Root v. MacDonald

• Decision Date: 30 June 1927
• Citation: 260 Mass. 344
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court
• Parties: WILLIAM H. ROOT & others v. JAMES MacDONALD & others.

260 Mass. 344

WILLIAM H. ROOT & others v. JAMES MacDONALD & others.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Suffolk.

June 30, 1927

December 7, 1926.

Present: RUGG, C.

J., BRALEY, CROSBY PIERCE, & SANDERSON, JJ.

Equity Jurisdiction, Contempt proceedings. Contempt of Court. Damages, In suit in equity, In contempt proceedings. Evidence, In contempt proceedings, Competency, Materiality Admissions. Witness.

A petition in the Superior Court, by a party in a suit in equity there pending for attachment for contempt of another party to the suit by reason of an alleged violation of a decree, properly is filed in the suit and afterwards prosecuted by itself; and, during hearings of the suit by a master on the main issue in the original bill, questions of law arising with respect to such petition properly may be reported to this court for determination of questions of law before further proceedings in the

Superior Court.

At best the line of demarcation between contempts civil in character and contempts criminal in character is difficult to state with accuracy, and in close cases rests in shadow. Per RUGG, C.J.

In a suit in equity by general contractors, subcontractors, and individual carpenters, members of a labor union, engaged in the construction of a building, against individuals and officers comprising thirty-three different labor unions, the underlying ground of controversy was whether the carpenters' union or an ironworkers' union should install certain hollow metal work in connection with elevators, and an interlocutory decree was entered enjoining the defendants from ordering or attempting to order a strike on the building, or on any other building where the plaintiffs were engaged, for the purpose of bringing about the discharge of the carpenter plaintiffs. While the suit was pending before a master, a plaintiff filed a petition for attachment for contempt against three individual defendants alleging a violation of the injunction resulting in the discharge of plaintiff carpenters from work on another building and that the petitioner and his partner (also a plaintiff in the original bill) and the carpenter plaintiffs in the original bill had been injured by such violation. The prayer of the petition was that the named respondents and such other defendants as might appear to have been guilty of violating the injunction be ordered to show cause why they should not be attached for contempt for such violation. The building in question had been completed before the hearings before the master. Held, that

(1) The nature of the acts set out in the petition could not be pronounced as matter of law to be aimed at the integrity of the courts and designed to degrade the administration of justice as distinguished from a simple interference with property rights manifested by a decree entered for the benefit of a party;

(2) A ruling of law that the contempt alleged in the petition was criminal was erroneous;

(3) Under the petition, if maintained, a fine might be imposed upon a respondent who had violated the injunction and ordered paid to the petitioner, which, if not compensatory for the wrong done, might be designed to reimburse the petitioner not only for the taxable costs of suit but also for the expense of counsel fees and other disbursements in enforcing his rights;

(4) The petitioner was entitled to show whatever damages he had sustained as the natural result of the conduct of the respondents, for the purpose of enlightening the court as to the amount of fine which ought to be imposed on the respondents if found guilty of contempt;

(5) The frame and prayer of the petition together with the facts alleged, while not necessarily constituting a charge of criminal contempt or designed as a matter of law to seek a decree punitive and criminal in its nature, nevertheless were broad enough to warrant punitive treatment of the respondents provided the facts should show that there was a flouting of the authority of the court and wilful affront of its power;

(6) The petitioner, not having elected to take the position that the contempt alleged was criminal as being solely aimed at the integrity of the courts and designed to degrade the administration of justice, had a right to press only for remedial and not for punitive results; and, if he did so, the procedure as to calling the respondents as witnesses and as to the burden of proof would be analogous to that in civil cases in equity;

(7) The petitioner also had the right to press both the civil and the criminal aspects of the case; and, if he did so, the criminal aspect must be regarded as dominant and fixing the character of the trial, and he could not call the respondents as witnesses against their will.

Upon the hearing of a petition for attachment for contempt filed in a suit in equity where the dominant purpose is vindication of the authority of the court, the rule governing the trial of prosecutions for crimes appertains with reference to presumption of innocence, burden of proof, and power to compel the respondent to testify.

In a petition for an attachment for contempt brought by one plaintiff against some of numerous defendants in a suit in equity, even if the petitioner relies upon criminal, or civil and criminal, as distinguished from a solely civil character of contempt, defendants in the suit in equity other than those named in the petition for contempt may be called as witnesses and be compelled to testify.

A contention of the petitioner, in the petition for an attachment for contempt above described, was that coercive acts of respondent ironworkers had caused the discharge of the plaintiff carpenters. The respondents contended that, "although the iron workers did stop work for a day and a half, it was not a strike." As bearing upon this contention, evidence of "a general rumor current among the ironworkers . . . that they would knock off work at the lunch hour," in connection with the fact that they did stop work at that time, rightly was admitted; but general rumors among other trades, not involved in the proceedings, as to the cause of the strike, were not competent evidence.

At the hearing of the petition above described, evidence as to conversations between one of the plaintiffs and the superintendent of the general contractor of the building on which the petitioner alleged acts of the respondents had caused the plaintiff carpenters to be removed, concerning the general subject of causing the carpenters to stop work, was competent.

At the hearing of the petition above described, it was error, whether the proceedings be regarded as remedial or punitive, or partaking of the nature of both, to exclude portions of the direct testimony of one of the alleged contemners given in the main case which were in the nature of an admission touching some of the matters in dispute in the contempt proceedings, the fact that the statements were made on the witness stand in the main case not being a reason why they should not be received in the contempt proceedings.

BILL IN EQUITY, filed in the Superior Court on October 29, 1923, and afterwards amended, and described in the opinion.

An interlocutory decree was entered enjoining the defendants, their officers, agents, attorneys, and counsellors from ordering or attempting to cause any of the defendants to go on strike on the Park Square Building or any other building or buildings where the plaintiffs were engaged, either for the purpose of causing the discharge of the carpenter plaintiffs or any other carpenters represented by the Carpenters' District Council or of compelling W.A. & H.A. Root and Seeley & Lawson, plaintiffs, and others to employ iron workers or other mechanics other than the members of the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America upon the installation, application, erection and distribution and other work incidental thereto of hollow metal doors, windows, frames and trim in said buildings and elsewhere.

The suit was referred to a master on January 17, 1924. Further proceedings in the Superior Court and material facts are described in the opinion. The petitioner in the petition for attachment for contempt was Henry A. Seeley; the respondents were James MacDonald, William H. Pope and E. Albert Johnson. The objections of the petitioner to the report of the master on the question of contempt, referred to in the opinion, were as follows:

"11. To the following ruling of the master, which appears on pages 6 and 7 of his report: `The questions which I am to decide, if I rightly apprehend the scope of the matter submitted to me are whether or not the defendants MacDonald, Pope and Johnson, or any one of them, are guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of having directly or indirectly caused the iron workers to stop work on the Chamber of Commerce Building because the carpenters were doing work on that building which the iron workers claimed rightfully belonged to their craft, and whether or not they, or any one of them, are guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, of having made statements to, or so conducted themselves towards, the general contractor on the Chamber of Commerce Building, that there resulted in his mind a reasonable apprehension that they threatened to cause another strike of the iron workers on the Chamber of Commerce Building unless the work claimed by the iron workers was given to that craft and taken away from the carpenters. I do not attempt to pass on the question of whether the alleged conduct of any of these three is in violation of the injunction or was in contempt of court,' because such ruling was erroneous as matter of law and was prejudicial to the plaintiffs.

"12. Because the master ruled as matter of law that the questions which he was to decide under the rule...