Toledo Newspaper Co v. United States

• Decision Date: 10 June 1918
• Docket Number: No. 371,371
• Parties: TOLEDO NEWSPAPER CO. et al. v. UNITED STATES
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

247 U.S. 402

38 S.Ct. 560

62 L.Ed. 1186

TOLEDO NEWSPAPER CO. et al.

v UNITED STATES.

No. 371.

Argued March 7 and 8, 1918.

Decided June 10, 1918.

[Syllabus from pages 402-403 intentionally omitted] Mr. Lawrence Maxwell, of Cincinnati, Ohio, for plaintiff in error.

[Argument of Counsel from pages 403-407 intentionally omitted] Mr. William L. Day, of Cleveland, Ohio, and Mr. Assistant Attorney General Fitts, for the United States.

[Argument of Counsel from pages 408-410 intentionally omitted] Mr. Chief Justice WHITE delivered the opinion of the Court.

This case is before us on error to review the action of the court below affirming a judgment of the trial court holding the defendants guilty of a summary contempt and imposing a fine upon them both. There is also pending an application for certiorari made upon the assumption that if jurisdiction on error was wanting the case involved questions of such importance as to justify our interposition.

We are of opinion that a motion to dismiss the writ of error must prevail since it is settled that a conviction for a criminal, although summary, contempt is for the purposes of our reviewing power a matter of criminal law not within our jurisdiction on error. Cary Manufacturing Co. v. Acme Flexible Clasp Co., 187 U. S. 427, 428, 23 Sup. Ct. 211, 47 L. Ed. 244; O'Neal v. United States, 190 U. S. 36, 38, 23 Sup. Ct. 776, 47 L. Ed. 945; Bessette v. W. B. Conkey Co., 194 U. S. 324, 335, 24 Sup. Ct. 665, 48 L. Ed. 997; Re Merchants' Stock Co., Petitioner, 223 U. S. 639, 32 Sup. Ct. 339, 56 L. Ed. 584; Gompers v. United States, 233 U. S. 604, 606, 34 Sup. Ct. 693, 58 L. Ed. 1115, Ann. Cas. 1915D, 1044. But this does not relieve us from the duty of exerting jurisdiction, as we are of opinion that the case calls for the exertion of the discretionary power with which we are vested. The writ of certiorari is therefore granted and we proceed to examine and dispose of the case to the extent rendered necessary by that conclusion.

The case is this: The Toledo Railways & Light Company in 1913 controlled and operated practically all the street railways in Toledo. The franchises under which it did so, however, it was generally considered, expired on the 27th of March, 1914. In anticipation of this fact negotiations as to the terms upon which they should be renewed were broached between the city and the company and pronounced differences were manifested. This gave rise to public agitation and discussion over the question which had become acute in November, 1913. In that month, evidently in order to enable the city to secure from the company such terms of agreement as it might impose, an ordinance was passed without giving any new franchise or in terms making any new contract with the company, providing that on and after the 27th of March, 1914, the assumed day of the expiration of the franchises, three-cent fares should be charged from day to day. Complaint alleging the injustice of this provision and the wrong which the railroad asserted would be produced by giving it effect increased the agitation.

In January, 1914, creditors of the company filed in the District Court of the United States their bill against the company to enjoin it from obeying the ordinance on the ground that to do so would confiscate the property which they held in the company and would destroy the franchises which the company enjoyed and which, it was asserted, only expired in the following October. On March 24th the creditors filed a supplemental bill making the city a party to the suit and asking preliminary and permanent injunctions against the city. On the same day the company also filed its bill against the city seeking to restrain the enforcement of the ordinance both by preliminary and final injunctions.

At this juncture and before action had been taken by the court, the Toledo News-Bee, a daily paper published in Toledo by the Toledo Newspaper Company, began publications adverse to the rights asserted against the city by the creditors and the railway company and in no uncertain terms avouched the right of the city to have enacted the ordinance which the suits assailed and challenged the right of the court to grant the relief prayed. On March 30th the court after hearing on the applications for preliminary injunctions denied them on the ground that the assailed ordinance was not self-enforcing, that it required an application for judicial power to put it into effect and that it would be time enough when the city invoked such relief by such power to assert by way of defense the matters which were made the basis of the prayer for affirmative relief in the pending controversies.

