359 F.3d 699
JTH TAX, INCORPORATED, d/b/a Liberty Tax Service; Thomas Bennett, d/b/a Liberty Tax Service; Jama Corleto, d/b/a Liberty Tax Service; Charles Dawson, d/b/a Liberty Tax Service; Landstown Preschool, Incorporated, d/b/a Liberty Tax Service; James Forguson, d/b/a Liberty Tax Service; Ann Marie Forguson, d/b/a Liberty Tax Service; A & J Tax Service, d/b/a Liberty Tax Service; Annette Hobbs, d/b/a Liberty Tax Service; Donnie Hobbs, d/b/a Liberty Tax Service; Danda, Incorporated, d/b/a Liberty Tax Service; Vincent Jackson, d/b/a Liberty Tax Service; Daniel Lepkowski, d/b/a Liberty Tax Service; Freedom Tax, Incorporated, d/b/a Liberty Tax Service; Charles Lovelace, d/b/a Liberty Tax Service; Creative Management Systems, Incorporated, d/b/a Liberty Tax Service; Kathleen Ponte, d/b/a Liberty Tax Service; John Seal, d/b/a Liberty Tax Service; Marcia Seal, d/b/a Liberty Tax Service; JMS Tax, Incorporated, d/b/a Liberty Tax Service; Syed Sherazi, d/b/a Liberty Tax Service; B & L Investment,
Incorporated, d/b/a Liberty Tax Service; Richard Simon, d/b/a Liberty Tax Service; Dennis Stuver, d/b/a Liberty Tax Service; DCM & B, LLC, d/b/a Liberty Tax Service, Plaintiffs-Appellants,
v.
H & R BLOCK EASTERN TAX SERVICES, INCORPORATED; H & R Block Tax Services, Incorporated, Defendants-Appellees.
No. 03-1250.
United States Court of Appeals, Fourth Circuit.
Argued: December 4, 2003.
Decided: February 25, 2004.
ARGUED: Carl Jay Khalil, JTH Tax, Incorporated, Virginia Beach, Virginia, for Appellants. Gregory Neil Stillman, Hunton & Williams, L.L.P., Norfolk, Virginia, for Appellees. ON BRIEF: K. Reed Mayo, Benita W. Ellen, Hunton & Williams, L.L.P., Norfolk, Virginia, for Appellees.
Before NIEMEYER, MICHAEL and GREGORY, Circuit Judges.
Affirmed by published opinion. Judge GREGORY wrote the opinion in which Judge NIEMEYER and Judge MICHAEL joined.
OPINION
GREGORY, Circuit Judge:
On March 7, 2001, the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, after finding that H & R Block Eastern Tax Services, Inc. and H & R Block Tax Services, Inc. (hereinafter "H & R Block") willfully and maliciously engaged in a false and misleading advertising campaign aimed at preventing JTH Tax, Inc. d/b/a Liberty Tax Service and thirteen of its franchisees (hereinafter "Liberty") from competing for customers, entered a permanent nationwide injunction against H & R Block requiring, among other things, that its advertisements "clearly and prominently" disclose whether an advertised product is actually a loan. On October 10, 2001 and January 10, 2002, Liberty filed two separate civil contempt motions alleging that H & R Block was in violation of the district court's injunction because its "Instant Money" advertisements used much smaller type and less apparent color print for the term "loan" than for terms such as "refund," "check today" and "instant money." Liberty further alleged that H & R Block's advertisements failed to "clearly and prominently" disclose whether an advertised product was a loan because the loan disclosures contained therein were placed in areas that increased the likelihood that they would go unnoticed and consequently unread. Liberty argued that the injunction's "clearly and prominently" language required that H & R Block's loan disclosures be presented in a manner that made them immediately noticeable to