In re Chadwick

• Decision Date: 30 June 1896
• Court: Michigan Supreme Court
• Parties: IN RE CHADWICK.

67 N.W. 1071

109 Mich. 588

IN RE CHADWICK.

Supreme Court of Michigan

June 30, 1896

Certiorari to circuit court, St. Clair county; Sherman B. Daboll, Judge.

Anson E. Chadwick was found guilty of contempt of court, and brings the proceedings for review upon writ of certiorari. Affirmed.

A disavowal of the intent to charge improper conduct on the part of the judge will purge the defendant of a contempt when the language used admits of two interpretations; but when only one interpretation is possible, such disavowal is of no avail.

The respondent, Anson E. Chadwick, was found guilty of contempt of court in the circuit court for the county of St. Clair, and has brought the proceedings to this court for review upon the writ of certiorari. Mr. Chadwick was one of the solicitors for the defendant in the case of McMorran v. Fitzgerald (Mich.) 64 N.W. 569. The decree of the court below was entered November 2, 1894. Judge Vance was the judge of the St. Clair circuit. Judge Eldridge who heard and decided the case, was called in by Judge Vance to preside at the hearing.

On the 8th of November, Mr. Chadwick wrote and caused to be published on that day and the following, in the Port Huron News, a newspaper published in the city of Port Huron, the following letter: "Editor Port Huron News: I am driven by the constant inquiries of citizens concerning the decision of Judge Eldridge in the case of McMorran and Botsford against Fitzgerald, and the impossibility of giving time for individual information, to beg as much space as your indulgence will grant in a matter of this importance to the citizens of Port Huron. James H. Fitzgerald being burned out, located his shops where now operated in the honest belief of his right to do so, and positive knowledge that it was the best location possible for his convenience and that of his patrons. He and his counsel have no doubt of his right to operate them as long as grass grows and water runs without prohibition of any competent court on a fair hearing. It is not the question of what the court will do, but of his ability, in his circumstances, with the present business depression, to bear the burden of a long and expensive contest. In the testimony taken it was proved that he had been threatened with financial and social ruin if he attempted to build and operate these shops on his own land at this point. So far they have attempted to keep that pledge. They caused, by misleading or other inducement, the common council of this city, without even giving Mr. Fitzgerald a hearing, to order a suit and injunction to be brought and obtained against him to stop the erection of part of his buildings, thus compelling him to the expense of that contest in getting the injunction dissolved, and the bill dismissed, as well as the delay in his work. Nobody doubts that the common council were moved solely by the influence of McMorran and his co-confederates to take this step solely to help McMorran and others. This failing, McMorran and Botsford, and those joined with them, began their series of steps to ruin Mr. Fitzgerald financially and socially, and have rained down on him suits, threats against his customers, and every petty annoyance which could tend to destroy his business and eat up his profits. It has been, not a question of injunction and decree, but of how long Fitzgerald could last under the enormous expense of continuous litigation. They have caused their lawyers to write threatening letters to every vessel owner on the lakes, such as threats of libel should boats stop at Fitzgerald's in distress for repairs. While the citizens of Port Huron universally believe Judge Vance to be an upright, independent judge and man, these complainants judged him so unrighteously that, on his refusal to give a private hearing to one of the complainants' wives, she took possession of his chamber, and drove him out, and assumed and declared that if he was too honest to hear her case privately he was too dishonest to decide it as she thought it ought to be decided, and by persistent attacks upon him and his motives drove him out of the case. Since the decision, a good deal is known of facts which she and the complainants thought warranted them in submitting the case to Judge Eldridge. These reasons are an insult to Judge Eldridge, but they care nothing about that, of course. It will surprise the good citizens to know that this principal manager and lobbyist of the complainants' case undertook to and did make a trip to Mt. Clemens, in state, to wit, on their private yacht, to visit and interview the judge. She thinks she argued and submitted the case while there, and, of course, the complainants agree with her. Now, Mr. Fitzgerald, having expended a large amount of money in his defense so far, and suffered inconceivable nuisances and injury from their conduct, finds that an appeal to the supreme court, which he has no doubt will result in an entire reversal and dismissal of the bill, will cost him further large sums of money, and that he will be under the storm of petty annoyances in pursuance of the threat and effort to ruin him. What assurance has he that the city, through its council, will not again lend its aid to these people to oppress him; or, having recovered a final decree dismissing all of complainants' suits and bills, with full costs, and vindicating his right to remain and operate his business there forever, he will not still be subjected to other and constant trumped-up suits, the defense of which will eat up all his earnings. The talk of good citizens and candidates for city offices about doing everything to promote manufacturing enterprises is sheer nonsense, when these same good citizens stand by and see their interests betrayed by their own officials, and see the destruction of existing industries by such means, which, of itself, is a warning to any new ones not to attempt to establish a business here. Mr. Fitzgerald cannot afford to work a lifetime merely to earn money to spend upon courts or counsel, even to defend an undoubted right. To set at rest once for all any talk about any other site in the city of Port Huron for Mr. Fitzgerald, I desire to say that he will carry on his business where he now is, or, if he quits, will quit the city with that business. He knows, and we all know, if we had any sense, that this decree, as it stands, is an absolute prohibition forever upon the erection and maintenance of any manufacturing plant within three or four hundred feet of any residence in the city limits, whether worth one thousand dollars or one hundred thousand dollars, and will make the proprietor subject to be blackmailed or driven out through any conspiracy of the owner or others, unless it is money, and not human rights, that now control the judgment of our courts. One word more. Within the radius of one thousand feet from defendant's smokestack and steam hammer are eleven residences owned by their occupants. This appeared in the testimony. Will it not shock the sense and judgment of men to learn that of these eleven but three, to wit, John E. Botsford, Henry McMorran, and E. C. Carleton, desired the removal of these shops, or pretended to claim they were offensive in the least degree; but two of these residents were nearer than 300 feet, the other two from 450 to 800 feet. Three of these residences are but temporary homes for the owners, and they have not pretended for years to make them their permanent residences. Of the seven remaining residences the owners and occupants of five testified positively that they were so far from being a nuisance that they were not in anything the slightest annoyance; and that these comprised not only the nearest, but, on the average, much nearer than the others; and five owners were as clean in their habits, as intelligent and respectable,

