Opinion ID: 179728
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The District Court Rejects the Privity Claim

Text: Judge Austin had long since died by the time the National Spiritual Assembly returned to court in 2006, so the contempt motion was assigned to Judge Amy St. Eve. She authorized limited discovery and then held an extensive evidentiary hearing on the question of whether the alleged nonparty contemnors were in privity with the Hereditary Guardianship and thus bound by the injunction. She concluded they were not. In reaching this decision, Judge St. Eve declined to follow the First Circuit's decision in Merriam, 639 F.2d 29, on which the National Spiritual Assembly had substantially relied in support of its privity claim. But she made detailed findings about the relationship of each of the alleged contemnors to the Hereditary Guardianship and/or Remey, and based on those findings, concluded that they could not be bound. This appeal followed.