In September following under a new prayer the court reconsidered its action and awarded the preliminary injunction prayed on the ground that as the city had in the meanwhile treated the ordinance as enforceable without resort to judicial process and was acting against the company and the creditors and their alleged rights on that assumption, the duty was cast upon the court of protecting such rights pending the decision of the causes. In the meanwhile, however, the agitation over the questions which the suits involved had unremittingly continued and was beyond doubt fanned by continuous publications on the subject in the stated newspaper into a more exaggerated—not to use a stronger word—and vociferous expression which embraced the whole field; that is, not only the relative rights of the city and the corporation, but also at least by indirection the duty and power of the court and its right to afford any relief in the matters before it.

Immediately preceding the action of the court taken on September 12th granting the preliminary injunction and while that subject was before it for consideration, an attachment for contempt was issued against one Quinlivan for words spoken by him at a meeting of a labor union concerning the court and the matter which it was then engaged in considering. And a few days following, on September 15th, a similar process was issued against the managing editor of the Toledo News-Bee for publications written by him in the paper concerning the action of the court in the Quinlivan case.

On September 29th following the court directed the district attorney to present an information for contempt against the newspaper company and its editor for the publications which had been made concerning the controversy and on October 28th, giving effect to this order, an information was filed charging the newspaper company and the editor with contempt. The charges were stated in three counts. The first embraced matters published during the pendency of the suit from the time, March 24th, when the action was taken to make the city a party and the respective preliminary injunctions were prayed, up to and including the time when the ultimate action of the court on the subject in September was taken. The two other counts related, the one to publications made at the time of and concerning the attachment for contempt against Quinlivan, and the other to publications concerning the attachment against the managing editor. The defendants demurred on the ground that the information stated no act within the power of the court to punish for contempt and on the overruling of the demurrer they answered, not disputing the publications charged, but challenging the innuendoes by which in the information they were interpreted and reiterating the denial of all power in the court to punish.

Coming to dispose of the information the court found both of the defendants guilty under all t e counts and imposed upon both a punishment by way of fine. The court sustained its authority to so act by an elaborate opinion, which after stating the evidentiary facts—the publications and their environment—drew from them ultimate conclusions of fact and held that from such conclusions it clearly resulted that the publications complained of constituted a contempt within the power of the court to punish because by their terms they manifestly tended to interfere with and obstruct the court in the discharge of its duty in a matter pending before it. Condensing for the sake of brevity and looking at the substance of things, these conclusions of the court embraced four grounds: (a) Because, leaving aside the attempted ridicule, not to say vituperation, concerning the court which was expressly or impliedly contained in the publications, their manifest purpose was to create the impression on the mind of the court that it could not decide in the matter before it in any but the one way without giving rise to such a state of suspicion as to the integrity or fairness of its purpose and motives as might engender a shrinking from so doing. (b) Because the publications directly tended to incite to such a condition of the public mind as would leave no room for doubt that if the court acting according to its convictions awarded relief, it would be subject to such odium and hatred as to restrain it from doing so. (c) Because the publications also obviously were intended to produce the impression that any order which might be rendered by the court in the discharge of its duty if not in accord with the con- ceptions which the publications were sustaining, would be disregarded and cause a shrinking from performing duty to avoid the turmoil an violence which the publications, it may be only by covert insinuation, but none the less assuredly invited. And (d) because the publications were of a character, not merely because of their intemperance but because of their general tendency, to produce in the popular mind a condition which would give rise to a purpose in practice to refuse to respect any order which the court might render if it conflicted with the supposed rights of the city espoused by the publications. 220 Fed. 458.

The affirmance by the court below of the action of the trial court thus stated, is the matter now before us for review. That court, not asserting the...