Court Opinion

ID: 9639768
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 16:47:08.045361+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:10:21.547449
License: Public Domain

CLARK, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
I can agree with all that is said in the opinion as to the necessity of some “order” or “command” of the court to afford a basis for contempt proceedings, and yet still question the result and believe the case should be returned for full findings of fact as to the nature and extent of the property transfers by the judgment debtor. That there was a definite command of the court seems admitted by all; the sole question is whether it binds only the plaintiff to stay further proceedings or binds also the defendant to maintain the status quo. No formal order was entered, and hence the nature of the command must be deduced from the colloquy of counsel and the court. That colloquy was not limited to the statements quoted in the opinion. After the verdict defendant’s counsel asked for a stay; plaintiff’s counsel objected to a long stay; and the court said, “We usually give them thirty days and sixty days to make a case.” Then plaintiff’s counsel said not only that he had been informed that “this defendant is financially irresponsible and has but $5,000 insurance,” but also, “If that is a fact I wonder if they can put up any bond.” And he continued: “I want to know so as to look into that situation immediately. It seems to me that if they are financially responsible they can put up a bond in ten days as well as in thirty days.’’ In response to the court’s inquiry, “How about it?” to defendant’s counsel, the latter then made the statement quoted in the opinion, that “they will be in business for thirty days anyhow. They won’t close Luna Park in the summer time.” Plaintiff’s counsel said, “If they can put up a bond they can put it up in ten days”; his opponent replied, “Not ten days”; and the court said, “I will make it twenty — twenty days’ stay and sixty days to make it a case.”
It seems to me that the action of the court in granting a shorter stay than usual shows its intent and purpose to afford protection to the plaintiff without causing undue hardship to the debtor in producing a bond. I doubt if many debtors would dare read this colloquy as permitting all manner of property transfers by them during the extra ten days granted for the produc*112tion of a suitable bond, or that that is its natural interpretation. I agree with Judge Van Fleet in the passage quoted (Lineker v. Dillon, D.C.N.D.Cal., 275 F. 460, at page 470) that “these things were as plainly implied from this order as though written into it in express terms,” and that “courts do not sit for the idle ceremony of making orders and pronouncing judgments, the enforcement of which may be flouted, obstructed, and violated with impunity, with no power in the tribunal to punish the offender.” At any rate, hereafter in like circumstances, counsel will be well advised to see to it that they and the court speak the few extra words which, I believe, were in the minds of all.