U.S. v. Partin

• Decision Date: 12 December 1975
• Docket Number: No. 75-1378,75-1378
• Citation: 524 F.2d 992
• Parties: 90 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 3299, 33 A.L.R.Fed. 838, 78 Lab.Cas. P 11,202 UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Edward Grady PARTIN, Defendant-Appellant.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit

Page 992

524 F.2d 992

90 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 3299, 33 A.L.R.Fed. 838,

78 Lab.Cas. P 11,202

UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Edward Grady PARTIN, Defendant-Appellant.

No. 75-1378.

United States Court of Appeals Fifth Circuit.

Dec. 12, 1975.

Lawrence R. Anderson, Jr., Baton Rouge, La., J. Minos Simon, Lafayette, La., for defendant-appellant.

Douglas M. Gonzales, U. S. Atty., Robert S. Leake, Asst. U. S. Atty., Baton Rouge, La., for plaintiff-appellee.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Middle District of Louisiana.

Before WISDOM, CLARK and RONEY, Circuit Judges.

WISDOM, Circuit Judge:

The primary issue in this case involves the effect of Muniz v. Hoffman, 1975, --- U.S. ----, 95 S.Ct. 2178, 45 L.Ed.2d 319 on the right to a jury trial of an alleged contemnor of a Boys Markets injunction. ¹

Edward Grady Partin, the defendant-appellant, is a "business agent" for General Truck Drivers, Warehousemen, and Helpers Local No. 5. The district court, consistent with the Boys Markets interpretation of § 301 of the Labor Management Relations Act, ² entered a temporary restraining order on November 27, 1974, enjoining Local No. 5 and "its officers, agents, members, and all persons in active concert and participation with them from in any manner engaging in a strike, work stoppage or picketing against Delta Concrete Products Company". For his knowing and willful disobedience of the restraining order, the district court convicted Partin for criminal contempt in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 401(3), ³ and sentenced him to six months imprisonment. Although prior to trial Partin made no request for a jury, on appeal his principal argument challenges his conviction on the ground that the court failed to afford him a jury trial. We hold that Partin had no constitutional ⁴ or statutory right to a jury trial ⁵ and that his other assignments of error also are not valid. Accordingly, we affirm.

I.

The appellant's argument that he is entitled to a jury trial is premised on 18 U.S.C. § 3692, which provides:

In all cases of contempt arising under the laws of the United States governing the issuance of injunctions or restraining orders in any case involving or growing out of a labor dispute, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the contempt shall have been committed. . . .

Because the restraining order that Partin was found to have violated undoubtedly grew out of a "labor dispute" a wildcat strike engendered by an employer's firing and failing to rehire a union steward on its face § 3692 seems to support Partin's position. Unfortunately for Partin, however, the recent Supreme Court case of Muniz v. Hoffman has narrowed the scope of § 3692. In the light of Muniz, § 3692 grants no right to a jury trial to an alleged contemnor of a Boys Markets injunction.

In Muniz, the question was whether § 3692 required a jury trial in contempt proceedings arising out of the alleged violation of an injunction, entered under § 10(l ) of the Labor Management Relations Act, restraining asserted unfair labor practices. The Court held that § 3692 did not compel a jury trial. The essential elements of the Court's reasoning were its findings that § 3692 had originally been enacted as § 11 of the Norris-LaGuardia Act, that § 3692 was no broader now than was its predecessor, ⁶ and that the injunction involved in the case did not arise from the Norris-LaGuardia Act, but from the Wagner and Taft-Hartley Acts. ⁷ The injunction secured by the Delta Concrete Products Company here similarly did not arise under the Norris-LaGuardia Act, but under the Taft-Hartley Act. We are constrained, therefore, to follow the Supreme Court's reasoning in Muniz.

The appellant contends that Muniz should be limited to its facts. He contends first that the Supreme Court's holding was based on the fact that the injunctions secured under § 10(l ) of the Taft-Hartley Act were sought, not by private parties, but by a governmental body obligated to act in the public interest. He argues that only this special "screening" by the NLRB permits an encroachment upon the barrier to judicial abuse of injunctions embodied in § 3692. This "screening" factor was important to the Muniz Court. As support for its conclusion that the injunctions permitted by the Taft-Hartley Act fell "outside the framework of Norris-LaGuardia", ⁸ the Court cited three instances of Taft-Hartley's congressional history demonstrating that the NLRB's acting in the public interest was relevant to the creation of NLRB authority to seek injunctive relief. ⁹

Second, the appellant points out that § 10(h) of the Wagner Act provided that in "granting appropriate temporary relief for a restraining order, or . . . enforcing . . . or setting aside . . . an order of the Board . . . the jurisdiction of courts sitting in equity shall not be limited by" the Norris-LaGuardia Act. The Muniz Court also relied upon § 10(h) in reaching its decision. Where, as in a Boys Markets situation, the power to issue an injunction arises from § 301 of the Taft-Hartley Act, § 10(h) of the Wagner Act is clearly inapplicable.

