 13 L. R. A. (N. S.) 932, 14 Ann. Cas. 764, Truax v. Raich, 239 U. S. 33, 36 Sup. Ct. 7, 60 L. Ed. 131, L. R. A. 1916D, 545, Ann. Cas. 1917B, 283, Wilson v. New, 243 U. S. 332, 37 Sup. Ct. 298, 61 L. Ed. 755, L. R. A. 1917E, 938, Ann. Cas. 1918A, 1024, and Hammer v. Dagenhart, 247 U. S. 251, 38 Sup. Ct. 529, 62 L. Ed. 1101, 3 A. L. R. 649, Ann. Cas. 1918E, 724, courts of first instance may well refrain from much legal exposition. It is true that the reasons assigned in some of these cases for going into equity were in substance that the party complaining would be injured in some constitutional right by the operation of a statute al (269 F.) leged to be unconstitutional without ever being proceeded against himself, while in this instance plaintiff is personally subject to the operation of chapter 951. But the public documents above mentioned prove that the object of chapter 951 is not to extend criminal liability to owners of apartment houses, for that was done in April by chapter 131. The purpose is to make criminally liable substantially all of the landlord's servants or agents concerned in the operation of an apartment house; and the reason for this is that it had been found practically impossible to prove guilty knowledge on the landlord's part, wherefore conviction was impossible. We do not understand that the Supreme Court has in proceedings like this barred from equity all persons who may be pursued under a criminal statute, but only those who have under the statute a fair opportunity of raising the constitutional question in criminal proceedings brought directly against them. But in the cases which the Legislature expected to produce by chapter 951 this defendant would have no standing; yet if its agents are convicted such conviction may obviously produce civil suits against and resultant liability on the part of this plaintiff. Without attempting to define the limitations of bills in equity against officials charged with the administration of the criminal law, we think this suit is within the practice of the cases cited. We therefore have before us two causes of action severally cognizable in this court, though not in the same litigation. This is not because the bill is multifarious, but because one cause of action is legal and the other equitable. We may shortly note here that the jurisdictional amount is well pleaded, which is enough for present purposes. [5] It is, however, plain that if the statutes affecting the rights of the plaintiff and the tenant defendants are constitutional plaintiff can no more succeed in an action of ejectment at law than it can under this bill in equity, and it is equally clear that if such statutes are constitutional the bill against the district attorney should be dismissed. It is therefore an idle ceremony to separate the causes of action and send one to the law side of the court, and we shall now consider whether in any form of procedure on either side of the court or against any defendant, plaintiff has revealed a cause of action. Disregarding chapter 948, which affects Buffalo and Rochester only, and speaking generally of the other September laws, the legislative intent is this: Within what may be called the metropolitan district (New York City and contiguous counties) the owners of dwellings, including apartment and tenement houses (but excepting buildings under construction in September last, lodging houses for transients and the larger hotels), are wholly deprived until November 1, 1922, of all legal methods of removing from their premises the tenants or occupants of September, 1920, provided that such tenants or occupants are (in effect) ready, able, and willing to pay a reasonable rent or price for their use and occupation. Whenever (the commonest case in this city) the tenancy was from month to month, any demanded rent greater than that of a year prior to such demand is presumptively unrea sonable and oppressive. Whether the landlord attempts to recover the desired rent by personal action, or tries to get back his premises by dispossess proceedings or ejectment, a September occupant can always block him and remain in possession by bringing into court a sum equivalent to the last month's rent, until the issue of unreasonableness is passed on by court and jury. The landlord's former legal rights are intact, however, when the occupant is "objectionable," when the demanding landlord is a "corporation formed under a co-operative ownership plan," and when the building is in good faith required for the purpose of demolition and rebuilding or the personal occupancy of the owner. A knowledge of pre-existing law and the words of the statutes are enough to prove that the legislative desire is to maintain for about two years the September status of the kind of dwellings in which (by common knowledge) lives the major portion of the population of the metropolitan district. This status is to be maintained against the landlord's will if necessary, but at the option of the tenants, for the landlord cannot select his tenants, but must accept what may be called the statutory tenants, yet every such tenant is and will be as free to depart and choose another landlord as he was before September, 1920. Finally, to prevent owners from rendering their apartments uncomfortable for, if not uninhabitable by, the unwelcome