Drummond Co. v. District 20, United Mine Workers of America

• Decision Date: 05 July 1979
• Docket Number: No. 77-3182,77-3182
• Parties: 101 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 2754, 86 Lab.Cas. P 11,507 The DRUMMOND COMPANY, a corporation, et al., Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. DISTRICT 20, UNITED MINE WORKERS OF AMERICA et al., Defendants-Appellants.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit

Page 381

598 F.2d 381

101 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 2754, 86 Lab.Cas. P 11,507

The DRUMMOND COMPANY, a corporation, et al., Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. DISTRICT 20, UNITED MINE WORKERS OF AMERICA et al.,

Defendants-Appellants.

No. 77-3182.

United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit.

July 5, 1979.

William E. Mitch, Birmingham, Ala., for defendants-appellants.

Charles A. Powell, III, Harry L. Hopkins, Birmingham, Ala., for plaintiffs-appellees.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Alabama.

Before GODBOLD, MORGAN and RONEY, Circuit Judges.

RONEY, Circuit Judge:

District and local unions of the United Mine Workers of America appeal contempt adjudications and fines imposed for engaging in work stoppages in violation of Boys Markets labor injunction. Boys Markets, Inc. v. Retail Clerks Local 770, 398 U.S. 235, 90 S.Ct. 1583, 26 L.Ed.2d 199 (1970). We are asked to decide the appealability of the contempt findings and to determine the range of activity to which the injunction could properly have been applied. We conclude that the contempt adjudications are appealable final orders but that the injunction was improperly applied to conduct remote in time from the activity to which the injunction was addressed.

On January 25, 1977, two employees at the Beltona Mine of plaintiff Drummond Company were suspended for refusing to load coal onto trucks driven by nonunion drivers. The resulting strike of Beltona employees spread to a number of other mines of Drummond and its subsidiary, Taylor Coal Company (referred to jointly herein as the Company).

The Company procured a temporary restraining order on January 27 against District 20 and a number of UMW locals (referred to collectively herein as the Union). On February 4, the Union was found in contempt of the temporary restraining order which was continued from that date as a preliminary injunction. The court established a schedule of fines to be imposed if the strike continued beyond February 7. The employees resumed work. No appeal was taken from either the January 27 or the February 4 injunctions.

Thirty-four days later, on March 13, the employees again went on strike. By this time the two employees were back to work and any grievance concerning their suspension had been settled. In an order issued on May 25, the court enforced the February 4 contempt adjudication against the strikes after March 13, imposing fines pursuant to the schedule totaling $143,878.

The final incident involved only Local 8028 whose members went out on strike on May 3. The Local was held in contempt and fined $28,756 in an order issued on June 1.

The Union sought reconsideration of the court's May 25 and June 1 decisions. Fed.R.Civ.P. 59(a)(2). Its motions were overruled in an order from which the Union now appeals.

I. Appealability of the Contempt Orders

We must determine initially whether this Court has jurisdiction to consider the Union's appeal. In the Company's motion to dismiss the appeal, carried with the case, the Company asserted this Court lacks jurisdiction because the court's action was neither a final order under 28 U.S.C.A. § 1291 nor an appealable interlocutory order under 28 U.S.C.A. § 1292(a)(1), but only a nonappealable interlocutory order issued before final adjudication of the case. We conclude that the orders from which the Union appeals are final orders for the purposes of 28 U.S.C.A. § 1291 and this Court has jurisdiction of the appeal.

The appeal is taken from an order in which the court refused reconsideration of or a new trial on two prior adjudications of contempt. It is the finality of those two contempt determinations that the Company attacks. Cf. Peabody Coal Co. v. Locals 1734, 1508 & 1548, UMW, 484 F.2d 78, 81 (6th Cir. 1973), Cert. denied, 430 U.S. 940, 97 S.Ct. 1571, 51 L.Ed.2d 787 (1977) (although denial of a motion for reconsideration is nonappealable discretionary order, appeal treated as being from judgment to which motion relates).

