6 F. 63 | U.S. Circuit Court for the District of Southern New York | 1881
This suit is brought for the infringement of letters patent No. 74,068, granted to the plaintiff February 4,1868, for an “improvement in machine for forming sheet-metdl mouldings.” The patent was before this court in Fischer v. Wilson, 16 Blatchf. 220, and was sustained in April, 1879. This suit was brought in May, 1879. On a motion made on due notice to the defendant, this court, on the fourteenth of June, 1879, issued a preliminary injunction, restraining the defendant from making, using, or selling any machine embodying the inventions described and claimed in the second and fourth claims of the patent. This injunction was served on the defendant on the same day. Afterwards a motion founded on affidavits sworn to July 18, 1879, was made before the'court for an attachment against the defendant for contempt for violating said injunction. The affidavits were those of Erickson, Conolly, and Abbott, and went to show a violation of the injunction by the defendant after its service on him in the use, in making sky-light bars, of improvements covered by the second and fourth claims of the patent. The sky-light bars were made of sheet metal, and were formed and bent on a machine. The affidavits set forth the particulars of the alleged contempt charged, and were filed in court, and copies of them were served on the defend
It is provided by section 725 of the Revised Statutes that th”e courts of the United States shall have power to punish, “by fine or imprisonment, at the discretion of the court, con-tempts of their authority: •provided, that such power to punish contempts shall not he construed to extend to any cases except the misbehavior of any person in their presence, or so near thereto as to obstruct the administration of justice, the misbehavior of any of the officers of said courts in their official transactions, and the disobedience or resistance by any such officer, or by any party, juror, witness, or other person, to any lawful writ, process, order, rule, decree, or command of the said courts.”
It is contended for the defendant that to render effectual a judgment or order convicting a party of contempt, founded on his disobedience to an order of the court, three things must concur: (1) The order must be founded upon sóme legal or equitable right vested in the party at whose instance it is issued; (2) the order must be lawful and duly authorized at the time it issues; (3) the disobedience to it must be wilful.
It is well settled that contempt of court is a specific criminal offence, and that the imposition of a fine for a contempt is a judgment in a criminal case. New Orleans v. Steamship Co. 20 Wall. 387, 392. Although there has as yet been
The foregoing views cover all the suggestions made in argument, that the defendant, in the infringement on which the order in question was based, was guided by what he understood to be the views expressed by the court in its decision in Fischer v. Wilson, 16 Blatchf. 220; that his infringement was, therefore, not wilful, though mistaken; that the infringement was committed by the making of sky-light bars; that the patent of the plaintiff was and is invalid, and therefore the injunction that was disobeyed was not a lawful order,
Some points are made, on the part of the defendant, which are taken by him as arising on the face of the proceedings:
(1) It is objected that the order of February 17, 1880, decrees only “that the defendant is adjudged to have committed the contempt alleged,” without reciting further the offence of which he is guilty. It is insisted that this was necessary, and, further, that the order should have recited that the defendant had disobeyed a laiuful order of the court, and was guilty of a contempt of court in so doing. The contempt alleged is set forth with sufficient particularity in the affidavits on which the motion for attachment was founded, and in the report of the referee. All the proceedings and the various orders are sufficiently connected together by reference and recital to identify “the contempt alleged,” without the necessity of reciting at length in the orders the particulars of the previous proceedings. The original motion was noticed as a motion for an attachment for contempt for a violation of tho injunction, and the proceedings went on to ascertain that fact. The order of August 1, 1879, on its face, referred to the matter of a contempt of the injunction, and that is the “contempt” referred to in the orders of February 7th and 17th, and “the contempt alleged” spoken of in the latter order. It was not necessary to recite that the injunction was a lawful injunction.
(2) It is urged that the fine for contempt could not be imposed by an order made in the suit, but that the order should have been made in a proceeding in the title of which the United States were made a party to the proceeding. It is said, in The People v. Craft, 7 Paige, 325, that in proceedings in equity between parties to the suit for contempt in not obeying the process of the court, or any order or decree in the cause, the proceedings on the attachment may be, and usually are, entitled as in the original suit, though it is not irregular to entitle them in the name of The People on the relation of the person prosecuting the attachment against the defendant or party proceeded against. Where the attachment proceed
(3) It is contended that, as the order of February 17th, adjudging the contempt, ordered that the defendant pay, as a lino, the amount of all costs, etc., and did not order that the defendant stand committed, etc., the order of March 13th was void, because it ordered the defendant to stand committed, etc. It is also claimed that the court exhausted its power in making the order of February 17th, and that, even if it did not, it had no power to order the defendant to be committed until the lino should be paid. The order of February 17th adjudged the guilt, and ordered that the defendant should pay, as a line, what should, on an investigation ordered, be ascertained to be the amount of certain expenses. The order did not specify any amount as a fine. The subsequent order specified the amount ascertained on the investigation, and ordered that it bo paid by the defendant as a fine for the contempt within 30 days from the order, and that if not paid the defendant stand committed till it be paid, and that when paid it be paid over to the plaintiff in re-imbursement.
