Court Opinion

ID: 9650753
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 15:50:55.290549+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:24:33.344902
License: Public Domain

L. HAND, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
We held in Re Plaza Shoe Co. (C. C. A.) 15 F.(2d) 278, that the summary proceeding was civil, and required no more than a preponderance of proof. Both in that case and in Re Small Shoe Co. (C. C. A.) 16 F.(2d) 205, we reserved the question whether in the contempt proceeding the same rule applied. We did not decide that question in Re Levy, 142 F. 442; in Re Stavrahn, 174 F. 330, 20 Ann. Cas. 888; in Re Weber, 200 F. 404. It was at least said in Boyd v. Glucklich, 116 F. 131, 140, 142 (C. C. A. 8), and Kirsner v. Taliaferro, 202 F. 51, 60, 61 (C. C. A. 4), that the ability of the respondent to comply must appear beyond reasonable doubt, and In re Goodrich, 184 F. 5 (C. C. A. 1) so holds. The Eighth Circuit has more recently declared itself otherwise. Reardon v. Pensoneau, 18 F.(2d) 244.
To me it seems intolerable that a man, should be coerced by an indefinite imprisonment to do what it is uncertain that he can do at all. I recognize that into all human affairs some doubts must enter; but, when the stake is liberty, we should make sure if we can. If my brothers are right, although the-finding in the summary order may rest only upon probabilities, the bankrupt is precluded from' attacking its validity, and he is sent to jail and kept there for as long as the judge sees fit. Yet, if he was charged with violating an injunction, the ease would be otherwise. He is then subject- only to prosecution for criminal contempt and his guilt must appear-beyond doubt. Gompers v. Buck’s Stove Co., 221 U. S. 418, 31 S. Ct. 492, 55 L. Ed. 797, 34 L. R. A. (N. S.) 874. Of the two, the criminal sanction is less drastic, because at least the term must be fixed in advance.
The argument is that, upon proceedings to-punish the violation of an order its validity is not open to dispute. Howat v. Kansas, 258 U. S. 181, 42 S. Ct. 277, 66 L. Ed. 550; U. S. v. Debs (C. C.) 64 F. 724. Except for *413Drakeford v. Adams, 98 Ga. 722, 25 S. E. 833, Reardon v. Pensoneau, 18 F.(2d) 244 (C. C. A. 8), and my own early decision, In re Frankel (D. C.) 184 F. 539, all the cases I can find so holding did not involve the ability of the eontemnor to comply. That appears to me a crucial distinction, and it was so held in Johnson v. Goldstein, 11 F.(2d) 702 (C. C. A. 6), though I am not clear that the ease is strictly one of res judicata. In any event, we must not miss the forest for the trees; when exceptions are necessary, exceptions there should he.
The procedural difficulties of applying the criminal rule are in my judgment exaggerated, and I tried, in Re Small Shoe Co., to show how they might he avoided. Moreover, after considerable experience with such orders, I do not believe that they often result in mueh benefit to creditors. But with these considerations I am not primarily concerned; the issue is deeper. We are now to say that a man may be indefinitely kept in jail at the direction of a judge, who is not even certain that he should ever have been put there at all. To that I cannot agree.