Court Opinion

ID: 9422410
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:02:29.692944+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:22:36.513974
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Harlan,
whom Mr. Justice Clark joins,
dissenting in part and concurring in part.
I agree that this contempt conviction must be set aside, but not for the reasons given by the Court.
In United States v. United Mine Workers, 330 U. S. 258, 289-295, this Court held that disobedience of a temporary restraining order issued by a court whose claim to jurisdiction over the underlying proceeding is not frivolous may be punished as criminal contempt even if it is determined on appeal that such jurisdiction was lacking. This holding was not new, United States v. Shipp, 203 U. S. 563; Howat v. Kansas, 258 U. S. 181, and it has not been departed from since. It is the law of Ohio, Ohio Contractors Assn. v. Local 894, Hod Carriers’ Union, 108 Ohio App. 395, 162 N. E. 2d 155. It was one ground of decision below, 172 Ohio St. 269, 274-275, 175 N. E. 2d 59, 62-63, and is relied on here by respondent. However, the Court in its opinion gives only a passing glance at the Mine Workers decision.
*694The injunction petition out of which this contempt proceeding arose alleged that the posting of union pickets “and the calling of a strike by so doing” violated the no-strike clause of a collective bargaining agreement signed by union representatives who claimed authority to contract. The assertion of state court jurisdiction to redress violation of such an agreement has recently been upheld in Charles Dowd Box Co. v. Courtney, 368 U. S. 502, and can hardly be deemed to have been frivolous before that decision. It does not become frivolous because an argument might be made for holding the state court powerless to issue an injunction in such a case, see Dowd Box, supra, 368 U. S., at 514, n. 8, or because it is arguable either that no contract was concluded in this case or that the picketing did not constitute a breach of such a contract. Local 174, Teamsters Union v. Lucas Flour Co., 369 U. S. 95, 101, makes clear that the rule stated in San Diego Building Trades Council v. Garmon, 359 U. S. 236, 245, ousting state courts from dealing in tort with activities even arguably subject to § 7 or § 8 of the National Labor Relations Act, does not apply when relief is sought for breach of an alleged collective bargaining agreement. State jurisdiction was upheld in Lucas Flour, although the activity there would have been protected by § 7 if not forbidden by a contract provision whose interpretation was fairly disputed, and thus was still arguably protected.
Accordingly, unless Mine Workers is distinguishable, the state court in this instance had power to punish petitioner for contempt even though it may ultimately be determined that it lacked jurisdiction over the injunction suit itself. The Court seeks to find such a distinction in the fact that Mine Workers involved a federal restraining order, whereas in Amalgamated Assn. of Bus Employees v. Wisconsin Employment Relations Board, 340 U. S. 383, where state jurisdiction was found to be *695preempted by the National Labor Relations Act, a state court restraining order pendente lite was set aside. The Amalgamated case, however, did not involve an alleged breach of a labor agreement. The Mine Workers principle was neither relied on by the state court in Bus Employees nor argued here, and there is nothing in this Court’s opinion in that case which suggests that the State would have been without power to reinstate the original contempt order on the basis of Mine Workers if that rule were followed in Wisconsin. Moreover, the Court’s opinion in the present case does not enlighten us as to why the Mine Workers principle should not obtain in a “preemption” case. . Indeed, I would have supposed that if a federal court can preserve the status quo pending resolution of a disputed question as to its jurisdiction, the considerations in favor of allowing a state court to take such action in the same situation are at least as strong, if not stronger.
It is suggested that the federal policy behind preemption of state jurisdiction in Labor Board cases would be frustrated if the Mine Workers rule were to be considered applicable in a case such as this. But the policy underlying the preemption doctrine cannot well be thought stronger than the policy of the Norris-LaGuardia Act. The restraining order was issued in Mine Workers despite the commands of the Norris-LaGuardia Act — a statute specifically directed towards proscribing the issuance of injunctive orders in labor disputes.*
*696Petitioner’s argument that the restraining order must be ancillary to a dispute over which the court has admitted jurisdiction scarcely serves to explain either United States v. Shipp, supra, in which the Court assumed that jurisdiction of the entire controversy depended on whether the Constitution had been violated, or Howat v. Kansas, supra, in which the jurisdiction of the state court, apart from the validity of the statute attacked, was relied on only as an alternative holding. Whether a restraining order is thus ancillary or not, respect for the orderly process of law requires obedience to it until a debatable issue of jurisdiction can be authoritatively decided. United States v. United Mine Workers, supra, 330 U. S., at 309-310 (FrankpuRter, J., concurring). Petitioner would limit the rule to injunctive orders issued to preserve the status quo. Even so, the power of the court to act pending decision of the jurisdictional issue surely does not depend upon whether a strike has begun an hour before the complaint is filed or is to begin an hour later.
Nevertheless, I agree that for a different reason petitioner’s conviction did not comport with the requirements of due process. For the record shows that the petitioner was deprived of an opportunity to prove that contempt proceedings against the pickets were agreed to among himself, his adversary, and the judge as the appropriate way to test the court’s jurisdiction over the basic lawsuit. Petitioner offered to testify — and his proffered testimony appears not to have been disputed — that “I was convinced that both the Judge and Mr. Ragan [opposing counsel] were aware that I had consented to bring these men before the court and stipulate the essential matters *697for the express purpose of testing the validity of the court’s order and its jurisdiction over the subject matter.” Yet petitioner was denied the right to present this testimony.
I agree with the dissenting judge in the Ohio Court of Appeals, 47 L. R. R. M. 2230, 2233, that there is a vast difference between a defendant openly contumacious and defiant of a court order and one who disobeys the order pursuant to an understanding with court and counsel in order to test the underlying jurisdictional issues. If petitioner’s contentions are true, he cannot be punished for violating the order after this agreement, and therefore he has a right to be heard. In re Oliver, 333 U. S. 257, 275.
On this basis I agree that the state contempt order must be set aside.

The very argument now advanced here by the majority opinion was made by Mr. Justice Murphy, dissenting, in the Mine Workers case (330 U. S., at 341): “But we are acting here in the'unique field of labor relations, dealing with a type of order which Congress has definitely proscribed. If we are to hold these defendants in contempt for having violated a void restraining order, we must close our eyes to the expressed will of Congress and to the whole history of equitable *696restraints in the field of labor disputes. We must disregard the fact that to compel one to obey a void restraining order in a case involving a labor dispute and to require that it be tested on appeal is to sanction the use of the restraining order to break strikes — which was precisely what Congress wanted to avoid.”