Employers' Teaming Co. v. Teamsters' Joint Council

• Decision Date: 20 December 1905
• Docket Number: 27,719.
• Citation: 141 F. 679
• Court: U.S. District Court — Northern District of Illinois
• Parties: EMPLOYERS' TEAMING CO. v. TEAMSTERS' JOINT COUNCIL et al.

141 F. 679

EMPLOYERS' TEAMING CO. v. TEAMSTERS' JOINT COUNCIL et al.

No. 27,719.

United States Circuit Court, N.D. Illinois, Eastern Division.

December 20, 1905

Moran Mayer & Meyer, for complainant.

J. C LeBosky and Daniel Cruise, for defendants.

KOHLSAAT Circuit Judge.

This cause comes before the court on motion to attach certain persons, not made parties to the original bill by name, for contempt of court alleged to have been committed by them respectively, in that they knowingly violated the restraining order issued in said cause. The decree ran against the defendants named therein, 'and each and every of the agents and servants of the said defendants, and of each of them, and any and all other persons and associations now or hereafter aiding or abetting or confederation or acting in concert with said defendants, or any or either of them, in committing the acts and grievances or any of them complained of in said bill of complaint. ' It directs that its terms be binding upon the defendants named, and 'all other persons whomsoever from and after the time they severally have knowledge of the allowance of this order.'

The petition for a rule to show cause sets up the filing of the bill in which it is prayed that the original defendants, and each and every of their agents and servants, and any and all other persons and associations, be restrained from interfering with, hindering, obstructing, or stopping any of the business of complainant, and makes further reference to the prayer of the bill. It then recites the decree for an injunction issued in the language of the bill. It proceeds further to set out what steps were taken to convey notice to everybody, including persons in the situation of respondents and charges, upon information and belief, that respondents had actual knowledge of the decree and its terms. It then sets out the several acts of the several respondents complained of, supporting the same by affidavits, and prays that an order may be entered directing respondents severally to show cause by a short day why they should not severally be attached for contempt for violating 'said temporary stay and injunctional order.'

Respondents insist that the court is without power to grant the relief asked for in the petition. It is not an easy matter to deduce a definite rule of law in such cases from the various federal decisions. Section 725 of the Revised Statutes of the United States of 1878 (U.S. Comp. St. 1901, p. 583) reads as follows: 'The said courts shall have power to impose and administer all necessary oaths, and to punish, by fine or imprisonment, at the discretion of the court, contempts of their authority: Provided, that such power to punish contempts shall not be construed to extend to any cases except the misbehavior of any person in their presence, or so near thereto as to obstruct the administration of justice, the misbehavior of any of the officers of said court in their official party, juror, witness, or other person, to any lawful writ, process, order, rule, decree, or command of the said courts.'

The language giving the court power to punish the 'disobedience or resistance by any such officer, or by any party, juror, witness or other person, to any lawful writ, process, rule, decree or command of the said courts,' manifestly extends the power of the court to enforce its decrees to persons other than those made parties by name.

Mr. Justice Brown, speaking for the Supreme Court in Re Lennon, 166 U.S. 548, 17 Sup.Ct. 658, 41 L.Ed. 1110, lays down the general rule that:

'To render a person amenable to an injunction, it is neither necessary that he should have been a party to the suit in which the injunction was issued, nor to have been actually served with a copy of it, so long as he appears to have had actual notice'-- citing High on Injunctions, Sec. 1444; Mead v. Norris, 21 Wis. 310; Wellesley v. Mornington, 11 Beav. 181.

This has been uniformly followed in the federal courts, and is now the well-settled rule. The respondent in that case was an employe of the defendant, but the decision does not seem to rest at all upon that fact. The language both of the statute and the Lennon Case seems broad enough to embrace the facts at bar. As to this, however, the courts seem to be in doubt.

