City of Lawton v. Barbee

1989 OK 147, 782 P.2d 927, 1989 Okla. LEXIS 177, 1989 WL 132360
CourtSupreme Court of Oklahoma
DecidedNovember 7, 1989
DocketNo. 68376
StatusPublished
Cited by3 cases

This text of 1989 OK 147 (City of Lawton v. Barbee) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Oklahoma primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
City of Lawton v. Barbee, 1989 OK 147, 782 P.2d 927, 1989 Okla. LEXIS 177, 1989 WL 132360 (Okla. 1989).

Opinions

ALMA WILSON, Justice:

The resolution of this case rests on a single issue, whether a person who is convicted of indirect contempt of court for breach and disobedience of a permanent injunction must be allowed to purge himself of contempt in lieu of incarceration. We hold that 12 O.S.1981, § 1390 requires that under such circumstances a party must be allowed to purge himself of contempt in lieu of being incarcerated.

On February 8, 1983, the Lawton City Council adopted a resolution declaring that the accumulation of inoperable vehicles, heavy equipment and miscellaneous junk and debris in and around the appellant’s residence constituted a nuisance and directed the city attorney to abate the nuisance. As a result of a civil action, a temporary injunction was issued on June 20, 1983. The City on July 29, 1983, then applied for a contempt citation for failure to abate the nuisance. After a hearing, the trial court found that the appellant was not in contempt but ordered the City to abate the nuisance within two weeks and the cost was to be taxed against the appellant.

The temporary injunction was modified to a permanent injunction on April 19, 1984. This injunction prohibited the appellant from open-air storage of heavy equipment, inoperable vehicles, building materials, trash, tires, or debris on his residential property. On June 19, 1985, the City again made application for a contempt citation. Although the appellant failed to appear on three separate hearing dates, he was given three days from the third hearing date, upon the appearance of his attorney at that hearing, to abate the nuisance. Subsequently, the City filed another application for contempt, on September 25, 1986, and the appellant entered a plea of not guilty and demanded a jury trial.

On February 2, 1987, the jury returned a guilty verdict, and the trial court entered judgment, fined the appellant $200.00, and sentenced him to six months in the county jail with four months suspended. Upon appeal, the Court of Appeals affirmed.

Proper construction of 12 O.S.1981, § 1390 reveals the solution to the issue before this Court. That statute provides:

An injunction granted by a judge may be enforced as the act of the court. Disobedience of any injunction may be punished as a contempt, by the court or any judge who might have granted it in vacation. An attachment may be issued by the [929]*929court or judge, upon being satisfied, by affidavit, of the breach of the injunction, against the party guilty of the same, who may be required to make immediate restitution to the party injured, and give further security to obey the injunction; or, in default thereof, he may be committed to close custody, until he shall fully comply with such requirements, or be otherwise legally discharged, or be punished by fine not exceeding Two Hundred Dollars ($200.00) for each day of contempt, to be paid into the court fund, or by confinement in the county jail for not longer than six (6) months, or by both such fine and imprisonment. This act shall in no way alter the right to trial by jury. [Emphasis added.]

We have not been cited to any case construing this statute in its present form. Section 1390 was amended in 1972 adding the provision of confinement in the county jail for a period no longer than six months. Board of Governors of the Registered Dentists of Oklahoma v. Cryan, 638 P.2d 437 (Okla.1981), cert. den. 455 U.S. 907, 102 S.Ct. 1251, 71 L.Ed.2d 444 (1982), cites the amended statute, but that case concerned a violation of 59 O.S.1981, § 328.49, which is the penalty statute providing for incarceration of a person who practices dentistry without a license. Cryan violated an injunction issued to mandate cessation of his unauthorized practice of dentistry and was sentenced to the minimum sentence under 59 O.S.1981, § 328.49. That case has no application to the case at bar.

Although no case law construes the 1972 amendment to 12 O.S.1981, § 1390, there is case law construing the statute before the amendment. The prior statute enacted in 1931 included the terms “he may be committed to close custody” as does the present statute. Case law reveals that one could be imprisoned “only for failure to pay the fine imposed or failure to make restitution to the injured party as required by order of court or for failure to give security to obey the injunction.” Fagin v. Thoroughman, 190 Okla. 649, 126 P.2d 982, 985 (1942). Fagin cited Ex parte Hibler, 139 Okla. 157, 281 P. 144, 146 (1929), which construed the 1921 predecessor statute, Comp.St.1921, § 413. Hibler held:

Upon proof of a violation of an injunction, the court, under section 413, Idem, has authority to do three things: First, to impose a fine for the violation; second, to require immediate restitution to the injured party; and, third, to require further security to obey the injunction. Upon the failure to perform any of these acts, commitment to close custody may be ordered.

The first two sentences of Comp.St.1921, § 413 were the same as the present statute. The remainder of the statute provided:

An attachment may be issued by the court or judge, upon being satisfied, by affidavit, of the breach of the injunction, against the party guilty of the same, who may be required, to pay a fine not exceeding two hundred dollars, for the use of the county, to make immediate restitution to the party injured, and give further security to obey the injunction; or, in default thereof, he may be committed to close custody, until he shall fully comply with such requirements, or be otherwise legally discharged. [Emphasis added.]

In both this statute and the 1971 amendment, a court only has initial authority to take the action stated before the semicolon preceding the conjunction “or.” The alternatives following the semicolon can only be taken after the party has failed to perform the additional requirements placed upon him by the trial court due to his failure to obey the injunction. The phrase separating the two sets of actions which can be taken is the phrase “in default thereof.” Because the $200.00 fine preceded that phrase in Comp.St.1921, § 413, the fine was included in the action that the court was initially authorized to take.

Following the authority of Hibler, we must now hold that upon the proof, by jury trial, of a violation of an injunction the court has authority under 12 O.S.1981, § 1390 to do two things. First, it may require immediate restitution to the injured party; and second, it may require further [930]*930security to obey the injunction. Upon the failure to perform either of these acts, the trial court is authorized to do one of four things. First, it may commit the guilty party to close custody until he complies with the requirements; or second, it may impose a fine for the violation; or third, it may confine the guilty party in the county jail for no longer than six months; or, fourth it may impose both the fine and the incarceration.

As emphasized in Hibler, the above result is based upon a prosecution for contempt conducted in the name of a civil litigant.1 Where the procedure is for the benefit of the litigant, the trial court must follow 12 O.S.1981, § 1390.

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

Related

WISHON v. HAMMOND
2023 OK CIV APP 36 (Court of Civil Appeals of Oklahoma, 2022)
State ex rel. Oklahoma Accountancy Board v. Townshend
2003 OK CIV APP 101 (Court of Civil Appeals of Oklahoma, 2003)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
1989 OK 147, 782 P.2d 927, 1989 Okla. LEXIS 177, 1989 WL 132360, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/city-of-lawton-v-barbee-okla-1989.