State v. Bland

• Decision Date: 01 June 1905
• Citation: 88 S.W. 28,189 Mo. 197
• Court: Missouri Supreme Court
• Parties: STATE ex rel. CHICAGO, B. & Q. R. CO. v. BLAND et al., Judges (two cases). STATE ex rel. CHICAGO & A. RY. CO. v. SAME.

88 S.W. 28

189 Mo. 197

STATE ex rel. CHICAGO, B. & Q. R. CO. v. BLAND et al., Judges (two cases).

STATE ex rel. CHICAGO & A. RY. CO. v. SAME.

Supreme Court of Missouri.

June 1, 1905.

1. CIVIL CONTEMPT — RIGHT OF APPEAL.

Under Rev. St. 1899, § 2696, declaring that in all cases of final judgment rendered upon any indictment an appeal to the Supreme Court shall be allowed the defendant if applied for during the term at which such judgment is rendered, a complaint informing the court of the violation of an injunction is not an information or indictment, and a judgment rendered thereon is not appealable under the section cited.

2. SAME — FINAL JUDGMENT.

Certain ticket brokers were enjoined from dealing in the return-trip part of a certain class of railroad tickets. They violated the injunction by selling some of such tickets, and complainants in the injunction suit instituted proceedings to have them punished for contempt. Rev. St. 1899, § 806, provides that any party aggrieved by any judgment in any civil cause from which an appeal is not prohibited by the Constitution may appeal from any final judgment in the case. Section 1616 provides that every court of record shall have power to punish as for a criminal contempt willful disobedience of any process or order. Section 1617 limits the punishment which may be inflicted for contempt, and the following section provides that contempts committed in the presence of the court may be punished summarily, but in other cases the party charged shall be notified of the accusation, and have a reasonable time to make his defense. Held, that the order adjudging the brokers guilty of contempt was a final judgment in a civil cause, appealable under section 806.

In Banc. Three separate proceedings in prohibition by the state on the relation of the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad Company, the Chicago & Alton Railway Company and the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad Company against Charles C. Bland and others, as the judges of the St. Louis Court of Appeals, to prevent respondents from proceeding further with appeals to the court mentioned from orders adjudging Herman Schubach and another guilty of contempt in disobeying an injunction issued in a suit by relators against said Schubach and another. Preliminary rule discharged and writ denied.

Johnson, Allen & Richards and Martin L. Clardy, for relator Chicago, B. & Q. R. Co. Edward S. Robert, Douglas W. Robert and Martin L. Clardy, for relator Chicago & A. Ry. Co. Chester H. Krum, Edward J. O'Brien, and Henry W. Bond, for respondents. McKeighan, Wood & Watts and J. M. Dickinson, amici curiæ.

LAMM, J.

