State Ex Eel Fortney Lumber v. The Baltimore
| Citation | 73 W.Va. 1 |
| Court | West Virginia Supreme Court |
| Decision Date | 14 October 1913 |
| Parties | State Ex Eel Fortney Lumber and Hardware Company, v. The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Company. |
A judgment for contempt of a trial court, consisting of disobedience of its judgment, decree or order, is not reviewable in the appellate court, if the trial court had jurisdiction of the cause in which it rendered, pronounced or entered the violated judgment, decree or order, and did not exceed its jurisdiction in doing so. (p. 2).
But, if such court had not such jurisdiction, or, having it, exceeded its powers in entering the judgment, decree or order, ita lack of jurisdiction affords ground for appellate jurisdiction to annul the judgment of contempt. (p. 2).
Equity has jurisdiction to enjoin the taking of private personal property for public use without payment of just compensation therefor. (p. 4).
A corporation may be a contemnor and punishable as such by fine, (p. 6).
(Lynch, Judge, absent). Error to Circuit Court, Taylor County.
Action by the State on relation to the Fortney Lumber and Hardware Company against the Baltimore & Ohio Bailroad Company, a corporation. Defendant was found guilty of contempt and adjudged to pay a fine, and brings error.
Writ Dismissed as Improvidently Awarded. B. F. Bailey, for plaintiff in error.
pofeenbarger, president i
Having been found guilty of a contempt of court and adjudged to pay a fine of $500.00, the defendant obtained this writ of error to the judgment.
The alleged contempt, disobedience of an injunction order, was one the court could punish summarily, Code, ch. 147, sec. 27, 4th clause.
If the court had jurisdiction of the cause in the general sense of the term and did not exceed its authority in awarding the injunction or rendering the judgment complained of, the writ of error to this Court does not lie, for the statute giving power here to review judgments in contempt cases excepts those consisting of disobedience of judgments, decrees and orders. Code, ch. 160, sec. 4. While this section purports to except all cases of that kind, it must be read in connection with a general principle, authorizing appellate courts to entertain writs of error and appeals for the annulment of judgments rendered and decrees entered without jurisdiction. Want of jurisdiction in the trial court confers appellate jurisdiction. Freer v. Davis, 52 W. Va. 1; Clark v. County Court, 55 W. Va. 278. Agreeably to the general rule observed in most, if not all, jurisdictions, the legislature seems clearly to have intended not to give a right of review of judgments for contempt by disobedience to judgments, decrees and orders, and there is good reason for withholding appellate jurisdiction in such cases. Interlocutory orders and decrees, such as preliminary injunction orders, are always correctable by the courts in which they are made, and in all important instances, the law affords an appellate remedy for refusal to make such corrections. There may be an appeal from an order refusing to dissolve an injunction or from an order appointing a receiver. In these instances and some others,
the aggrieved parties are not bound to await the final decree, and in others, not deemed to be of sufficient importance to warrant an appeal therefrom, the errors of the trial court are correctible by an appeal from the final decree. Having these remedies for the correction of interlocutory orders and final decrees, a party ought not to be permitted to attack such decrees by collateral or indirect methods, such as disobedience thereof with a right of review of the judgments imposing the penalties inflicted by the court for disobedience. In requiring him to respect and obey the orders and decrees of the court, the law thus inflicts no hardship. It affords him a remedy for every abuse of authority, and there is no reason why he should attempt to take the law into his own hands and redress his own grievances. But this power of the court to compel obedience to its orders and decrees is subject to an important limitation. It must be within its own jurisdiction and powers. This does not mean that its decrees and judgments must be free from error, for a court having power to decree at all in a given cause may pronounce an erroneous decree without exceeding its powers. Error is not want of jurisdiction. Coal Co. v. Ritz, 60 W. Va. 395. A judgment for contempt of a void order oi decree is a void judgment and cannot be enforced. Coal Co. v. Ritz, cited. A contempt proceeding for violation of such an order may be prohibited. Coal Co. v. Ritz, cited. The existence of this remedy does not deny appellate jurisdiction, for there may be an appeal from a void decree or a writ of error to a void judgment. Clark v. County Court, cited; McCoy v. Allen, 16 W. Va. 724; Monroe v. Bartlett, 6 W. Va. 441; Johnson v. Young, 11 W. Va. 673.
Some of the decisions of this Court may seem to be at variance with the views here expressed. Writs of error have been entertained in several cases similar to this, but the question of appellate jurisdiction, or rather the extent to which the appellate court has jurisdiction and the grounds thereof, seems not to have been discussed. In Staie v. Fredlock, 52 W. Va. 232, the jurisdictional question was not raised and the Court seems to have reviewed the judgment generally. However, the main questions discussed in that case pertained to the jurisdiction of the trial court. In Ruhl v. Ruhl, 24 W. Va. 279, this Court seems to have based its appellate jurisdiction on proper grounds, and to have observed the distinction here made. In State v. Irwin, 30 W. Va. 404, the Court seems to have proceeded upon the theory of a want of jurisdiction, holding there was no authority in the court below to punish for contempt an act intended to be prohibited by an injunction which had not yet taken effect, because the condition requiring bond had not been complied with. The distinction is somewhat nice and obscure and both parties and the court at times may have failed to observe it, but it is obviously sound and embodies a wholesome principle.
The relator in the contempt proceeding, the Fortney Lumber and Hardware Company, was the lessee of a certain lot in the city of Grafton, bordering on a certain street over which the plaintiff in error was about to construct its track, making a deep excavation. The bill for the injunction alleges purpose and intent on the part of the railway company, with the permission of the city, to widen the street so as to take a part of the leased lot and a portion of one of the buildings thereon. The purpose of the bill was to prevent this alleged taking of its property, to the extent of the threatened invasion of the leased premises and the...
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