International Products Corporation v. Koons

• Decision Date: 28 October 1963
• Docket Number: No. 159,Docket 28430.,159
• Citation: 325 F.2d 403
• Parties: INTERNATIONAL PRODUCTS CORPORATION, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Charles A. KOONS, and Jane Roe, Richard Roe and Charles A. Koons, individually and as co-partners doing business under the firm name and style of Charles A. Koons & Company, Defendants-Appellants.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Second Circuit

325 F.2d 403 (1963)

INTERNATIONAL PRODUCTS CORPORATION, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Charles A. KOONS, and Jane Roe, Richard Roe and Charles A. Koons, individually and as co-partners doing business under the firm name and style of Charles A. Koons & Company, Defendants-Appellants.

No. 159, Docket 28430.

United States Court of Appeals Second Circuit.

Argued October 4, 1963.

Decided October 28, 1963.

Gustave B. Garfield, Francis X. Stephens, Jr., New York City, for defendants-appellants.

Robert B. Block, Pomerantz, Levy, Haudek & Block, New York City, for plaintiff-appellee.

Arthur S. Olick, Asst. U. S. Atty., Robert M. Morgenthau, U. S. Atty. for the Southern Dist. of New York, for the United States.

Before LUMBARD, Chief Judge, and FRIENDLY and SMITH, Circuit Judges.

FRIENDLY, Circuit Judge.

This is an appeal, allegedly pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1292(a) (1), from an order of Judge Metzner in an action brought in the District Court for the Southern District of New York, on the basis of diverse citizenship, by International Products Corporation against Koons, its former president, and others. Koons has counter-claimed and also has instituted a suit for libel against International and its directors. The order concerns a deposition of Jose Seldes, now president of International, taken at defendants' instance, in which questions were asked as to payments by officers of International to officials of a South American government, and related matters; for convenience we quote the ordering portions in the margin.¹

The proceedings leading to the order began with an order to show cause signed by Judge Croake on May 24, 1963, itself providing for similar relief pending disposition of the motion which was to be heard on June 6; the order to show cause directed that service be made not only upon defendants and their counsel but also upon the Legal Adviser to the Department of State and the Deputy Attorney General. The moving affidavit had claimed that the described material, if publicized in South America, not merely "could be extremely embarrassing and cause great inconvenience and hardship to International and Jose Seldes" but "would be contrary to the best interests of the foreign policy of the United States," and that the affiant had "been advised that the Department of State has been informed of this situation and has requested that it and the Department of Justice be notified of this application in order that the Court might ascertain the position of the United States Government with respect thereto." On June 5, the Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs sent the Attorney General a letter which, after referring to the action and the order to show cause, requested the Attorney General to support International's attempt to preclude disclosure.² The next day the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York filed a Suggestion of Interest of the United States at the direction of the Attorney General pursuant to 5 U.S.C. § 316. A copy of the Assistant Secretary's letter was attached, and the United States Attorney submitted "to the Court that an order limiting disclosure, as described in this Court's order to show cause, dated May 24, 1963, would further the foreign policy objective of the United States." Appellants contend that the Suggestion of Interest was unauthorized by 5 U.S.C. § 316 and that the order deprived them of rights to freedom of speech and to proper preparation of their case which are guaranteed by the First and Fifth Amendments.

We must deal first with appealability. Appellants claim the order was an injunction pendente lite appealable under 28 U.S.C. § 1292(a) (1). Appellee responds that the order was simply a pre-trial order under F.R.Civ.Proc. 30 (b), which authorizes the court to seal a deposition and to "make any other order which justice requires to protect the party or witness from annoyance, embarrassment, or oppression"; it calls attention to some of the decisions cited below that the mere presence of words of restraint or direction in an order that is only a step in an action does not make § 1292(a) (1) applicable. Baltimore Contractors, Inc. v. Bodinger, 348 U.S. 176, 75 S.Ct. 249, 99 L.Ed. 233 (1955); Fleischer v. Phillips, 264 F.2d 515, 516 (2 Cir.), cert. denied, 359 U.S. 1002, 79 S.Ct. 1139, 3 L.Ed.2d 1030 (1959); Armstrong-Norwalk Rubber Corp. v. Local 283, United Rubber Workers, 269 F.2d 618, 621 (2 Cir. 1959); Greenstein v. National Skirt & Sportswear Ass'n, 274 F.2d 430 (2 Cir. 1960); Grant v. United States, 282 F.2d 165, 169 (2 Cir. 1960); Taylor v. Board of Educ., 288 F.2d 600, 604 (2 Cir.), cert. denied, 368 U.S. 940, 82 S.Ct. 382, 7 L.Ed.2d 339 (1961); Lummus Co. v. Commonwealth Oil Refining Co., 297 F.2d 80, 84-86 (2 Cir. 1961), cert. denied, 368 U.S. 986, 82 S.Ct. 601, 7 L.Ed.2d 524 (1962). These decisions make it plain, for example, that an order sealing a deposition would not be rendered appealable by the addition of a direction to those who attended its taking to refrain from disclosing what they had heard. See 6 Moore, Federal Practice (1953), pp. 46 and 147, and cases there cited. But that does not altogether settle the issue here, since the order enjoined defendants from utilizing not only the deposition but also documents or writings which they had themselves produced or submitted. The single order entered by the district judge might therefore be viewed as in effect two orders: one under F.R.Civ.Proc. 30 (b), which is not appealable, and another going beyond the authority of the Rule, which is. Support for doing this might be sought in the principle that when a distinction has to be drawn between a temporary restraining order, which is not appealable, and a preliminary injunction, which is, "the label put on the order by the trial court is not decisive," 3 Barron & Holtzoff, Federal Practice and Procedure (Wright ed. 1958) § 1440, at 509. See Sims v. Greene, 160 F.2d 512 (3 Cir. 1947); Connell v. Dulien Steel Products, Inc., 240 F.2d 414, 417-418 (5 Cir. 1957), cert. denied, 356 U.S. 968, 78 S.Ct. 1008, 2 L.Ed.2d 1074 (1958); Pennsylvania Motor Truck Ass'n v. Port of Philadelphia Marine Terminal Ass'n, 276 F.2d 931 (3 Cir. 1960); Parker v. Columbia Broadcasting System, 320 F.2d 937 (2 Cir. 1963).

