Court Opinion

ID: 9603294
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 02:04:40.450425+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:02:10.376210
License: Public Domain

JOHN, J.,
dissenting in part; concurring in part.
Plaintiff Cynthia Reynolds Flynn (plaintiff) contends, inter alia, that defendant David P. Reynolds’s (defendant) “appeal is not within the jurisdiction of this Court and should be dismissed.” As to defendant’s appeal of that part of the trial court’s order adjudicating him in contempt, I agree and vote to dismiss said appeal. Therefore, I respectfully dissent from those portions of the majority opinion treating the court’s adjudication as civil, as opposed to criminal, contempt. However, defendant’s appeal of the trial court’s discrete award of $55,000.00 as counsel fees “in the underlying custody and support action” appears to be properly before this Court, and I concur in the portion of the majority opinion affirming that award.
District court orders adjudicating criminal contempt are ap-pealable to the superior court, not the Court of Appeals, see N.C.G.S. § 5A-17 (1999) (“appeal from a finding of [criminal] contempt by a judicial official inferior to a superior court judge is by hearing de novo before a superior court judge”), which lacks jurisdiction to entertain the appeal, see Michael v. Michael, 77 N.C. App. 841, 843, 336 S.E.2d 414, 415 (1985), cert. denied, 316 N.C. 195, 341 S.E.2d 577 (1986) (G.S. § 5A-17 “vests exclusive jurisdiction in the superior court to hear appeals from [district court] orders holding a person in criminal contempt”). However, appeals in district court civil contempt matters are directly to this Court. See N.C.G.S. § 5A-24 (1999)(“[a] person found in civil contempt may appeal in the manner provided for appeals in civil actions”).
The distinction between criminal and civil contempt has been characterized by our Supreme Court as “hazy at best.” O’Briant v. O’Briant, 313 N.C. 432, 434, 329 S.E.2d 370, 372 (1986). Another court observed that contempt proceedings “occupfy] what may be termed the twilight zone between civil and criminal cases.” Andreano v. *577Utterback, 202 Iowa 570, 571, 210 N.W. 780, 780 (1926). The disagreement of the panel regarding the present case indicates it is no exception.
Our Supreme Court has observed that
[a] major factor in determining whether contempt is criminal or civil is the purpose for which the power is exercised.
O’Briant, 313 N.C. at 434, 329 S.E.2d at 372. Therefore,
criminal contempt is administered as punishment for acts already committed that have impeded the administration of justice in some way. . . . Civil contempt, on the other hand, is employed to coerce disobedient defendant into complying with orders of [the] court. . . .
Brower v. Brower, 70 N.C. App. 131, 133, 318 S.E.2d 542, 544 (1984).
Accordingly, civil contempt is not a form of punishment, Jolly v. Jolly, 300 N.C. 83, 92, 265 S.E.2d 135, 142 (1980), overruled on other grounds by McBride v. McBride, 334 N.C. 124, 431 S.E.2d 14 (1993); rather its purpose is remedial, i.e., “to coerce a defendant into compliance” with the court’s order, McMiller v. McMiller, 77 N.C. App. 808, 809, 336 S.E.2d 134, 135 (1985). Civil contempt thus is “a civil remedy to be utilized exclusively to enforce compliance with court orders,” Jolly, 300 N.C. at 92, 265 S.E.2d at 142, and the contemnor may terminate the penalty imposed “and discharge himself at any moment by doing what he had previously refused to do,” Gompers v. Buck’s Stove and Range Co., 221 U.S. 418, 442, 55 L. Ed. 797, 806 (1911); see also N.C.G.S. § 5A-21(b) (1999) (“person found in civil contempt may be imprisoned as long as the civil contempt continues”). Criminal contempt, however, is punitive in purpose and the contem-nor “cannot undo or remedy what has been done,” Gompers, 221 U.S. at 442, 55 L. Ed. at 806, nor “shorten the term by promising not to repeat the offense,” id.