In the Case of Reese, 107 F. 942, 47 C.C.A. 87, the Circuit Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit had under consideration a motion for the issuance of a rule to show cause, which prayed that such rule issue against Reese, who was not a party to the original suit, to show cause why he should not be attached for contempt for violation of the temporary injunction. It was there charged that Reese had come into Kansas at the head of a column of about 300 men, called 'strikers,' and had interfered with the men and plant of the party protected by the injunction. The decree ran against the named defendants and 'all other persons who have or may combine, confederate, or conspire with said defendants or either of them. ' Reese had not been served with the order, but was found by the Circuit Court to have had knowledge thereof, and was adjudged guilty of violating the temporary injunction and of contempt of court, and was sentenced to three months' imprisonment. Proceedings for habeas corpus were instituted before Thayer, Circuit Judge, and Reese was discharged. From this order the jailer prosecuted an appeal. It does not appear from the motion for the rule, or otherwise, in the record, that Reese had combined or confederated or conspired with the named defendants. Such being the case, the court held that the act complained of was one against the dignity of the court, and an obstruction of, and interference with, the course of justice; that one not a party to the suit by name or adequate representation is not amenable to punishment as for contempt for a violation merely of the injunction at the suit of a private litigant for his protection. 'There is nothing in the petition, order to show cause, or commitment,' says the court, 'remotely suggesting the purpose of the court to punish him for a willful resistence or disregard of the court's authority, or for interfering with or obstructing the course of justice otherwise than the same is involved in violating an express order of the court, alleged to have been made in the case against him. * * * The petitioner, not being a party defendant in the main case, was not subject to the jurisdiction of the court in that case, and the court had no authority to punish him for the offense as charged against him in the motion for commitment, and a fortiori no authority, on that motion, to punish him for some other offense not therein charged against him. ' In support of this position the court cites the English case of Seaward v. Paterson, 76 Law T.)N.S.) 215. In that case the respondent was adjudged in contempt for knowingly aiding and assisting in doing that which the court had prohibited.

In the case of Phillips v. Detroit, 19 Fed.Cas. 512, Case No. 11,101, Judge, now Justice Brown, cites approvingly the language of the court in the case of Wellesley v. Earl of Mornington, 11 Beav. 180, in which an injunction was issued against the defendant which did not in terms extend to his servants and agents, and says:

'A motion having been made to commit his agent for a breach of the injunction, it was held irregular, but it was afterwards decided that, if he had knowledge of the writ, he might be committed for the contempt, although not for the breach of the injunction.'

The judgment of the court, however, in Phillips v. Detroit, was that respondents were guilty of a violation of the injunction, and they were subjected to the payment of a fine.

In the case of Parsons v. People, 51 Ill.App. 467, the court, speaking through Judge Gary, says:

'That Ida (the respondent) was not one of the board, and therefore not in terms enjoined, does not excuse her disobedience of any injunction, the existence of which she knew (citing Wellesley v. Mornington, supra). But then the rule upon her should not have been, as it is, to show cause why she 'should not be attached and committed to jail for contempt of court in disobeying the injunction entered in this cause,' etc., but it should have been, as it was as to other parties included in the rule, 'in knowingly and willfully aiding and abetting in disobeying and violating said injunction."

In Sloan v. People, 115 Ill.App. 64, the court says of this decision that the decision was not placed upon the ground above stated, but upon a higher ground, and that it should not control.

Judge Baker, in the Indiana District, in Conkey v. Russell (C.C.) 111 F. 417, finds nothing in the Reese Case holding that a person not named as a defendant in the main suit, who aids and abets, may not make himself responsible the same as if he had been made a party to the main suit, and therefore proceeded to hold Besette, the respondent, as a violator of the injunctional order as an aider and abettor. On appeal to the Court of Appeals for this Circuit the case was certified to the Supreme Court as to certain questions of practice, where it was held that the act of Besette, which consisted in interference with the employes of, and those seeking employment with, the Conkey Company, in view of the fact that he was not a party to the main suit, came 'more fully within the punitive than the remedial class. ' Unfortunately no decision on the merits was arrived at in that case. It was, however, held that the matter could be taken to the Appellate Court only by writ of error. In the course of its decision, the court quotes with approval the language of Judge Sanborn, of the Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, in Re Nevitt, 117 F. 448, 54 C.C.A. 622, as follows:

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