The general rule is that a finding of civil contempt as to a party litigant is not an appealable order but is reviewable only upon appeal from a final decree in the case. See, e. g., Fox v. Capital Co., 299 U.S. 105, 107, 57 S.Ct. 57, 81 L.Ed. 67 (1936); 9 Moore's Federal Practice P 110.13(4) (2d ed. 1975). Exceptions to the rule are plentiful. Contempt orders have been held "final decisions" for purposes of § 1291 review in several cases. For example, in Vincent v. Local 294, International Brotherhood of Teamsters,424 F.2d 124 (2d Cir. 1970), the union appealed an order and adjudication of contempt based on its noncompliance with a temporary injunction under § 10(1) of the National Labor Relations Act, 29 U.S.C.A. § 160(1). No appeal had been taken from the order granting the injunction. The court observed that the issuance of the injunction itself had concluded the principal action between the parties and, because nothing remained to be determined on the merits of the injunction proceeding, a finding of nonappealability would preclude any review of the issues involved in the contempt order. 424 F.2d at 128. In Hoffman v. Beer Drivers & Salesmen's Local 888, 536 F.2d 1268 (9th Cir. 1976), the court distinguished between appealable and nonappealable contempt orders based on the terms of the penalty imposed. A contempt order in which the fine was suspended on the condition that the defendants comply with the injunction was deemed a nonappealable interlocutory order while a contempt order directing a fine to be paid within 30 days without permission to otherwise purge the contempt was held an appealable final order. 536 F.2d at 1272-1273. A contempt order was also held appealable in New York Telephone Co. v. Communications Workers, 445 F.2d 39 (2d Cir. 1971). The court emphasized the finality of the penalty imposed, noting that execution of the fines had been immediate and whatever came out of any future hearing on a preliminary or permanent injunction, these fines would remain payable as efforts to coerce compliance with the preexisting temporary restraining order. 445 F.2d at 45. See also Bethlehem Mines Corp. v. UMW, 476 F.2d 860 (3d Cir. 1973) (although union did not move to vacate a temporary restraining order or appeal from a preliminary injunction, appeal of contempt order disposed of on merits without discussion of order's appealability); Peabody Coal Co. v. Locals 1734, 1508 & 1548, UMW, 484 F.2d at 82-85 (although the injunction itself was not appealed, the court held the preliminary injunction to be a final order, preexistence of which permits appeal of contempt order).

The contempt adjudications of May 25 and June 1 whose appealability is being contested here provide respectively:

The Court further ORDERS that each defendant local union take the following affirmative action:

2. Pay to the Clerk within fifteen days the fines levied herein or submit to the Court for its approval a payment schedule whereby such fines will be discharged in total within sixty days of the date of this order;

(May 25, 1977)

(D)efendant Local 8028 is fined for civil contempt of an order of this Court $28,756.00, and $2,212.00 for each shift on and after the first regularly scheduled shift on Tuesday, May 10, 1977, it continues the strike . . . .

(June 1, 1977)

There is no reason to refuse to consider the Union's contempt challenges now. Although the Company suggests that the Union await the "final order" which will evolve from this litigation, it does not suggest by what procedure such an order will result, and we are inclined to regard such further proceedings as unlikely. A review of the contempt orders runs no risk of disrupting a continuing, orderly course of proceedings below. See New York Telephone, 445 F.2d at 45. Even if a hearing on a permanent injunction were to be held, our decision on the merits of this appeal, limited to the applicability of the temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction to the allegedly contemptuous conduct, would have little or no bearing upon it. See id.

Furthermore the contempt penalties imposed in these two orders are in no way conditional or subject to modification. We reject the Company's inference that execution of the fines is determinative of appealable finality. The Company's motion to dismiss the appeal is denied.

II. Scope of the Injunction

The Union charges that the court improperly used broad, prospective injunctive relief against separate and distinct work stoppages which were outside the scope of the injunctive order. We emphasize that the Union challenged neither the temporary restraining order nor the preliminary injunction and their validity is not before the court. Bethlehem Mines Corp. v UMW, 476 F.2d at 864-867. See also United States v. Partin,524 F.2d 992, 999 (5th Cir. 1975), Cert. denied, 425 U.S. 904, 96 S.Ct. 1493, 47 L.Ed.2d 753 (1976); 9 Moore's Federal Practice P 110.13(4) at 168. We assume for purposes of this appeal that they are valid Boys Markets labor injunctions enforceable by subsequent contempt sanctions. Our inquiry is restricted to determining whether the allegedly contemptuous Union activity was activity enjoined by the court's injunctive orders. While the district court's findings of facts concerning the various disputes and work stoppages will be reviewed under the clearly erroneous standard, the interpretation of the scope of the injunctive orders is a question of law to be determined by the independent judgment of this Court.

The Union correctly suggests that labor injunctions are to be narrowly construed. See 29 U.S.C.A. § 109. The 1970 Supreme Court decision, Boys Markets, Inc. v. Retail Clerks Local 770, 398 U.S. 235, 90 S.Ct. 1583, 26 L.Ed.2d 199, which made such injunctive relief available by creating a limited exception to the anti-injunctive provisions of the Norris-LaGuardia Act, 29 U.S.C.A. § 104(a), emphasized the restricted circumstances in which injunctive relief may be warranted:

A District...