Court Opinion

ID: 9724124
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 10:45:24.724705+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:24:56.190613
License: Public Domain

LANSING, Judge
(dissenting).
I respectfully dissent because I disagree with the majority’s constitutional analysis and its disposition of the appeal. The district court crafted a comprehensive injunction to deal with the escalating problems caused by protestors near the Robbinsdale Clinic. The injunction imposes time, place, and manner restrictions on expression. See Clark v. Community for Creative Non-Violence, 468 U.S. 288, 298,104 S.Ct. 3065, 3071, 82 L.Ed.2d 221 (1984).
Time, place, and manner restrictions are valid only if they are content neutral; narrowly tailored to serve a significant government interest; and leave open ample alternative channels for communication. Frisby v. Schultz, 487 U.S. 474, 481, 108 S.Ct. 2495, 2500-01, 101 L.Ed.2d 420 (1988). An analysis of the injunction demonstrates that it withstands constitutional scrutiny on all three bases.
First, the injunction is for the content-neutral purpose of preventing harassment. See Northeast Women’s Ctr. v. McMonagle, 939 F.2d 57, 63 (3d Cir.1991). Second, the injunction is narrowly tailored to serve a significant government interest. The individual right to make a decision on abortion has historically been recognized as a personal privacy right. See Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113, 154, 93 S.Ct. 705, 727, 35 L.Ed.2d 147 (1973); see also Minnesota Medical Ass’n v. State, 274 N.W.2d 84, 91 (Minn.1978). The Supreme Court recently reaffirmed this right as a liberty right in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, — U.S.-,-, 112 S.Ct. 2791, 2804, 2817, 120 L.Ed.2d 674 (1992).
The state has an interest in ensuring “maximum safety for the patient,” and this interest is sufficient to enjoin harassing conduct aimed at patients of abortion clinics. See Northeast Women’s Ctr., 939 F.2d at 63 (quoting Roe, 410 U.S. at 150, 93 S.Ct. at 725). The injunction prohibits the “[hjarass-ing, taunting, or shouting at individuals * * * within the entirety of “Zone A” * * *.” This language limits only expression that is communicated in a manner that interferes with the operation of the clinic and intrudes on privacy and liberty rights of others. The injunction is narrowly tailored.
Third, the injunction leaves open ample alternative channels for communication. The injunction allows the distribution of literature in front of the clinic, but limits the number of pro-choice and pro-life demonstrators within specific areas and prohibits harassment within Zone A.
The question of whether Lori Driver violated the injunction is less straightforward. I disagree with the majority’s conclusion that the record contains insufficient evidence of harassment. The record provides ample evidence of harassment and there is also evidence that Driver had some connection to these activities. There are, however, insufficient findings explaining how the trial court concluded that Driver’s actions violate the injunction.
On March 26, 1993, Driver made two telephone calls to Patient X’s home and left messages for Patient X to return the calls, which Patient X did not do. During the night Driver went to Patient X’s home and left anti-abortion literature and a plastic model of a fetus on Patient X’s doorstep. Driver attempted to reach Patient X’s parents the next morning and left a message on a recorder stating that there was an emergency relating to their daughter and that they should call the telephone number provided.
On the same day, Driver stood on a comer within a block of the clinic, but outside Zone A, while protestors screamed at Patient X as she entered the clinic. Protestors yelled to Patient X to go talk to “Lori” on the street comer. While Patient X was in the clinic, the protestors yelled Patient X’s full name and accused her of murdering her baby. At the same time, although the evidence does not connect the action to Driver, someone Patient X did not know called the clinic and *95left a message for her that said Patient X’s parents had found out about Patient X’s actions and were very upset.
Findings on civil or criminal violations of contempt orders are customarily reviewed under an abuse of discretion standard. In re Contempt of Armentrout, 480 N.W.2d 685, 688 (Minn.App.1992). Proper review of a trial court’s discretion requires knowledge of the trial court’s basis for action. See Layton v. Legislative Audit Comm’n, 283 N.W.2d 1, 2-8 (Minn.1979) (uncertainty underlying contempt citation required remand to district court). The lack of specificity in the trial court’s findings appears to be attributable to multiple defendants raising different issues and the defense attorney’s appeal of some issues that were not fully contested and resolved in the initial hearing or preserved in the posttrial motions.
The result of this unwieldy process is that the district court’s findings identify specific acts of Lori Driver and state that the acts violate paragraph 10 which prohibits harassment of patients of the clinic, but the findings do not state the way in which the acts violate the order. Respondents contend that Driver was found in contempt for orchestrating and participating in the acts that culminated in the harassment of Patient X. Respondents further argue that Driver’s failure to challenge these underlying assumptions at trial resulted in the deficiencies, if any, in the findings.
Whether or not that is accurate, the findings themselves do not say whether the court concluded that Driver’s contacts violate the injunction because Driver was acting as a principal directing agents (as prohibited in section 5 of the injunction), because Driver was acting in concert with others (also prohibited in section 5 of the injunction), whether the contempt finding is a reinstatement of the earlier contempt determination against Driver that was provisionally dismissed (as provided in section 3 of the injunction), or whether the court concluded that Driver’s individual actions within Zone A constituted an independent violation of the injunction.
The purpose of the contempt power is to provide the trial court with a means to promptly enforce orders. See Hopp v. Hopp, 279 Minn. 170, 174, 156 N.W.2d 212, 216 (1968). But, the court’s broad discretion to impose contempt sanctions must be limited by procedural requirements. See State by Johnson v. Sports & Health Club, 392 N.W.2d 329, 336 (Minn.App.), pet. for rev. denied (Minn. Sept. 24, 1986). The record in this case is extensive and includes a number of videotapes. The court observed a videotape of the March 27 activities in front of the clinic but this video was not part of the record on appeal. The injunction and accompanying memorandum itself is twenty-four pages. Rather than theorizing on whether any of Driver’s actions could properly be considered violations, it is more appropriate to remand to the district court to get specific findings that can be subjected to rational review. Layton, 283 N.W.2d at 2.
A remand is particularly appropriate in light of a companion case, already decided by this court, that addresses whether the imposed penalties constitute criminal or civil contempt. See Robbinsdale Clinic v. Pro-Life Action Ministries, No. C5-93-1080, 1994 WL 71389 (Minn.App. Mar. 8, 1994). For these reasons, I would remand to the district court for additional proceedings.