Bullion, Beck & Champion Mining Co. v. Eureka Hill Min. Co.

• Decision Date: 02 February 1887
• Citation: 13 P. 174,5 Utah 151
• Court: Utah Supreme Court
• Parties: BULLION, BECK AND CHAMPION MINING CO., APPELLANT, v. EUREKA HILL MINING CO. AND OTHERS, RESPONDENTS

13 P. 174

5 Utah 151

BULLION, BECK AND CHAMPION MINING CO., APPELLANT, v. EUREKA HILL MINING CO. AND OTHERS, RESPONDENTS

Supreme Court of Utah

February 2, 1887

APPEAL from a judgment of the district court of the first district adjudging certain agents of defendant guilty of contempt. The opinion states the facts.

Judgment of the district court adjudging the appellants to be guilty of contempt, and to pay a fine, reversed, with costs to the appellants.

Mr Arthur Brown and Messrs. Sutherland & McBride, for appellant.

Messrs Bennett, Kirkpatrick & Bradley and Mr. W. H. Dickson, for respondents.

BOREMAN J. ZANE, C. J., and HENDERSON, J., concurred.

OPINION

BOREMAN, J.:

The appellant company, and John Beck, its superintendent, and H. H. Day, its manager, were by the district court adjudged guilty of "contempt of court, as charged," upon a charge of violating an injunction contained in the judgment in favor of respondent company, on the cross-complaint filed in the principal case, and a fine was imposed upon each. The parties adjudged to be in contempt have appealed to this court.

The injunction clause referred to, and under which the contempt proceedings were instituted, is as follows: "And it is further adjudged that the plaintiff company, and its officers, agents, employees, and all persons acting under them, are enjoined and restrained from entering upon said Eureka lode, or digging therein, or removing or extracting any ores therefrom, for the entire length of said lode, between vertical planes made on the end lines of the Eureka mining claim, and extensions of said end lines, and from any part of the width of said lode, either under the surface of said Eureka mining claim, or beneath the surface of the said Bullion mining claim, lot 76, or easterly of said line above described, or westerly of said line at depth, if the lode in its dip below the 300-foot level shall extend westerly; and from interfering with or in anywise hindering the defendant company from taking possession of and working said lode within the bounds aforesaid, and on the dip of said lode, though at greater depth, it shall extend further westerly."

An appeal had been taken from the judgment containing the injunction clause, and the proper supersedeas bond had been given before the contempt proceedings were instituted.

The charge made against these parties in the contempt proceedings is that they have been using "two certain drifts for the purpose of conveying * * * ores extracted west of said blue line" to shafts of appellant company, and "thereby hindering and obstructing the defendant company, and preventing it from using the same, and working its Eureka claim and lode through the same;" and that on one certain day they "excluded defendant company's superintendent and employees by force from said drifts, and by such means and force, and by the continued use thereof, prevented defendant company from using and working the same." These drifts were underneath the surface of the Bullion lot 76. The district court adjudged the parties to be guilty of "contempt of court as charged."

The taking of the appeal, and the giving of the supersedeas bond, did not make void or nullify or suspend the judgment, nor the injunction contained therein but all affirmative action looking to the execution of the terms of the decree were suspended. Slaughter-house Cases, 10 Wall. 273, 19 L.Ed. 915; Swift v. Shepard, 64...