Opinion ID: 552172
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: The Cherry Hill Women's Center

Text: 60 As mentioned earlier, CHWC is a clinic that performs abortions in Cherry Hill, New Jersey. In its order of July 5, the district court stated that the Metropolitan Area covered by the TRO encompassed Cherry Hill. Notwithstanding this order, Operation Rescue staged a protest outside of CHWC on July 9. This protest prevented the clinic from serving the 51 patients scheduled on that day. In its civil contempt order, the district court found that Operation Rescue had violated the TRO and that CHWC, as a result, had incurred losses in the amount of $819.32. The court, however, did not award compensatory damages to CHWC because the clinic was not a party to the underlying action. 61 CHWC contends that the Supreme Court's decision in McComb v. Jacksonville Paper Co., 336 U.S. 187, 69 S.Ct. 497, 93 L.Ed. 599 (1949), mandates reversal. In particular, CHWC asserts that McComb plainly illustrates that an express non-party beneficiary of a remedial order may obtain damages in a contempt proceeding. We believe that CHWC reads McComb too broadly. 62 In McComb, the Administrator of the Wage and Hour Division of the U.S. Department of Labor sought to enjoin Jacksonville Paper Company from violating the Fair Labor Standards Act. 336 U.S. at 187, 69 S.Ct. at 497. The district court entered a decree requiring the company, among other things, to pay its employees a prescribed minimum wage and overtime pay. Because the company ignored these requirements, the Administrator instituted a civil contempt proceeding and sought to recover the backpay owed to the employees under the court's order. The district court held that it lacked the power, on the application of the Administrator, to award damages to the employees, and the court of appeals affirmed. 63 The Supreme Court reversed. Contrary to plaintiffs' intimations, however, it did not hold that the district court, in all instances, has the authority to award civil contempt damages to non-parties. Rather, the Court simply stated that the district court, having ordered the company to make certain wage payments, has the power to grant the relief that is necessary to effect compliance with its decree, id. at 193, 69 S.Ct. at 500, i.e., to require the company to pay the prescribed wages. In other words, the backpay award was meant to force the dilatory company to comply with the terms of the court's decree, and compensating the employees was only an incidental effect of the court's vindication of its order. 64 In fact, courts regularly hold employers in civil contempt when they disregard injunctions against violation of the minimum and overtime wage rates required by the Fair Labor Standards Act. See e.g., Usery v. Fisher, 565 F.2d 137, 139-40 (10th Cir.1977); Hodgson v. A-1 Ambulance Service, Inc., 455 F.2d 372, 374-75 (8th Cir.1972); Fleming v. Warshawsky & Co., 123 F.2d 622, 626 (7th Cir.1941). To compel these violators to purge themselves of their contempt, courts routinely order employers to pay the amounts due to employees under the courts' earlier orders. These opinions speak primarily in terms of purging the employers of their contempt, not of making the injured employees whole. We think that the courts' use of the word purge indicates that the main purpose of the contempt orders is to undo the contemnors' violations of the decrees. Such purging is not possible in this case. If the district court had levied a civil contempt fine on defendants for blockading CHWC, that order would not have undone the defendants' contempt. Instead, it simply would have compensated CHWC for its losses. 65 The Fifth Circuit, in Northside Realty Associates, Inc. v. United States, 605 F.2d 1348 (5th Cir.1979), similarly interpreted McComb. In that case, the Government alleged that Northside, a real estate agency, refused to sell houses to black purchasers in violation of the Fair Housing Act. Id. at 1350. The district court enjoined Northside from engaging in such discriminatory conduct. When Northside violated this injunction, the Government moved to hold Northside in civil contempt and also requested monetary damages for the aggrieved purchasers. The district court, however, declined to award damages to non-parties. 66 The Fifth Circuit affirmed. Citing McComb, the court noted that civil contempt serves two purposes: to compensate the prevailing party for losses or damages caused by the other's noncompliance and to coerce the derelict party into compliance with the original injunction. Id. at 1356 (emphasis added and footnote omitted). As a result, the Fifth Circuit agreed that the district court was powerless to award damages to the prospective purchasers. First, the court noted that the award would not compensate the complaining party--the Government. Id. Second, the court maintained that an award of monetary damages would not coerce Northside into complying with the court's original injunction. The court remarked that such an award was unlikely to ensure future compliance: 67 [S]uch an award would have at best a tangential effect in coercing future compliance with the Court's decree. The sort of relief sought by the Government here, monetary damages for individual housing discriminatees, is a purely legal remedy ... which compensates for past wrongs. The enforcement purpose of a contempt order is much better served by ordering ... the payment of a daily fine in the event of noncompliance with the Court's order. 68 Id. at 1356-57 (citations omitted). 69 The instant case is more analogous to Northside Realty than to McComb. The district court cannot coerce Operation Rescue into complying with the terms of its injunction by awarding damages to CHWC. The difference between McComb and this case rests in the nature of the underlying injunction. In McComb, the decree required the defendant to make a monetary payment. Here, however, the court enjoined the defendants from blockading abortion clinics. In the former situation, it would be counter-intuitive to say that the court cannot order the dilatory defendant to pay, as a civil contempt fine, the delinquent sum and then order imprisonment if defendant's recalcitrance continues. In our situation, as in Northside Realty, awarding damages to CHWC will not coerce defendants into adhering to the terms of the injunction. Under the circumstances of this case, the only avenue available to the district court to coerce defendants into complying with its injunction is the means it actually employed--i.e., the imposition of a conditional coercive fine. 16 Requiring defendants to reimburse CHWC for its losses thus would be purely compensatory. 17 70 As the Supreme Court stated in Gompers, [p]roceedings for civil contempt are between the original parties. 221 U.S. at 444-45, 31 S.Ct. at 499. A court should only deviate from this rule and award damages to non-parties when such an order directly compels adherence to a prior decree. If the decree involves the payment of money, the court can compel compliance by ordering the delinquent party to pay the required sums. By contrast, awarding damages to CHWC in this case will not coerce Operation Rescue into complying with the TRO, and therefore, exceeds the district court's authority.