Armstrong v. United States

18 F.2d 371, 1927 U.S. App. LEXIS 1956
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit
DecidedMarch 30, 1927
Docket3832
StatusPublished
Cited by4 cases

This text of 18 F.2d 371 (Armstrong v. United States) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Armstrong v. United States, 18 F.2d 371, 1927 U.S. App. LEXIS 1956 (7th Cir. 1927).

Opinion

ANDERSON, Circuit Judge.

Plaintiffs in error were found guilty of the willful violation of an injunction entered in a cause pending against them in the court below, brought by the Indianapolis Street Railway Company.

The railway company alleged in its complaint that it was engaged in transporting persons for hire in Indianapolis and contiguous territory by means of street cars and busses, as it by law was authorized to do; that in carrying on such business it had in its employ approximataely 1,100 men (motormen, conductors and bus drivers); that it had entered into a written contract with each and every one of such car service men and bus drivers by which they, upon considerations passing to them from the company, agreed not to strike or participate in any strike of the employees of said company or enter into any agreement to engage in such strike, or counsel or advise any other employee so to do; that the company had kept and was keeping the contract; that plaintiffs in error were not in the employ of the company, and were wrongfully and unlawfully soliciting and persuading its employees to violate and breach their said contract by going upon strike and quitting their employment in a body, and that unless restrained by the court would continue to do so. The prayer was that they be enjoined from such soliciting and persuading.

The complaint was verified, and on July 3, 1926, the company, upon its complaint and certain affidavits then filed, moved for a temporary injunction. Plaintiffs in error appeared in person and by attorney and filed affidavits in opposition thereto. Upon a hearing the court found the averments of the complaint to be true, and entered the injunction as prayed. The record shows that plaintiffs in error were present in court when the hearing was had and the injunction entered. They therefore had actual knowledge of it from the time of its issuance.

The court had jurisdiction of the subject-matter and of the parties, and the injunction was fully warranted under the case of Hitchman Coal & Coke Co. v. Mitchell, 245 U. S. 229, 38 S. Ct. 65, 62 L. Ed. 260, L. R. A. 1918C, 497, Ann. Cas. 1918B, 461.

On July 26, 1926, the United States attorney filed an information for contempt, charging plaintiffs in error with violating the ■injunction. Thereupon an order was entered that on July 27 they show cause why they should not be punished for contempt. On that day they filed their motion to quash the information, for the reasons: First, that it charged two separate offenses; and, second, that it did not state facts sufficient to constitute a contempt of court. The motion to quash was overruled, whereupon they filed a written demand for a trial by jury. This was overruled, and the matter was heard by the court without a jury. The court found that the allegations of the information were true, that eaeh of the plaintiffs in error was guilty of contempt as charged, and judgment was entered accordingly.

The errors assigned and insisted upon are: (a) The overruling of the motion to quash; (b) the denial of the demand for trial by jury; (e) that there is no competent evidence in the record justifying the finding of guilty; and (d) that the portion of the injunction alleged to have been violated was wholly void, in that it is prohibited by section 20 of the Clayton Act (Comp. St. § 1243d).

(a) The contention that the information is bad for duplieity is without merit. As stated by the Supreme Court in Myers v. United States, 264 U. S. 95, 44 S. Ct. 272, 68 L. Ed. 577, contempt proceedings “are sui generis — neither civil actions nor prosecutions for offenses, within the ordinary meaning of those terms.” The cases cited by plaintiffs in error in support of this contention deal with indictments in criminal cases and are not in point. “There is no fixed formula for contempt proceedings, and technical accuracy is not required.” Schwartz v. U. S. (C. C. A.) 217 F. 866; Scoric v. U. S. (C. C. A.) 217 F. 871.

Upon the question as to the sufficiency of the information, it is enough to say that there was filed with it, and attached to and made a part of it by proper averments, the injunction order of the court and the affidavits of three persons setting forth facts constituting violations of the order. In the information thus considered there is set forth- *373 the injunction and the acts constituting its violation. The acts charged amount to clear violations of the injunction. In apt words it is averred that the plaintiffs in error conspired to do, and did, things which the injunction prohibited; that they conspired to commit, and committed, acts which it forbade. The information charged that plaintiffs in error willfully disobeyed an injunction lawfully issued in an equity cause then pending. It was sufficient, and the motion to quash was properly overruled.

(b) Section 21 of the Clayton Act (Comp. St. § 1245a) provides: “Any person, who shall willfully disobey any lawful writ, process, order, rule, decree, or command of any district court of the United States or any court of the District of Columbia by doing any act or thing therein, or thereby forbidden to be done by him, if the act or thing so done by him be of such character as to constitute also (a criminal offense under any statute of the United States or under the laws of any state in which the act was committed, shall be proceeded against for his said contempt as hereinafter provided.”

Section 22 (section 1245b) provides: “In all eases within the purview of this act such trial may be by the court, or, upon demand of the accused, by a jury.”

Section 24 (section 1245d) provides: “Nothing herein contained shall be construed to relate to contempts committed in the presence of the court, or so near thereto as to obstruct the administration of justice, nor to contempts committed in disobedience of any lawful writ, process, order, rule, decree, or command entered in any suit or action brought or prosecuted in the name of, or on behalf of, the United States, but the same, and all other cases of contempt not specifically embraced within section twenty-one of this act, may be punished in conformity to the usages at law and in equity now prevailing.”

By the provisions of these sections it appears that, “if the act or thing so done by him be of such character as to constitute also a criminal offense under any'statute of the United States or under the laws of any state in which the act was committed,” the person charged shall be entitled, upon demand, to a jury trial, but that in “all other cases of contempt” the proceedings may be “in conformity to the. usages at law and in equity” prevailing at the time of the passage of the act.

The statute is too plain to admit of construction. However, the Supreme Court, in Michaelson v. United States, 266 U. S. 42, 45 S. Ct. 18, 69 L. Ed. 162, 35 A. L. R. 451, having before it the question of the constitutionality of the provision for trial by jury upon demand, as provided in section 22, said of the provision, “It is of narrow scope, dealing with the single class where the act or thing constituting the contempt is also a crime in the ordinary sense.” The acts charged in the information were not “of such character.”

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Related

Clark v. United States
61 F.2d 695 (Eighth Circuit, 1932)
Conley v. United States
59 F.2d 929 (Eighth Circuit, 1932)
Day v. United States
19 F.2d 21 (Seventh Circuit, 1927)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
18 F.2d 371, 1927 U.S. App. LEXIS 1956, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/armstrong-v-united-states-ca7-1927.