These suggested distinctions between the appellant's case and Muniz are patent. Nevertheless, the critical factor in Muniz was not the legislative history of the Taft-Hartley Act, nor was it § 10(h) of the Wagner Act. ¹⁰ The critical factor was that

those acts expressly or impliedly, Boys Markets, Inc. v. Retail Clerks Union, 398 U.S. 235, 90 S.Ct. 1583, 26 L.Ed.2d 199 (1970), authorized various kinds of injunctions in labor dispute cases and expressly or impliedly exempted those injunctions from the jurisdictional and procedural limitations of Norris-LaGuardia to the extent necessary to effectuate the provisions of those Acts.

The crucial issue is whether in enacting the Wagner and Taft-Hartley Acts, Congress not only intended to exempt the injunctions they authorized from Norris-LaGuardia's limitations, but also intended that civil and criminal contempt proceedings enforcing those injunctions were not to afford contemnors the right to a jury trial. ¹¹

In determining congressional intent, the Muniz Court was influenced by the original language of Norris-LaGuardia's § 11, which by its own terms was limited to injunctions "arising under" that Act. In United States v. United Mine Workers, 1947, 330 U.S. 258, 298, 67 S.Ct. 677, 91 L.Ed. 884, the Supreme Court held that § 11, so limited, did not apply to an injunction secured by the United States because such an injunction was not governed by the substantive provisions of the Norris-LaGuardia Act. ¹² Following the reasoning of United Mine Workers, the Muniz Court again ruled that

§ 11 by its own terms (does) . . . not apply to contempt cases arising out of these injunctions. By providing for labor act injunctions outside the framework of Norris-LaGuardia, Congress necessarily contemplated that there would be no right to jury trial in contempt cases.

Here, as in Muniz, an injunction was entered "outside the framework of Norris-LaGuardia." The injunction is entitled, therefore, to the traditional protection of non-jury contempt proceedings. ¹³

The appellant further contends that Boys Markets was, by its own language, a narrow case. As such, it should be narrowly construed. The scope of the Norris-LaGuardia Act should be limited only when it is necessary to further national labor policy as reflected in congressional enactments. Because, according to the appellant, granting a jury trial to alleged contemnors of § 301 would not impair any labor policy, Boys Markets should be inapplicable in construing § 3692. The appellant's interpretation, however, would amount to an unjustified encroachment upon the power of federal courts to enforce federal law, and the intent of Congress, as interpreted in Boys Markets, to enforce mandatory arbitration provisions in collective bargaining agreements freely agreed to by opposing parties. ¹⁴

Although there are constitutional limitations upon the sentence which can be imposed by a court, sitting without a jury, in contempt proceedings, see Bloom v. Illinois, 1968, 391 U.S. 194, 88 S.Ct. 1444, 20 L.Ed.2d 522, such constitutional limitations do not apply here. There is no reason to doubt that Congress, when it gave federal courts the power to enforce collective bargaining agreements, believed that the traditional judicial methods of enforcement would be available. ¹⁵ Muniz has decided that, by keeping § 3692 in our statutory system, Congress did not intend to limit traditional federal court contempt powers within the newly granted injunctive jurisdictions. ¹⁶

II.

Partin contends that there was insufficient evidence to support his conviction. In judging the adequacy of the evidence in a contempt case, as in every other case, the reviewing court is obligated to consider the evidence, along with all inferences reasonably drawn from such evidence, in the light most favorable to the government. In re Joyce, 5 Cir. 1975, 506 F.2d 373, 376; cf. United States v. Lansky, 5 Cir. 1974, 496 F.2d 1063, 1069; Blachly v. United States, 5 Cir. 1967, 380 F.2d 665, 675. So viewing the record, we conclude that the district court had sufficient evidence to find Partin guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

The carefully detailed findings of fact by the trial judge need only be summarized. There was testimony that Partin assigned Earl Jones to talk to Delta Concrete president Holland and to get back steward Robinson's job. Jones' failure at this task resulted in a phone call from Partin to Holland, during which Partin threatened to "bring (his) men out". After Robinson began picketing Delta Concrete, all Local No. 5 members refused to cross his picket line. One local member testified that he would have returned to work if ordered to do so by "the head of the union Mr. Partin".

The temporary restraining order was served on Union agent Arnold, at the local's...