Fawick Airflex Co. v. United Electrical Radio & Machine Workers, Local 735

90 N.E.2d 610, 56 Ohio Law. Abs. 65, 25 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 2357, 1950 Ohio App. LEXIS 925
CourtOhio Court of Appeals
DecidedJanuary 3, 1950
DocketNo. 21466
StatusPublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 90 N.E.2d 610 (Fawick Airflex Co. v. United Electrical Radio & Machine Workers, Local 735) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Ohio Court of Appeals primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Fawick Airflex Co. v. United Electrical Radio & Machine Workers, Local 735, 90 N.E.2d 610, 56 Ohio Law. Abs. 65, 25 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 2357, 1950 Ohio App. LEXIS 925 (Ohio Ct. App. 1950).

Opinion

OPINION

By McNAMEE, J:

This is an appeal from the judgment of the Court of Common Pleas finding the eighteen appellants herein guilty of contempt of court. A brief resume of the events preceding the trial is as follows:

About March 7, 1949, a work stoppage occurred at the Fawick Company which was immediately followed by mass picketing by members of the United Electrical Radio & Machine Workers of America Union. Thereafter, on March 11, 1949, after a full hearing at which the trial court determined it had jurisdiction to hear and determine the issues, the Court of Common Pleas issued an interlocutory decree of injunction by the terms of which the defendants therein named and the officers and members of the United Electrical Radio and Machine Workers of America, Local 735, C. I. O. were enjoined from mass picketing the plant or premises of The Fawick Company; from picketing said plant and premises otherwise than peaceably and by not more than two pickets at three designated places; from threatening and intimidating the officers and non-striking employees of the company or commiting acts calculated to prevent their free access to and egress from said plant.

On March 24, 1949, The Fawick Company filed a motion to show cause alleging that twenty persons therein designated as defendants had violated the order of the court in the respects charged. Copies of the motion were served upon all designated defendants, except Kres and Schuster, prior to [67]*67March 25, 1949. Investigation of the charges against Kres and Schuster were deferred until service of the motion to show cause was had upon them. The trial against all other eighteen defendants began on March 25, 1949 and lasted four days. All of the appellants were present throughout the proceedings; all of them were represented by counsel; all except two testified in refutation or explanation of evidence offered in support of the charges against them. Full opportunity was afforded defendants for cross-examination of adverse witnesses and to summon witnesses in their behalf. After hearing evidence and arguments from both sides, the trial court adjudged each of the defendants to be guilty of violating the terms of the court’s decree of March 11, 1949 and pursuant to §12143 GC imposed a sentence of ten days imprisonment in jail and a $500.00 fine against each of the defendants. However, conditioned upon their future good behavior, the trial court suspended all or part of the fine as to ten of the appellants.

Although there are multiple charges in the motion to show cause and evidence was offered as against some of the defendants on more than one of the charges, each defendant was convicted of but one charge of contempt.

The record is replete with evidence of mass picketing, threats, and violence. It discloses that on the morning of March 23, 1949, a large group of persons, including the appellants, gathered at the Clinton Avenue entrance of the Fawick Company plant, blocked the passage of automobiles carrying non-striking workers and some of the appellants herein hurled stones and other missiles, damaging automobiles and menacing the personal safety of occupants thereof and others in the immediate vicinity. These incidents of mass picketing and violence were repeated on the morning of March 24, 1949 at the same entrance to the Fawick Company and at a time when non-striking workers were attempting to enter the plant.

There is affirmative evidence produced by Fawick that all of the appellants, excepting York and Gentille, were present and participated in the mass picketing on March 23 or March 24, 1949 and that most of them, with the two exceptions noted, were present and participated on both occasions. There is evidence in the form of admissions-by York and Gentille that they too were present on at least one of the foregoing occasions.

In addition, the evidence discloses various threats and acts of intimidation of individual employees of the company including the stench bombing of the property of one of them.

[68]*68Only three of defendants’ ten assignments of error merit discussion. They are:

1. That the contempt proceedings upon which defendants’ convictions are based violates the due process clause of the State and Federal Constitutions;

2. That the proceedings of the common pleas court were irregular and unauthorized by law;

3. That the judgment of the common pleas court is not sustained by sufficient evidence and is contrary to law;

These assignments of error will be considered in the above order.

The claim that the proceedings offended against the requirements of due process, rests upon the propositions (a) that defendants were denied an opportunity to present a full defense to the charges; (b) that the motion to show cause did not fairly apprise the defendants of the nature of the charges against them.

In support of the first of these claims, it is contended that the trial court erred in refusing to permit defendants to offer evidence or to submit argument attacking the trial court’s jurisdiction to issue the injunction. However, the record merely discloses that the sole challenge to the trial court’s jurisdiction was by defendants’ motion to quash the proceedings.

The action of the trial court in overruling this motion is not assigned as error. No evidence was offered or argument made in the trial court that the Court of Common Pleas was without jurisdiction to grant the injunction.

It is claimed that the trial court’s refusal to permit defendants to submit evidence bearing upon the alleged invalidity of the injunction was erroneous. This claim is without merit. It is no defense to a proceeding in contempt based upon a violation of an order of the court to assert the invalidity of the order on other jurisdictional grounds. Iron Molders Union of North America v. Greenwald, 4 N. P. (N. S.) 161, affirmed by the Supreme Court, 77 Oh St 618.

In U. S. v. United Mine Worers, 330 U. S. 258, the Supreme Court of the United States cited with approval its own declaration in Howat v. Kansas, 258 U. S. 181, 189, 190, as follows:

“An injunction duly issuing out of a court of general jurisdiction with equity powers upon pleadings properly invoking its action and served upon persons made parties therein and within the jurisdiction, must be obeyed by them, however [69]*69erroneous the action of the court may be, even if the error be in the assumption of the validity of a seeming but void law going to the merits of the case. It is for the court of first instance to determine the question of the validity of the law and until its decision is reversed for error by orderly review, either by itself or by a higher court, its orders based on its decisions are to be respected and disobedience of them is contempt of its lawful authority, to be punished.”

The foregoing pronouncements of the Supreme Court are applicable and decisive here.

Defendants assert that inasmuch as the law of this state does not permit an appeal from a temporary injunction “they had a right to challenge the original injunction and its validity as a basis for their defense.” This argument assumes the right of appeal to be an essential constituent of due process of law. The Supreme Court of the United States held to the contrary, in McKane v.

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90 N.E.2d 610, 56 Ohio Law. Abs. 65, 25 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 2357, 1950 Ohio App. LEXIS 925, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/fawick-airflex-co-v-united-electrical-radio-machine-workers-local-735-ohioctapp-1950.