Oates v. United States

• Citation: 223 F. 1013
• Decision Date: 04 May 1915
• Docket Number: 1326,1329,1330,1331.
• Parties: OATES v. UNITED STATES.
• Court: United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (4th Circuit)

223 F. 1013

OATES v. UNITED STATES.

Nos. 1326, 1329, 1330, 1331.

United States Court of Appeals, Fourth Circuit.

May 4, 1915

Joseph R. Curl and John C. Palmer, Jr., both of Wheeling, W.Va. (Erskine, Palmer & Curl, of Wheeling, W. Va., on the brief) for plaintiffs in error.

Stuart W. Walker, U.S. Atty., of Martinsburg, W. Va., and J. F Cree, of Wellsburg, W.Va. (John A. Howard, of Wheeling, W Va., on the brief), for the United States.

Before KNAPP and WOODS, Circuit Judges, and CONNOR, District Judge.

WOODS Circuit Judge.

In these contempt proceedings the plaintiffs in error were found guilty of violation of a temporary restraining order of September 29, 1913, made in the case of West Virginia-Pittsburgh Coal Company v. John P. White et al. The tenor of the order was to enjoin interference with plaintiff's business by using threats, force intimidation, or persuasion to induce its employes to break their contracts or leave their work, or by using like means to induce any person to refuse to accept employment with plaintiff, and to enjoin trespassing on plaintiff's premises for the purposes above indicated. The District Judge made specific findings of a number of acts of disobedience of the order by each of the parties charged, and the sentence imposed on each defendant was the payment of the costs and imprisonment for six months. The questions here made, recently considered and decided in Schwartz v. U.S., 217 F. 866, 133 C.C.A. 576, and Scoric v. U.S., 217 F. 871, 133 C.C.A. 581, will not be reconsidered.

There was before the District Judge competent evidence sufficient to warrant a finding of contempt in disregarding the orders of the court against all of the plaintiffs in error. As to some of these findings there was, indeed, no conflict of evidence. As to others, however, there was conflicting evidence, and hence it was important that irrelevant and incompetent evidence should be excluded from consideration. Numerous objections were made to testimony as hearsay which were either overruled or left for future consideration. It is true the court in its decree recites that it bases its finding upon 'the legal evidence produced upon the trial rejecting all improper and irrelevant parts thereof,' but hearsay evidence was admitted, and it is impossible for this court to say from the record what the District Judge ultimately rejected and whether any of the incompetent testimony influenced his findings or the extent of the punishment inflicted.

The decree further recites:

'This court takes judicial notice of the fact that in the chancery cause of Hitchman Coal & Coke Co. v. John Mitchell et al., on January 18, 1913, it filed an opinion found in 202 F. 512, wherein, based upon record and oral evidence of some 8,000 pages, it determined that the United Mine Workers of America as an organization was an unlawful one, for that by its obligation, constitution, by-laws, rules, and regulations it undertakes (a) to require its members to

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