Cruz v. Insular Racing Commission
Cruz v. Insular Racing Commission
Opinion of the Court
delivered the opinion of the court.
The petitioner owns a race horse, Yuyín A., which is inscribed in the Stud Book of the Racing Commission. After running in a race held on April 8, 1945, Yuyín A. was suspended by the Race Track Jury for three months and a day for inconsistency. On April 10 this petition was filed, praying for an injunction restraining the defendants — the members of the Commission, and the Jury — from enforcing the order of the Jury.
The petitioner alleges that the order of the Jury was made without cause, investigation or hearing, in violation of Rule 96(7i.) of the Regulations of the Commission, thereby depriving her of her property without due process of law;, that she was not notified in writing by the Secretary of the Commission at the close of the day’s racing of this decision, as required by Rule 113 of the Regulations; and that the Commission has ordered the withdrawal of the horse from a race scheduled to be held on April 11. She alleges that if the decision remains in effect, she will lose a considerable sum in purses which might be won by her horse, and that she has no adequate remedy at law.
It is true that in Maldonado v. Insular Racing Commission, 64 P.R.R. 481, Sifre, etc. v. Pellón, etc., 54 P.R.R. 559, Hernández v. Insular Racing Commission, 50 P.R.R. 96, and Romany v. Race Track Jury, 55 P.R.R. 317, we held that under the circumstances of those cases injunctions should be granted when the Jury imposed penalties without granting a hearing under Buie 96(h). But those cases involved more than the denial of a hearing: the decisions of the Jury were not appealable. Consequently, unless a court of equity intervened, the aggrieved parties had no method of obtaining review of the action of the Jury.
We need not re-examine those cases, as the instant case is distinguishable. Here § 18 of the Racing Act
The order of the district court will be reversed and a judgment entered dismissing the petition.
Act No. 11, Laws of Puerto Rico, 1932 (p. 194), as amended by Act No. 17, Laws of P. R., 1935, Special Session (p. 92).
This ease is an obvious application of “the long settled rule of judicial administration that no one is entitled to judicial relief for a supposed or threatened injury until the prescribed administrative remedy has been exhausted.” Myers v. Bethlehem Corp., 303 U. S. 41, 50, 51, and cases cited in footnote 9;
Act No. 11, as amended by Act No. 9, Laws of Puerto Rico, 1936 (p. 178).
Cf. the cases which hold that in some types of cases an order of temporary suspension made without notice or hearing is valid if followed by a hearing on the merits on the issue of permanent suspension. Gellhorn, Administrative Law, Cases and Comments, pp. 379-82.
Case-law data current through December 31, 2025. Source: CourtListener bulk data.