Court Opinion

ID: 9602916
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 02:01:31.281715+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:15:28.279581
License: Public Domain

SHENK, J., Concurring and Dissenting.
I concur in the decision of the court insofar as it holds that the trial court had jurisdiction to grant the injunction and to entertain the contempt proceedings. I am also in agreement with the holding that the power of the court to punish for contempt is legally limited by the provisions of section 1218 of the Code of Civil Procedure to a fine of “not exceeding five hundred dollars,” or to imprisonment “not exceeding five days,” or both such fine and imprisonment. Therefore when the trial court assumed to fine the defendant $375,934.66 for offenses based on daily violations in the past and $526 per day for continuing daily violations, and then proceeded to direct these sums to be paid as compensatory damages in favor of the plaintiff, an excess of exercisable power is obvious.
Likewise the order based on the present record for the de-. struction of the generators valued at $160,000 was beyond the jurisdiction of the court and should be annulled. Paragraph IX of the order under review provides that “the object and purpose of the relief prayed for by the plaintiff and granted by this order are remedial and for the benefit of the plaintiff and not for the purpose or by way of punishment of defendant for its wilful and knowing disobedience and violation of” the injunction. There was nothing in the injunctive order requiring the destruction of the generators. If the decree had ordered them destroyed a situation would have been presented • similar to that involved in Morton v. Superior Court, 65 Cal. 496 [4 P. 489], relied on by the majority. In that case there was a mandatory injunction ordering the dam removed. It *179was removed but was replaced by an agent of the party enjoined. There could be no question of the power of the court to punish the agent for contempt and order the reconstructed dam removed. That is not this case. Here there is no order for destruction in the judgment of injunction and the declared purpose of the order of contempt is for the benefit of the plaintiff. In Ex Parte Gould (1893), 99 Cal. 360 [33 P. 1112, 37 Am.St.Rep. 57, 21 L.R.A. 751], this court said, at page 362, quoting with approval from William’s Case, 26 Pa.St. 19 [67 Am.Dec. 374], that the purpose of a contempt proceeding "is not to indemnify the plaintiff for any damage he may have sustained by reason of such misconduct, but to vindicate the dignity and authority of the court. It is a special proceeding, criminal in character, in which the state is the real plaintiff or prosecutor.” In recognition of this rule the majority opinion here correctly states: ‘ ‘ The enforcement of an order of contempt in this state is not for the vindication of a private right but is for the maintenance of the dignity and authority of the court. ...” Nowithstanding that uniformly supported principle an order in this contempt proceeding for the destruction of property for the benefit of the plaintiff is affirmed. Such an order is not necessary to vindicate the power of the court. This could be accomplished by proceedings against the defendant for contempt under the authority and within the limitations of section 1218 of the Code of Civil Procedure for daily violations of the order of injunction. I would annul the order in its entirety.
Edmonds, J., and Spence, J., concurred.
Petitioner’s application for a rehearing was denied February 24, 1954. Shenk, J., Edmonds, J., and Spence, J., were of the opinion that the petition should be granted.