Court Opinion

ID: 9464447
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 23:33:36.104782+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:38:38.086653
License: Public Domain

KOELSCH, Circuit Judge,
concurring in part and dissenting in part:
I concur for the most part in the majority opinion; I am obliged to dissent, however, from that portion of the opinion sustaining the Special Master’s findings and conclusions with respect to the union officers Null and Horn.
I have no quarrel with the proposition that one “who knowingly assists a defendant in violating an injunction subjects himself to civil . . . proceedings for contempt.” Alemite Mfg. Corp. v. Staff, 42 F.2d 832 (2d Cir. 1930). But, as stated by Judge Hand in that case: “[T]he only occasion when a person not a party may be punished [for contempt of an injunction] is when he has helped to bring about, not merely what the decree has forbidden . but what [the decree] has power to forbid, an act of a party. This means that the respondent must either abet the defendant, or must be legally identified with him.” 42 F.2d at 833.
The question here is whether the respondents Null and Horn, as officers of the defendant union but not parties to the original NLRB enforcement proceeding, may be adjudicated in contempt of this court’s decree as having either abetted the union’s violations of the injunction or as being so far identified in law with the union as to be subject to a contempt citation solely on the basis of their status as union officers. The first ground is manifestly factual in nature, requiring “ ‘clear and convincing proof’ that each of the named union officers was personally guilty of contumacious conduct” (NLRB v. San Francisco Typographical Union No. 21, I. T. U., 465 F.2d 53, 57 (9th Cir. 1972); the second is a questionable proposition of law. In my view, neither ground supports the majority in sustaining the Master’s finding of contempt on the part of Null and Horn.
The majority appears to accept as self-evident the proposition that, as officers of the defendant union, Null and Horn are legally identified with it for the purpose of finding them in contempt. As I read the cases, however, the matter is not so clear. In NLRB v. San Francisco Typographical Union No. 21, I. T. U., supra, this court reversed in part a district court finding of contempt as to a union and its officers on the ground that although the district court had an adequate evidentiary basis for holding the union in contempt of an injunction, a finding of contempt on the part of the union officers must independently be supported by “ clear and convincing proof’ that each of the named union officers was personally guilty of contumacious conduct . [and that] . . . Such ‘proof’ cannot be said to exist merely because there is proof that the union, as an organization, violated the terms of the injunction.” 465 F.2d at 57.
In my view, that is this case. In his report and recommendations, the Special Master, after observing that “[t]his case presents an exceedingly serious question as to the notice or knowledge on the part of *637any of the respondents as to the full terms of the Court’s final judgment prior to the commission of the prohibited acts,” (Special Master’s Report and Recommendations, at 15), based his finding against Null and Horn essentially on the;ir status as union officers at the time the original decree entered. They were thus charged with constructive knowledge of the terms of the decree, a course that seems to be forbidden by our holding in Typographical Union. See also North American Coal Corp. v. Local Union 2262, U. M. W., 497 F.2d 459 (6th Cir. 1974); Consolidation Coal Co. v. Local Union No. 1784, U. M. W., 514 F.2d 763 (6th Cir. 1975). As I read the record, there was not an iota of evidence that either Null or Horn had actual notice of the terms of the Court’s decree. Cf. United States v. Partin, 524 F.2d 992, 998 (5th Cir. 1975), cert. denied, 425 U.S. 904, 96 S.Ct. 1493, 47 L.Ed.2d 753 (1976); Backo v. Local 281, United Bro. of Carpenters & Joiners, 438 F.2d 176 (2d Cir. 1970, cert. denied, 404 U.S. 858, 92 S.Ct. 110, 30 L.Ed.2d 99 (1971).
Nor is the majority’s reliance on the language of Rule 65(d) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure determinative. Cf. Regal Knitware Co. v. NLRB, 324 U.S. 9, 65 S.Ct. 478, 89 L.Ed. 661 (1945). Both Backo v. Local 281, United Bro. of Carpenters & Joiners, supra, and Shakman v. Democratic Organization of Cook Cty., 533 F.2d 344 (7th Cir. 1976), cert. denied 429 U.S. 858, 97 S.Ct. 156, 50 L.Ed.2d 135 (1976), relied on by the majority for the proposition that an officer or employee of a defendant party is bound by an injunction without actual knowledge of its terms, contain only dicta to that effect. See Backo, 438 F.2d at 180; Shakman, 533 F.2d at 352.
Neither do I share in this case the majority’s view that a finding of contempt against the union officers is “imperative.” Our decrees can be honored and fully effectuated on pain of contempt proceedings against the defendant union itself without indulging in a fictitious identification of the union and its officers in order to supply the necessary predicate — absent in this case — that “each of the named union officers was personally guilty of contumacious conduct.” NLRB v. San Francisco Typographical Union No. 21, I. T. U., supra.