We think it better, in line with our prior decisions, to continue to read § 1292(a) (1) as relating to injunctions which give or aid in giving some or all of the substantive relief sought by a complaint (including stays of proceedings "at law," as in Enelow v. New York Life Ins. Co., 293 U.S. 379, 55 S.Ct. 310, 79 L.Ed. 440 (1935) and Ettelson v. Metropolitan Life Ins. Co., 317 U.S. 188, 63 S.Ct. 163, 87 L.Ed. 176 (1942)) and not as including restraints or directions in orders concerning the conduct of the parties or their counsel, unrelated to the substantive issues in the action, while awaiting trial.³ As explained in Baltimore Contractors, Inc. v. Bodinger, supra, 348 U.S. at 181, 75 S.Ct. at 252 and Grant v. United States, supra, 282 F.2d at 169, such a construction provides a better fit with the language of the statute, "where, upon a hearing in equity in a district court," as this first appeared in § 7 of the Evarts Act, c. 517, 26 Stat. 828 (1891) and later in the Judicial Code of 1911, § 129, 36 Stat. 1134; with the conclusion that the omission of the words "in equity" in the Act of February 13, 1925, 43 Stat. 937, "was not intended to remove that limitation," Schoenamsgruber v. Hamburg American Line, 294 U.S. 454, 457, fn. 3, 55 S.Ct. 475, 477, 79 L.Ed. 989 (1935); and with the policy considerations which led Congress to create this exception to the federal final judgment rule. Furthermore, to read § 1292(a) (1) so broadly as to include an order, purportedly under F.R.Civ. Proc. 30(b), which grants injunctive relief beyond what the Rule authorizes, would also bring within the sweep of the statute orders denying requests for such relief, although there would be no such need for appellate intervention as is created by appellants' claim that the instant order violates their constitutional rights, and thus to extend our jurisdiction under § 1292(a) (1) would seem quite inconsistent with the federal policy of finality. A decision like Sims v. Greene, supra, that what had been labelled a temporary restraining order was appealable as a temporary injunction, does not run counter to what we deem the correct construction of the statute, since the order related to the very equitable relief sought by the complaint. Neither would we regard the instant order as falling "in that small class which finally determine claims of right separable from, and collateral to, rights asserted in the action, too important to be denied review and too independent of the cause itself to require that appellate consideration be deferred until the whole case is adjudicated," Cohen v. Beneficial Industrial Loan Corp., 337 U.S. 541, 545-547, 69 S.Ct. 1221, 93 L.Ed. 1528 (1949), as we recently did in National Equipment Rental, Ltd. v. Mercury Typesetting Co., 323 F.2d 784 (2 Cir., 1963).

It does not follow, however, that an order purportedly made under F.R.Civ.Proc. 30(b) which exceeds the power there given to a district court is altogether beyond appellate scrutiny. The normal remedy for action taken in excess of jurisdiction is mandamus. See Rabekoff v. Lazere & Co., 325 F.2d 865, 867 fn. 1 (2 Cir. 1963). In contrast with at least one other circuit, this court has generally declined to consider an appeal from a nonappealable order as a petition for mandamus. See the authorities cited in United States v. O'Connor, 291 F.2d 520, 523-524 (2 Cir. 1961), in which we did so consider an unauthorized appeal in a case where the judge had died. As indicated in the O'Connor opinion, the only justification for what has been thought to be a rather formalistic attitude on our part, see 6 Moore, Federal Practice (1953 ed.), p. 93, is a desire to afford an opportunity for response by...