Moreover, as acknowledged by the majority, although
specifically conditioning the imposition or effect of the probationary or suspended sentence upon the contemnor’s purging himself would constitute civil relief,
Bishop v. Bishop, 90 N.C. App. 505, 506, 369 S.E.2d 106, 110 (1988) (emphasis added), a determinate suspended sentence, notwithstanding that it is accompanied by conditions, comprises criminal punish*578ment and is “not equivalent to a conditional sentence that would allow the contemnor to avoid or purge . . . sanctions,” Hicks ex. rel. Feiock v. Feiock, 485 U.S. 624, 639 n.11, 99 L. Ed. 2d 712, 736 n.11 (1988); see also id. at 637, 99 L. Ed. 2d at 735 (“many convicted criminals [receive a suspended sentence and are placed on probation] for the purpose (among others) of influencing their behavior. [Yet,] ... as long as [the criminal] meets the conditions of his informal probation, he will never enter the jail. Nonetheless, if the sentence is a determinate one, then the punishment is criminal in nature ....”).
Finally,
[i]n contempt cases, both civil and criminal relief have aspects that can be seen as either remedial or punitive or both: when a court imposes fines and punishments upon a contemnor, it is not only vindicating its legal authority to enter the initial court order, but it also is seeking to give effect to the law’s purpose of modifying the contemnor’s behavior to conform to the terms required in the order.
Id. at 635, 99 L. Ed. 2d at 734 (quoting Gompers, 221 U.S. at 443, 555 L.Ed. at 806).
Turning to the trial court’s order at issue in light of the foregoing authorities, I initially deem it significant that the court imposed a determinate thirty-day term, see id. at 637, 99 L. Ed. 2d at 735, and suspended that sentence upon conditions, see id. at 639 n. 11, 99 L. Ed. 2d at 736 n.11, as opposed to ordering an indefinite period of incarceration terminated upon defendant’s compliance with the court’s previous orders, i.e., allowing defendant, like the defendant in Bishop, see 90 N.C. App. at 506, 369 S.E.2d at 110, to “purge” himself by performance of certain acts such as payment of the arrearage, see id., an act accomplished herein by defendant in advance of the contempt adjudication.
The distinction is critical. Upon a contemnor’s “purging” himself of contempt, the contempt judgment is “lifted,” Jolly, 300 N.C. at 92, 265 S.E.2d at 142, or terminated. However, compliance with a suspended sentence simply ensures evasion of incarceration, but neither “lifts” nor terminates the sentence. See id. at 93, 265 S.E.2d at 143 (revocation of suspended sentence “generally spells commencement or resumption of a determinative, punitive sentence”); see also Bishop, 90 N.C. App. at 505, 369 S.E.2d at 109 (imprisonment for contempt “is punitive and thus criminal if the sentence is limited to a definite period of time without possibility of avoidance by contemnor’s *579performance of an act required by the court”). Thus defendant herein may not “shorten the term,” Gompers, 221 U.S. at 442, 55 L. Ed. at 806, of the suspended sentence by compliance with its terms, but may merely evade revocation thereof, see Jolly, 300 N.C. at 93, 265 S.E.2d at 143.
Next, it is pertinent that the trial court characterized defendant’s behavior as criminal contempt, see Watkins v. Watkins, 136 N.C. App. 844, 846, 526 S.E.2d 485, 486 (2000) (trial courts “urge[d] to identify whether contempt proceedings are in the nature of criminal contempt ... or civil contempt”), concluded that defendant was “guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of criminal contempt,” see N.C.G.S. § 5A-15 (f) (1999) (in criminal contempt proceeding, “[t]he facts must be established beyond a reasonable doubt”), and acknowledged it was unable to hold defendant in civil contempt by virtue of his pre-hearing compliance with prior support orders, see Jolly, 300 N.C. at 92, 265 S.E.2d at 142 (civil contempt order “lifted as soon as [the contemnor] decides to comply with the order of the court”).
Moreover, the order at issue and the transcript of the proceedings herein reflect the trial court’s clear and significant frustration with Reynolds’ repeated past acts of wilful nonpayment causing multiple hearings which were unnecessary, time consuming (the instant record comprises one hundred eighty-four pages in addition to a transcript of one-hundred eighty-six pages, a one hundred twenty-five page deposition, and seventy-one exhibits), and without doubt impeded the administration of justice. See O’Briant, 313 N.C. at 434-35, 329 S.E.2d at 372 (“[c]riminal contempt is . . . where the judgment is in punishment of an act already accomplished, tending to interfere with the administration of justice,” and “[i]t is clear that the purpose of the contempt judgments [at issue] was to punish [] disobedience of the court’s orders . . . , acts or omissions already accomplished which tended to interfere with the administration of justice”), and N.C.G.S. § 5A-l(a)(3) (1999) (criminal contempt is “wilful disobedience of, [or] resistance to ... a court’s lawful process, [or] order. . .”).
