Opinion ID: 2025750
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: Power of Trial Court to Enter Contempt Order

Text: The foundation of our current law regarding appealability of a civil contempt order is In re Contempt of Liles, 216 Neb. 531, 344 N.W.2d 626 (1984). In that case, the contemner was jailed for contemptuously refusing to testify at a hearing. We dismissed the contemner's appeal, stating: The first question which then presents itself is whether the district court's order. . . is appealable. It is not. We have . . . distinguished between contempt sanctions which are coercive in nature and those which are punitive in nature; that is to say, between those which aim to compel future obedience to the court's orders and decrees and are therefore coercive, and those which punish past disrespectful or contumacious conduct and vindicate the court's authority. In the coercive sanction, the type involved here, the contemner holds the keys to his jail cell, in that the sentence is conditioned upon his continued noncompliance. The punitive sanction is much like the sentence in a criminal case, in that it is absolute and not subject to mitigation if the contemner alters his future conduct toward the court, and takes on the aspects of a final order or of an order affecting a substantial right issued in a special proceeding, both of which are reviewable on appeal. . . . The coercive sanction, on the other hand, is always subject to modification by the contemner's conduct; that sanction is not final in any sense. Therefore, punitive sanctions are reviewable by appeal; whereas coercive sanctions can only be attacked collaterally by habeas corpus. (Citations omitted.) Id. at 534, 344 N.W.2d at 628-29. Simply stated, the imposition of a coercive sanction is never final and may not be attacked by direct appeal. Maddux v. Maddux, 239 Neb. 239, 244, 475 N.W.2d 524, 529 (1991). This principle was illustrated in a series of cases beginning with State ex rel. Kandt v. No. Platte Baptist Ch., 216 Neb. 684, 345 N.W.2d 19 (1984). In Kandt, we affirmed the trial court's injunction of the defendants from operating a religious school in violation of state law. The defendants reopened the school, and the State brought a motion for contempt. The trial court entered a coercive contempt order, fining the defendants $200 per day and ordering the defendants to be confined during school hours on each day that the injunction was violated. The defendants appealed, and we dismissed the appeal for lack of a final, appealable order. State ex rel. Kandt v. North Platte Baptist Church, 219 Neb. 694, 365 N.W.2d 813 (1985). We found that the sanction was day-to-day and coercive and, therefore, not appealable pursuant to In re Contempt of Liles, supra . After 95 days, the trial court assessed the amount of fines due at $19,000. An appeal was taken, which we found to be proper. State ex rel. Kandt v. North Platte Baptist Church, 225 Neb. 657, 407 N.W.2d 747 (1987). We reasoned that the fines were no longer subject to mitigation and that the judgment possessed the indicia of finality. Because the trial court had erred with regard to the burden of proof in the proceeding, we reversed the judgment. Id. The question presented here is how the contempt order imposed in this case fits into that distinction between coercive and punitive sanctions. The Court of Appeals concluded that the order in this case was coercive, because the order did not specify what, if anything, would occur if RKM failed to comply with the requirements of the purge plan. Thus, the Court of Appeals concluded that any sanction which would be imposed is subject to modification by RKM's conduct in complying with the purge plan. RKM, on the other hand, argues that the requirements of the purge plan are themselves sanctions, akin to a criminal sentence, because they are not subject to mitigation. The difficulty the parties and Court of Appeals have had in determining whether the order at issue here is coercive or punitive is illustrated by the fact that they cannot seem to agree on what aspects of the district court's order compose the purge plan, and what, if anything, is the threatened sanction. This order simply does not fit neatly into the coercive or punitive categories. But the most fundamental reason that the district court's order is difficult to classify is that it is inconsistent with our established jurisprudence regarding a trial court's jurisdiction in a contempt proceeding. In Dunning v. Tallman, 244 Neb. 1, 504 N.W.2d 85 (1993), the contemner was found to be in contempt of a noncompetition agreement that had been included in the property settlement agreement of her divorce. After finding her to be in contempt, the trial court imposed a $20,000 fine, but set out a purge plan in which the contemner could purge the contempt and avoid the fine by complying with the terms of the noncompetition agreement for a year after the noncompetition agreement, by its terms, would otherwise have expired. In other words, the trial court extended the noncompetition agreement for an additional year and conditioned the fine on the contemner's compliance with the extended agreement. The contemner rejected the purge plan, the trial court made the fine an unconditional, final judgment, and the contemner appealed. See id. We held that the fine, insofar as it had been coercive, was within the trial court's power. However, we concluded that the trial court erred in conditioning the fine on an award of equitable relief, because an award of damages is unavailable in a civil contempt proceeding. See id. `Civil contempt is available to enforce the decree actually rendered, not to afford a remedy for the recovery of subsequent damage.' Id. at 11, 504 N.W.2d at 93, quoting Kasparek v. May, 174 Neb. 732, 119 N.W.2d 512 (1963). By extension, we concluded that a civil contempt proceeding cannot be the means to afford equitable relief to a party. Dunning, supra . [I]n imposing a sanction for civil contempt, a court cannot use, as a requisite to purge contempt, a condition that, if fulfilled for compliance with a court's order, affords equitable relief to a party. Id. at 11, 504 N.W.2d at 93. Accord Klinginsmith v. Wichmann, 252 Neb. 889, 567 N.W.2d 172 (1997). Thus, we concluded that the trial court lacked jurisdiction or power to require the contemner to comply with the trial court's equitable order. Dunning, 244 Neb. at 11, 504 N.W.2d at 93. In this case, as previously discussed, the district court's purge plan ordered RKM to notify the district court of all units found to be in violation of the injunction, notify the owners of those units that their use was in violation of an injunction, and attempt to exchange the parts of the units that violated the injunction. This relief went well beyond the terms of the original injunctionit did not simply enforce the decree actually rendered, but also afforded a remedy for the recovery of subsequent damage. See id. This was beyond the jurisdiction of the district court in this proceeding. See id. `In a contempt proceeding for disobedience of an order, language of duty in the order is not expandable beyond a reasonable interpretation in light of the purposes for which the order was entered.' Meisinger v. Meisinger, 230 Neb. 37, 38, 429 N.W.2d 721, 722 (1988), quoting Malec v. Malec, 196 Neb. 533, 244 N.W.2d 82 (1976). Thus, the reason that the district court's order cannot be easily classified as coercive or punitive is that it is neither it is an award of equitable relief that is not available in a civil contempt proceeding. The parties and the Court of Appeals have, essentially, been disagreeing about what size of square peg best fits into a round hole. Because the district court exceeded its jurisdiction in ordering equitable relief, those aspects of the order must be vacated. Though an extrajudicial act of a lower court cannot vest the appellate court with jurisdiction to review the merits of an appeal, the appellate court has jurisdiction and, moreover, the duty to determine whether the lower court had the power to enter the judgment or other final order sought to be reviewed. Smith v. Lincoln Meadows Homeowners Assn., 267 Neb. 849, 678 N.W.2d 726 (2004). While the Court of Appeals reached the right result in concluding that the district court's contempt order was not final and appealable, it erred by not also vacating the aspects of the contempt order that are ultra vires.