if not as rich, as the complainants. I will say one word more. It will surprise the great majority of the people of this city who have used their eyes, ears, and sense of smell for the last three years, and utterly failed to discover the thing complained of by the complainants, to find that Judge Eldridge, who refused to examine the premises and locality, although urgently and repeatedly requested to do so by defendants' solicitors, could find what they failed to discover. This decree prohibits Fitzgerald from even carrying on the business of banking, hotel keeping, warehousing, or merchandising on that property. Is that the law's decree, or is it the decree of a conspiracy to ruin Fitzgerald? The citizens can now deal with this matter, but when they have decided I caution them to look closely after their public servants to see that the cold-blooded and silent lobby does not overrule them. A. E. Chadwick."

A petition was filed in the circuit court for the county of St Clair by A. R. Avery, P. H. Phillips, and E. W. Harris, members of the bar of St. Clair county, setting forth the above letter, and asking the court to proceed against Mr. Chadwick for contempt. The petition was accompanied by affidavits denying the material charges made in the letter. To this petition the respondent made answer by filing two affidavits, in the first of which he stated that Judge Eldridge, who made the order of citation served upon him, was disqualified from sitting in the matter by reason of his personal interest therein and relation thereto, and by reason of his knowledge of facts which will be controverted when a proper issue is framed, and because he was a material and important witness for the respondent; that the matters complained of, if a reflection upon the judge and his conduct, affected him personally, and not as a court, and sitting as a judge; that the object of that proceeding was not to punish and try the respondent for contempt of...