DADE COUNTY CLASSROOM TEACHERS'ASS'N v. Rubin

238 So. 2d 284, 75 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 2084
CourtSupreme Court of Florida
DecidedJuly 29, 1970
Docket38386
StatusPublished
Cited by15 cases

This text of 238 So. 2d 284 (DADE COUNTY CLASSROOM TEACHERS'ASS'N v. Rubin) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Florida primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
DADE COUNTY CLASSROOM TEACHERS'ASS'N v. Rubin, 238 So. 2d 284, 75 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 2084 (Fla. 1970).

Opinion

238 So.2d 284 (1970)

DADE COUNTY CLASSROOM TEACHERS' ASSOCIATION, Inc., a Florida Corporation Not for Profit, Appellant,
v.
Leonard H. RUBIN, Etc., et al., Appellees.

No. 38386.

Supreme Court of Florida.

July 29, 1970.

*285 Tobias Simon, Miami, for appellant.

Wm. S. Frates, Asst. State Atty., for appellees.

ADKINS, Justice.

This is a direct appeal from an order denying a motion to quash a rule nisi for contempt. The appellant was charged with violating the provisions of an interlocutory injunction. By its motion to quash the rule nisi the appellant alleged deprivation of rights of speech and assembly thereby depriving appellant of rights guaranteed by the First, Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments, United States Constitution, and attacked the validity of Fla. Stat. § 839.221, F.S.A.

This Court previously denied a motion to dismiss or quash this interlocutory appeal and we accept jurisdiction.

The appellant, defendant below, will be referred to as the "Association." The appellees will be referred to as the "Plaintiffs."

On February 19, 1968, at the behest of the Association there was a massive work stoppage by the teachers in Dade County. On February 20, 1968, the Plaintiffs, Leonard H. Rubin, individually and as father and next friend of Deborah Rose Rubin, an infant and a student in the Dade County School System, filed a complaint seeking injunctive relief against the Association. The suit was brought as a class action and alleged that the Association, its membership, officers and directors conspired to cause teacher members to breach their respective contracts, submit their respective resignation as teachers, and refuse to appear and perform their respective functions as teachers. On the same day the Circuit Judge entered an order directing the Association to appear at a hearing on Plaintiffs' application for temporary injunction. The hearing was set for February 22, 1968, and the Association was required to show cause at that time why a temporary injunction should not be entered against the Association and its members to enjoin them from further conspiring to strike until testimony was taken in the cause. After the hearing, a temporary injunction was entered on February 22, 1968. The order granting the injunction recited that notice was given to the Association of the application. The injunction contained the following provision:

"That defendant, CTA, their officers, agents, servants, employees and members are hereby enjoined and restrained as a part of any scheme or design to strike *286 against the Dade County School Board, from counseling, enticing, coercing or otherwise undertaking to persuade or induce any teacher with whom there has been executed a written contract with the Dade County School Board, to fail, decline or refuse to carry out and perform such teacher's obligations under such contract, and from counseling, enticing, coercing or otherwise seeking to bring about concerted and massive refusal of the teachers to perform their duties under their contracts; or to otherwise perform any act or acts which would bring about a strike or work stoppage or a threat to strike on the part of the teachers under contract with the Dade County School Board or prevent the resumption of normal activities of the teachers and students."

In his brief, counsel for the Association states that the cause was removed to the United States District Court on the morning of February 22, 1968. However, the record does not contain the petition for removal nor does it appear from the record that the Association gave written notice of the petition for removal to the adverse parties and filed a copy of the petition with the Clerk of the State Court. 28 U.S.C.A. § 1446(e), reads as follows:

"Promptly after the filing of such petition and bond the defendant or defendants shall give written notice thereof to all adverse parties and shall file a copy of the petition with the clerk of such State court, which shall effect the removal and the State court shall proceed no further unless and until the case is remanded." (Emphasis supplied.) (p. 347)

The hearing which resulted in the original temporary injunction was held on February 22, 1968, and an order of remand was entered by the United States District Judge on February 23, 1968. The Association contends that the State Court was without jurisdiction until the order of remand was entered by the District Court. In discussing the questions of jurisdiction, where the requirements of 28 U.S.C.A. § 1446(e) are not complied with, the Federal District Court in Hornung v. Master Tank & Welding Company, 151 F. Supp. 169 (D.C.N.D. 1957), said:

"The state court acquired jurisdiction of the present action when the Summons and Complaint were duly served upon the defendants in accordance with the Nonresident Motorist Statute. That jurisdiction was active until the removal was finally effected by the filing of a copy of the Petition for Removal with the state court clerk. 28 U.S.C.A. § 1446(e). It then became passive or dormant, pending disposition of the case in federal court. Doerr v. Warner, 1956, 247 Minn. 98, 76 N.W.2d 505. Federal jurisdiction vested for all purposes when the Petition was filed in this court, the later notice thereof and the filing of a copy thereof in state court operating retroactively to `effect the removal' as of the date of filing the Petition in federal court. Shenandoah Chamber of Progress v. Frank Associates, Inc., D.C. Pa. 1950, 95 F. Supp. 719.
"There is a subsisting dual jurisdiction as to a removed case, and during the brief interlude between filing the Petition for Removal in federal court and the filing in state court of a copy of such Petition, both courts have active jurisdiction. Donlan v. F.H. McGraw & Co., D.C.N.Y. 1948, 81 F. Supp. 599." (p. 172)

See also Cavanaugh v. Atchison, T. & S.F. Ry. Co., 103 F. Supp. 855 (D.C.Mo. 1952); Cyclopedia of Federal Procedure (Third Edition), Volume 2, § 3.121; Annotation, 45 A.L.R.2d 1045, 1047.

The burden was upon the Association to show by the record that the removal to the United States District Court was effected prior to the hearing of February 22, 1968, and was not remanded prior to the hearing of February 23, 1968, *287 when the second injunction, substantially identical to the first was entered. As to the burden of appellant to make error appear in the record, see Maloy, Fla. Appellate Prac. and Proc., § 26.07, p. 349. The Association failed to meet this burden and the record fails to show that the State Court was without jurisdiction to enter each of the temporary injunctions.

On February 26, 1968, an order for hearing for contempt was entered for alleged violation of the injunctive orders of the State Court entered on February 22 and February 23, 1968. On February 28, 1968, the day of the contempt hearing, a motion to dissolve the temporary injunction was filed and denied.

The Association and its officers were found guilty of contempt and a fine of $30,000. was assessed.

The Association then entered its appeal to this Court and the contempt judgment was reversed because the motion of the Association for a jury trial was denied by the Circuit Judge. F.R.C.P., Rule 1.840(a) (4), 33 F.S.A., then provided that issues of fact in the contempt proceeding should be determined by a jury of six persons unless waived by the defendant.

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Bluebook (online)
238 So. 2d 284, 75 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 2084, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/dade-county-classroom-teachersassn-v-rubin-fla-1970.