Opinion ID: 2225574
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 15

Heading: Liles Was Incorrectly Decided

Text: In Liles, the trial court had ordered the contemnor jailed for refusing to testify at a show cause hearing for his past contempt of an injunction. We had previously denied his habeas corpus petition and were considering his motion for a stay of his jail sentence pending his appeal. We denied the motion because we concluded that a civil contempt order is not appealable. We stated that punitive sanctions are reviewable by appeal; whereas coercive sanctions can only be attacked collaterally by habeas corpus. [67] But the rule we extracted from federal case law swept too broadly. We failed to distinguish between interlocutory civil contempt orders issued before the trial court's final judgment and a final contempt order imposed in a separate postjudgment proceeding to enforce a previous final judgment. Contrary to our decisions in earlier cases, [68] we implied that a party could never appeal a contempt order imposing a coercive sanction. And, as noted, we have reviewed or rejected appeals in several cases involving appeals from postjudgment contempt orders based on whether the sanction was civil or criminal. But our case law is inconsistent with federal rules because the rule we set forth in Liles was too broad. Moreover, Liles created needless obstacles to appellate review. Under our rule that civil contempt orders are non-appealable, we have obviously rarely reviewed the correctness of a trial court's finding of contempt unless the trial court has impermissibly imposed a criminal sanction in a civil proceeding. [69] And we have also held that the correctness of the contempt order is moot if the party complies with the purge plan to escape the coercive sanction of open-ended incarceration. [70] Finally, a habeas corpus proceeding is an illusory substitute for an appeal in most cases. As we stated in Smeal I, a habeas corpus proceeding applies only to persons illegally detained. [71] Habeas corpus generally does not apply to a coercive fine sanction. [72] And even when the contempt sanction is a coercive incarceration, attacking the order through a habeas corpus proceeding will usually be futile. [73] So, the combination of these rules have unintentionally but effectively choked off a contemnor's right to appeal from a judgment of civil contempt. Additionally, we have created procedural knots by hinging the right to appeal upon the character of the trial court's sanction. For example, in a second appeal from a contempt order, we held that a civil coercive sanction had changed to a criminal sanction after the trial court assessed total fines. [74] And we have inconsistently characterized the same sanction in separate cases as civil or criminal for exercising appellate jurisdiction and reviewing the contempt order. [75] In sum, hinging the right to appeal on a sanction's characterization has been a difficult rule to apply and at times inconsistent. More important, our rule has boxed contemnors into a minefield. They either face continuing coercive sanctions or risk a court's determination that the issue is moot because they complied with the purge plan. We conclude that our holding in Liles that any civil contempt order is nonappealable was manifestly wrong. The rule is unworkable for final contempt orders entered in a separate postjudgment proceeding to enforce a previous final judgment. Although we agree with federal courts that final, postjudgment contempt orders should be appealable, we disagree with the characterization of these orders as final judgments. We believe that this characterization is inconsistent with treating a civil contempt proceeding as supplemental to the main action. [76] Under Neb. Rev.Stat.  25-1902 (Reissue 2008), we have stated that an order on `summary application in an action after judgment' is an order ruling on a postjudgment motion in an action. [77] We conclude that under Nebraska law, an order of contempt in a postjudgment proceeding to enforce a previous final judgment is more properly classified as a final order; the contempt order affects a substantial right, made upon a summary application in an action after judgment. [78] For appeal purposes, we hold that the distinction between criminal and civil contempt sanctions has no relevance to whether a party may appeal from a final order in a supplemental postjudgment contempt proceeding. We now overrule any cases that could be interpreted as holding that a final civil contempt order from a postjudgment proceeding is nonappealable and may only be attacked through a habeas corpus proceeding. Specifically, we overrule Liles [79] and all the cases listed in footnote 53 to the extent that they hold or imply that contemnors can never appeal from a final order of civil contempt.