statutory occupants, any intentional diminution or denial of the ordinary facilities or conveniences of apartment house life is made a misdemeanor on the part, not only of the owner, but substantially of every person connected with the management of the building, if intentional failure to furnish such facilities can be proven against him. Speaking now specifically of the facts in the present case, the tenant defendants herein, by law older than the state of New York, became at the landlord's option trespassers on October 1, 1920. Plaintiff had then found and made a contract with a tenant it liked better, and had done so before these statutes were enacted. By them plaintiff is, after defendants elected to remain in possession, forbidden to carry out his bargain with the tenant he chose, the obligation of the covenant for peaceable surrender by defendants is impaired, and for the next two years Feldman et al. may, if they like, remain in plaintiff's apartment, provided they make good month by month the allegation of their answer, i. e., pay what "a court of competent jurisdiction" regards as fair and reasonable compensation for such enforced use and occupancy; and meanwhile, if any person concerned in the management of the apartment house intentionally cuts off any of the facilities or conveniences appurtenant to apartment house life when Feldman and Schwartz were presumptively desired as tenants, a crime has been committed. Since jurisdiction depends on diversity of citizenship, plaintiff is entitled to urge violations of the state as well as the federal Constitution, but this court will confine itself to the latter charter of rights, the construction of the state Constitution having been exhaustively considered by the courts of the state in contemporaneous and similar litigation. It is asserted that by these statutes the obligations of plaintiff's contracts have been impaired, and so have those of a great number of (269 F.) other landlords. This is plainly true; the interpretation of section 10 of article 1 of the Constitution made in Green v. Biddle, 8 Wheat. 1, 5 L. Ed. 547, has never been departed from. Further assertion is that plaintiff and other landlords similarly situated have been denied the equal protection of the laws in that the owners of finished and presumably occupied dwellings have been chosen for legislative oppression, when no such burdens have been laid on owners of dwellings as yet unfinished or hereafter to be erected, nor upon those possessed of office and business property, hotels and the like, who use their real estate for purposes of profit in the same manner and to the same extent as do the dwelling house landlords. [6] It has been often said that the equal protection of the laws mentioned in the Fourteenth Amendment means a pledge of the protection of equal laws, and more specifically that every state shall give equal protection and security to all under like circumstances to the end that no greater burdens shall be laid upon one than are laid upon the others in the same calling and condition. Barbier v. Connolly, 113 U. S. 27, 5 Sup. Ct. 357, 28 L. Ed. 923. But it is also fundamental that such equality is not as matter of law inconsistent with classification both for benefits and burdens, and exactly how that classification may be made has never been defined, and we think never ought to be, having regard to the infinitely changing circumstances of human society. When by classification or otherwise we arrive at “a partial or private law which directly purposes to destroy or affect individual rights," it is "unconstitutional and void," for "were this otherwise, odious individuals and corporate bodies would be governed by one rule, and the mass of the community who made the law, by another." Cotting v. Kansas City, &c., Co., 183 U. S. at page 105, 22 Sup. Ct. 41, 46 L. Ed. 92. While a forbidden result may be thus denounced, well-founded uncertainty as to means has produced the ruling. that "what may be regarded as a denial of the equal protection of the laws is a question not easily determined, * no rule can be formulated that will cover every case," and the highest court has gone no further in the way of definition than to say that no class of persons shall be denied the same protection enjoyed by "other classes in the same place and in like circumstances." Connolly v. Union, etc., Co., 184 U. S. at page 558, 22 Sup. Ct. 431, 46 L. Ed. 679. The phrase "in like circumstances" leaves open a question newly presented in each new case. * * * * * Again, it is said that these statutes put an end to liberty of contract and take property for a private use, and therefore in both respects amount to a denial of due process of law. That as to one and a very large fraction of the contractual engagements current in this city there is no liberty of contract under these statutes cannot be denied, and that property is taken from the landlord for the use of the statutory tenant is also true, in the sense that the property owner may be and is in this instance compelled to let his property be enjoyed by one whom he does not want, and it may be true in another sense, although the statutory tenant be a person entirely satisfactory except in the amount of rent he pays, if there be any legal difference between what the landlord could |