In 1903 the Burlington Company commenced two proceedings in equity in the circuit court of St. Louis, one against Schubach and one against Gildersleeve, and the Alton Company also commenced in said court its proceeding in equity against Gildersleeve, the life of each bill being for injunctive relief restraining said Schubach and Gildersleeve from dealing in the return-trip part of a certain class of railroad tickets issued severally by relators to accommodate travel to and from the Louisiana Purchase Exposition at St. Louis, and sold at reduced price in consideration of being nontransferable. See a case on all fours, Schubach v. McDonald, 179 Mo. 163, 78 S. W. 1020, 65 L. R. A. 136, 101 Am. St. Rep. 452, where the averments and a copy of a similar bill are set forth with particularity. Such proceedings were had in each of said causes as resulted in temporary restraining orders against said defendants severally. While said temporary injunctions were in force, and after they had been served upon defendants, plaintiffs in said suits, relators here, in their own several names and through their own counsel filed in said circuit court during its June term, 1904, verified complaints in said causes, causing the court to be informed that said Gildersleeve and Schubach, after injunction bonds filed and approved, and after service of the preliminary restraining orders, violated the terms thereof by carrying on the business of ticket brokerage by buying, selling, and dealing in World's Fair mileage, excursion and passenger tickets and return coupons thereof, and commutation passenger tickets or return coupons thereof, which were and had been issued by the plaintiffs severally for passage over their respective railroads, which said tickets were sold below regular schedule rates and under contracts with the original purchasers entered upon such tickets and signed by the original purchasers making them nontransferable and void in the hands of any other person than such original purchasers. Said complaints also caused the court to be informed of divers and sundry specific instances of violations of said orders in names, tickets, dates, and amounts, and prayed the court to make an order requiring said Schubach and Gildersleeve to appear and show cause why all and every of them should not be punished for contempt of court in violating said injunction. Thereupon Gildersleeve and Schubach were ordered cited to appear and show cause, and they appeared and filed returns through counsel. Thereupon the matter of said complaints, citations, and returns came on for hearing, and thereafter the court entered its judgments, finding and adjudging Schubach and Gildersleeve guilty of contempt and adjudging Gildersleeve in one case to be committed to and be imprisoned in the common jail in the city of St. Louis for a period of 30 days from 2 o'clock p. m. on the 2d day of August, 1904, until 12 o'clock p. m. on the 1st day of September, 1904, or until he be discharged according to law; and in the other case adjudging him to pay to the sheriff of the city of St. Louis for the use of the public schools the sum of $300, together with the costs incurred in the proceeding, before the 1st day of October, 1904, and, if said fine and costs be not paid by the 1st day of October, 1904, that the body of said Gildersleeve be attached by the said sheriff, and that said Gildersleeve be committed to and imprisoned in the common jail in the city of St. Louis for a period of 30 days from the 1st day of October, 1904, or until he shall be discharged according to law; and in the other case adjudging Schubach to pay a fine of $250 and the costs of the proceeding, to be paid to the clerk of said court forthwith to the use of the public schools, and, if said fine is not paid forthwith, then the said Schubach to be committed to and imprisoned in the common jail in the city of St. Louis until such fine is paid; and further adjudging said Schubach to be committed to and imprisoned in the common jail in the city of St. Louis for a period of 10 days, or until he shall be discharged according to law — execution being stayed until October 2d. Afterwards proceedings were had in all said contempt cases, whereby the Honorable Charles C. Bland, one of respondents, as a judge of the St. Louis Court of Appeals, granted appeals to the St. Louis Court of Appeals, approved recognizances tendered, and stayed all proceedings pending said appeals. Thereupon relators filed here their three several suggestions for prohibition in substantially common form, setting forth the pendency of the injunction proceedings in the St. Louis circuit court, the issue of the temporary restraining orders, the filing and approval of the injunction bonds, the service of the restraining orders, the complaints causing the court to be informed of the violation of said orders, the citations and rules to show cause, the returns to said rules, the hearings had thereon in said circuit court, the several judgments finding said Schubach and Gildersleeve contemners and adjudging fines and imprisonments against them, the granting of appeals by Judge Bland, and then (selecting one as a sample of all) the petition proceeds as follows, in part: "Said petitioner further states that the proceedings instituted as aforesaid by the Honorable Charles C. Bland, Richard L. Goode, and Albert D. Nortoni, judges as aforesaid, of the St. Louis Court of Appeals, are a direct encroachment upon the authority and jurisdiction of the circuit court of the city of St. Louis, in that no appeal was allowable from any order in contempt thereof, or committing any person for contempt of court in disobeying an order of said St. Louis circuit court, and that under the Constitution and the laws it is made the care of this court that the said Hon. Charles C. Bland, Hon. Richard L. Goode, and Hon. Albert D. Nortoni, judges of the St. Louis Court of Appeals aforesaid, and the said St. Louis Court of Appeals, keep within the bounds and limits of the jurisdiction prescribed to them by the laws of the state; and that the St. Louis Court of Appeals has no jurisdiction in said matter, for the reason that there is no law providing for an appeal from a judgment for contempt." On the filing of said petitions for prohibition and an exhibition here of exemplifications of the records of the Circuit Court and of Judge Bland's orders granting appeals, this court issued a preliminary rule to show cause in each case. Thereafter respondents filed their returns to said rules in common form as follows: "Now come Charles C. Bland, Richard L. Goode, and Albert D. Nortoni, and, making return to the writ of prohibition herein, show unto the court here that in the matter concerning which they have been cited to appear they proceeded with and were proceeding in the proper exercise of the appellate jurisdiction in such matters conferred upon them by law, and that there is no valid reason in law why the rule heretofore made upon them should be made absolute. Wherefore they pray that the said rule may be discharged." The causes were heard together in this court, were argued orally by distinguished counsel with candor and ability, and submitted on briefs, in which the only question presented is whether a judgment of a superior court of record, fining and imprisoning a...