State Ex Rel. Mineral State Coal Co. v. Komar., (No. 7354)

• Decision Date: 28 March 1933
• Docket Number: (No. 7354)
• Citation: 113 W.Va. 526
• Court: West Virginia Supreme Court
• Parties: State ex rel. Mineral State Coal Company v. RaymondKomar et al.

113 W.Va. 526

State ex rel. Mineral State Coal Company

v.Raymond Komar et al.

(No. 7354)

Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia.

Submitted February 28. 1933.

Decided March 28. 1933.

1. Contempt

To support an adjudication of contempt the information or affidavit, upon which the rule is issued, must show on its face facts sufficient to constitute the offense.

2. Injunction

Knowledge of an injunction order, entered eleven years prior to the alleged violation thereof, is not sufficient in itself to show that a person charged with contempt was amenable to it.

3. Contempt

A case in which the pleading was not sufficient to support a rule in contempt.

Litz, Judge, absent.

Error to Circuit Court, Marshall County.

Contempt proceeding by the State, on the relation of the Mineral State Coal Company, against Raymond Komar and others, for the alleged violation of an injunction order. To review a judgment of conviction against B. Sintitius and others, they bring error.

Beversed; dismissed. Hinennan, Fitzsiinons & Casey, for plaintiffs in error.

Woods, Judge:

This is a writ of error from convictions for alleged violation of an injunction order.

Upon a bill filed by the Mineral State Coal Company, a mining corporation, in the circuit court of Marshall county, an order was entered October 8. 1921, perpetually enjoining a large number of persons, therein named, from causing its employees to terminate their contracts of service with it, April 8. 1932, the said Mineral State Coal Company filed its petition in said court, reciting the entry of the injunction order, and charging that William Hooker. B. Sintilius, Stanley Moraskie, John Faulkner, George Weiner, John Zink, H. E. Warrick and Fete Brandon, "well knowing the premises, wholly and contemptuously disregarded said injunction and violated the same in this, by congregating in and about the premises of the plaintiff on the 6th clay of April, 1932, and picketing the same for the purpose of inducing employees of the plaintiff, by unlawful means and methods, now working at said mine to quit and abandon their work." and that by reason thereof many of its servants have ceased work. The petition was supported by the affidavits of the superintendent and bookkeeper of the Coal Company, containing similar charges. A demurrer to the petition and motion to quash the affidavits were overruled upon a hearing. Without bringing up the evidence, the plaintiffs in error (respondents in the contempt proceeding) insist that the demurrer and motion should have been sustained for the reason, among others, that neither the petition nor affidavits show that they had conspired with the persons enjoined to violate the injunction. The information or affidavit, upon which the rule is issued, must show on its face facts sufficient to constitute contempt. 13 C. J. 64; 6 R. C. L. 587. It does not appear from either the petition or affidavits that any of the respondents were parties to the injunction or employees of the coal company at the time it became effective, or that the industrial condition prompting the injunction continued thereafter, or that the respondents had conspired with the persons enjoined to violate the injunction, or of what the alleged "unlawful means and methods" employed by them consisted.

Are the pleadings sufficient to support a rule in contempt against the respondents for the violation of the injunction order of 1921? The general rule is that one who violates an injunction is guilty of contempt, although he is not a party to the injunction suit, if he has notice or knowledge of the injunction order, and...