Court Opinion

ID: 9588479
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 23:34:47.699939+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:00:59.098114
License: Public Domain

Carley, Judge,
concurring in part and dissenting in part.
I concur fully in all divisions of the majority opinion with the exception of Divisions 4, 5 and 6. As to Division 4,1 must respectfully dissent to the majority’s holding that the trial court’s order is an adjudication of appellant’s civil contempt.
“Attachments for contempt are either civil or criminal, or both.” (Emphasis supplied.) Beavers v. Beavers, 148 Ga. 506 (2) (97 SE 65) (1918). “An injured party is frequently more interested in obtaining a *374contempt order as a remedy for himself or herself (civil contempt) than in obtaining punishment of the defendant for violating the court’s order (criminal contempt). [Cit.] The court on the other hand has the responsibility of seeing that its orders in other cases as well as the pending cases are obeyed. Hence a court may find that a contempt proceeding originated and pursued by a party seeking civil contempt should be treated as one for criminal contempt.” (Emphasis supplied.) Schiselman v. Trust Co. Bank, 246 Ga. 274, 277 (271 SE2d 183) (1980). Criminal contempt is retrospective. It authorizes unconditional punishment based upon a past violation of a court’s prior order and vindicates the authority of the court itself. Civil contempt is prospective. It authorizes conditional punishment as a means to coerce future compliance with a court’s prior order and seeks to provide a party with the relief to which he is otherwise entitled under that prior order. “Criminal contempt with unconditional [punishment] may be used to preserve the court’s authority and to punish disobedience of its orders. [Cit.] Civil contempt, on the other hand, is conditional punishment which coerces the contemnor to comply with the court order. [Cit.]” Hopkins v. Hopkins, 244 Ga. 66, 67 (1) (257 SE2d 900) (1979).
Although the contempt order in the instant cases arises in the context of a civil action and as the result of appellees’ motion for sanctions, it is clear that, insofar as appellant was adjudged to have been in “continuing contempt to the date of [the] order,” the trial court’s intent was to punish appellant. (Emphasis supplied.) The order recites that appellant was being found in contempt for its past failure “to comply with the order of [the] Court requiring it to produce records to the [appellees]. . . .” The order imposes an unconditional penalty for this prior failure to comply with the trial court’s order. The only remedial aspect of the trial court’s contempt order ostensibly designed to coerce appellant into future compliance with the prior discovery order is the recitation that, “upon failure of [appellant] to comply with said Order of November 16,1983, upon notice and hearing the Court shall consider further fines. [Appellant] may produce said records and purge itself of further fines for non compliance with the orders of this Court.” (Emphasis supplied.) Accordingly, I believe that the $500 per day fine “to the date of [the] order” was clearly punishment for appellant’s past violation of the trial court’s discovery order and was, therefore, an adjudication of criminal, not civil, contempt.
“The power of the courts of this State to punish for contempt is limited by law, and any sentence exceeding the limitation thus imposed is void.” Drane v. Childers, 18 Ga. App. 282 (1) (89 SE 304) (1916). OCGA § 15-7-4 (5) provides that courts have jurisdiction over “[t]he punishment of contempts by fine not exceeding $500.00. . . .” *375This statutory limitation does not apply when the adjudication of contempt is civil and remedial, for such contempt is potentially continuous until such undeterminable time as the contemnor purges himself by future compliance with the trial court’s prior order. See Cobb v. Black, 34 Ga. 162, 166 (2) (1865). This concept of a “continuing contempt” exception to the statutory limitation of OCGA § 15-7-4 (5) does not, however, apply to past criminal contempt evidenced by the contemnor’s prior continuing failure to obey a trial court’s order. Cobb v. Black, supra at 162 (2). “In the case now under review, the contempt for which the fines were imposed had been committed by doing an act or acts which the judge decided to be in violation of [its prior discovery] order, and therefore came directly within the scope of the legislative provision limiting the power of. . . courts in imposing fines for contempt.” Warner v. Martin, 124 Ga. 387, 393 (52 SE 446) (1905). “The object [of the fines], in this case, [was] to punish for an act done, in contempt of the Court, [not] to compel the doing of an act necessary to the administration of justice.” (Emphasis in original.) Cobb v. Black, supra at 167. Accordingly, I would find that any fines imposed upon appellant in excess of $500 for its past criminal contempt in refusing to comply with the trial court’s discovery order was unauthorized under OCGA § 15-7-4 (5).
Decided November 20, 1986
Rehearing denied December 19, 1986
Darlene Y. Ross, E. Freeman Leverett, John D. Jones, for appellant.
Richard A. Middleton, Eugene C. Brooks IV, for appellees.
For the above-stated reasons, it is my opinion that the trial court adjudicated appellant in criminal contempt and erroneously imposed a fine in excess of $500. Therefore, I would affirm the trial court’s contempt order only upon condition that the fines in excess of $500 be stricken. Accordingly, I must respectfully dissent to Division 4 of the majority opinion which affirms in full the contempt order.
I am authorized to state that Chief Judge Banke, Presiding Judge Deen and Judge Beasley join in this dissent.