Court Opinion

ID: 9587189
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 23:18:58.505589+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:33:29.102661
License: Public Domain

SHINN, J.
I dissent.The attack upon the judgment of contempt is not based upon any defect in the proceedings which were essential to confer jurisdiction. Petitioner had been ordered to pay money to his wife, he had actual knowledge of the order, he had the ability to pay and refused to pay, he was cited for wilfully refusing to pay and was found guilty, upon evidence which is not before us, and which must therefore be deemed sufficient. All these facts were recited in the judgment. There was no lack of due process of law. The facts constituting the contempt, namely, the making of the order and the wilful disobedience of it, were presented to the court by affidavit (Code Civ. Proc., § 1211), the citation was issued and served, and petitioner appeared and defended against the charge.
All that is urged in support of the claim of no jurisdiction and no due process is that the affidavit and order to show cause recited the date of the order instead of the date of the decree, but the substance of the order and the decree was the same. A statement of the date of the order or decree alleged to have been disobeyed was wholly unnecessary. If the affidavit and order to show cause had misstated the name of the judge who made the order, or the department in which it was made, such errors would not have deprived the court of jurisdiction. The mistake my associates are making is in allowing themselves to be persuaded that the matter of the date when *472the order was made enters into the substance of what petitioner had been ordered to do and had failed to do. Petitioner knew that some two months before he was cited the court had ordered him to pay certain sums of money to his wife, and he knew he was accused of failing to pay the money. He complains of want of due process as if he had been charged with one crime and convicted of another. This is far from being the case. What happened, and all that happened, is that when petitioner was cited for failure to pay money as ordered by the decree, which had been served upon him weeks before, he discovered that an order had been made two days before the decree was rendered, which directed him to pay substantially the same sums of money. If petitioner had been prosecuted for contempt as a misdemeanor, an erroneous recital in the complaint of the date of the order for payment would not have amounted to a material variance, much less have deprived the court of jurisdiction.
Jurisdiction cannot be defeated by the failure to take a step, or the taking of a misstep, with respect to a wholly nonessential detail in the proceedings to confer jurisdiction. Mere irregularities, even as to essential steps, do not render void a contempt judgment where the accused has been brought before the court and has been proven guilty. {Ex parte Ah Men, 77 Cal. 198 [19 P. 380, 11 Am.St.Rep. 263]; In re Simowiello, 6 Cal.App.2d 425 [44 P.2d 402]; In re Risner, 67 Cal.App.2d 806 [155 P.2d 667].) Petitioner is not entitled to be released. He should spend the remainder of the allotted five days in jail, and in meditation.