For example, the court noted in its order that Reynolds “offered no legitimate excuse for his non-payment of cash child support on repeated occasions from 1993 through 1999,” that he had “at all times” since the entry of the court’s respective orders “the ability to comply with th[ose] orders,” including “liquid assets approaching $1 million as of the date of th[e] hearing” in addition to real and personal property holdings, that his conduct “ha[d] been contemptuous,” and that *580he had failed to pay from time to time simply “as a means of punishing and/or harassing Flynn.”
In addition, in the course of entering its judgment, the court addressed certain comments to Reynolds directly, including the following:
. . . your conduct has been particularly egregious. I see a lot of people who don’t pay child support, often for no good reason, but never before have I seen someone who had the ability to pay so easily and was so consistently — and I think consistently is the word — delinquent, and deliberately delinquent for an ulterior reason.
Moreover, I read the trial court’s imposition of the maximum statutory term for criminal contempt, see N.C.G.S. § 5A-12(a) (1999) (“a person who commits criminal contempt ... is subject to . . . imprisonment up to 30 days”), cf. N.C.G.S. § 5A-21(b)(b1)(b2) (1999) (“total” period of imprisonment for civil contempt “shall not exceed 12 months”), albeit suspended, see Hicks, 485 U.S. at 639 n.11, 99 L. Ed.2d at 736 n. 11 ..., as signaling the court’s punitive as opposed to remedial intent.
Turning to the conditions imposed upon the trial court’s suspension of its thirty day sentence, both the assessment of counsel fees in the amount of $10,000.00 and of interest upon defendant’s four delinquent child support payments in particular appear to be directed at and in punishment of defendant’s past failure to pay child support, see O’Briant, 313 N.C. at 434, 329 S.E.2d at 372, and Mauney v. Mauney, 268 N.C. 254, 256, 150 S.E.2d 391, 393 (1966) (quoting Dyer v. Dyer, 213 N.C. 634, 635, 197 S.E. 157 (1938) (“criminal contempt is ... where the judgment is in punishment of an act already accomplished, tending to interfere with the administration of justice”). Regarding counsel fees, moreover, the parties had previously agreed in the 5 May 1999 consent order that
if a contempt citation is successfully brought by either party against the other, the losing party shall be required to pay the reasonable counsel fees of the prevailing party.
See PCI Energy Services v. Wachs Technical Services, 122 N.C. App. 436, 442, 470 S.E.2d 565, 568 (1996) (counsel fees properly awarded in contempt proceeding where earlier consent judgment “contained an express provision” allowing recovery of costs associated with enforcing the judgment).
*581Contrary to the majority’s assertion, moreover, the requirements that defendant post and maintain a cash bond as well as make each child support payment when due constitute enduring “disabilities that he cannot escape,” Hicks, 485 U.S. at 639 n.11, 99 L. Ed. 2d at 736 n.11, i.e., conditions which remain imposed upon defendant in consequence of the trial court’s suspended sentence. Indeed, citing Bishop, 99 N.C. App. at 506, 369 S.E.2d at 110, the majority correctly states that “[a] contempt is [] criminal in nature if the relief is imprisonment and the imprisonment is suspended . . . , and one (emphasis in majority opinion) of the conditions of the suspended sentence [] requires the . . . contemnor to comply with the prior orders of the court” during the suspended sentence. To the extent that compliance with previous court orders may be deemed “remedial,” moreover, “where both civil and criminal relief . . . are imposed,” id. at 505, 369 S.E.2d at 109, “ ‘the criminal feature of the order is dominant and fixes its character’ ” upon the proceeding, id. at 505-06, 369 S.E. 2d at 109-10 (citing Hicks, 485 U.S. at 638 n. 10, 99 L. Ed.2d at 736 n.10 (in turn quoting Nye v. United States, 313 U.S. 33, 42-43, 85 L. Ed. 2d 1172, 1177 (1940))).
In short, I conclude that defendant’s appeal of that portion of the trial court’s order adjudicating him in criminal contempt is indeed criminal in nature and therefore not within the jurisdiction of this Court, see Michael, 77 N.C. App. at 843, 336 S.E.2d at 415, and vote to dismiss said appeal. However, defendant’s appeal of that separate portion of the trial court’s order awarding plaintiff $55,000.00 as counsel fees in the custody and support action appears to be properly before this Court, and I vote to affirm said award.