It is suggested that section 725 provides for the punishment of a contempt by fine or imprisonment, and that, therefore, a commitment for non-payment of the fine is unlawful, because such commitment is imprisonment. There is, however, no commitment or imprisonment if the fine be paid. There is not commitment and fine. The punishment by a fine is fully inflicted, under the terms of the order, if the fine be paid as the order directs, and in such case there can be no commitment. So, if there be a commitment for non-payment of the fine, there must be a discharge as soon as the fine is paid. The payment of the fine is the punishment. The awarding or infliction of the fine is no punishment. The commitment is an incident of the fine. It is not, in any manner, the “imprisonment” allowed by the statute. The payment of the fine, and a commitment for not paying it, cannot co-exist. The commitment is not a separate punishment or
In United States v. Hudson, 7 Cranch, 32, 34, it is said that the implied powers of fining for contempt and imprisoning for contumacy are powers which cannot be dispensed with in a court, because they are necessary to the exercise of all others; that they result from the nature of courts of jus-' tice; and that, so far, our courts possess powers not immediately derived from statute. Ex parte Robinson, 19 Wall. 505, 510. It might properly be held that the order to commit the defendant for non-payment of the fine was a punishment ordered for contumacy or contempt in not obeying the order to pay the fine, and so a punishment for a second contempt, and not a punishment for the contempt of violating the injunction. But the order to commit was lawful on broader grounds.
In Kane v. The People, 8 Wend. 203, 215, it is said that where a, defendant is convicted of a misdemeanor he may be committed to prison until the fine imposed on him for the offence is paid.
In Ex parte Watkins, 7 Peters, 568, 575, the existence of the same practice at the common law is recognized.
In Son v. The People, 12 Wend. 344, on a conviction for a misdemeanor a fine was imposed, with an order that the de-. fendant stand committed until the same be paid. The court might have imposed a fine or imprisonment not exceeding six months, or both. On certioraná the supreme court held that the proceeding was regular; that the imprisonment awarded was no part of the punishment, but only a mode of enforcing payment of the fine; and that, if the fine was paid on the defendant’s being arrested, the sentence gave no authority to imprison.
In Wilde v. The Commonwealth, 2 Met. 408, 411, it is said that where the statute authorizes a punishment by fine, costs may be awarded as incident, and the party convicted may be committed till such fine and costs be paid.
In Regina v. Dunn, 12 Ad. & Ell. (N. S.) 1026, the defendant was indicted for an offence, and convicted, and sentenced to be imprisoned for 18 months, and to give security to keep the peace for two years after the expiration of the 18 months, and to. stand committed till he should give such security. The exchequer chamber, on a writ of error, held that the sentence was proper.
In the case of Drayton and Sears, 5 Opinions of Attorneys General, 579, cited in In re Mullee, 7 Blatchf. 23, they were convicted on an indictment-under a statute which imposed only a pecuniary fine for the offence. A fine, with costs, was inflicted, and the court ordered them to be imprisoned till the fine and costs should be paid. They were imprisoned for four years, and then applied to the president for a pardon, and the attorney general, Mr. Crittenden, was of opinion that the president had the power, by pardon, to discharge them from prison and to remit the fine, although, by the statute, one-half of the fine was to go to a private person and the other half to a county.
In United States v. Robbins, 15 Int. Rev. Rec. 155, the defendant was convicted on an indictment, and sentenced to be imprisoned for a year, and to pay a fine and costs, and to stand committed until the fine and costs should be paid. After the expiration of the year’s imprisonment, the fine and costs not being paid, and the defendant being still in jail, he was brought up on habeas corpas, and claimed that the part of the sentence which ordered him to stand committed until the fine and costs should be paid was void. The statute authorized both a fine and imprisonment. The court held that,
In United States v. Kellerman, 23 Int. Rev. Rec. 202, the defendant was convicted on an indictment, and sentenced to pay a fine and the costs of the prosecution, and to stand committed until said fine and costs he paid, and to he imprisoned for one month. After the defendant had suffered the imprisonment for one month he sued out a writ of habeas corpus. The statute authorized the imposition of a fine and costs, and of imprisonment for a specified time, but said nothing about commitment until the fine and costs should be paid. The court held that the judgment for commitment was proper, and that, as the fine and costs had not been paid, the defendant was rightfully in custody.
The foregoing cases were not cases of contempt of court, but, as a fine for a contempt of court is a judgment in a criminal case, the same rule applies.
In In re Mullee, 7 Blatchf. 23, the party was fined for contempt in violating an injunction restraining the infringement of a patent, and -was ordered to stand committed until the fine should be paid.
In In re Allen, 13 Blatchf. 271, the party had disobeyed an order of court requiring him to produce and surrender certain books and papers. He was adjudged guilty of contempt, and was ordered to deliver them up and to pay the costs, and, upon refusal, to be committed to custody by the marshal until discharged by order of the court. On habeas corpus it was urged that the imprisonment was illegal because it was to continue during the pleasure of the court. The court say: “When the contempt consist of a violation of the order of the court, and is a contempt not committed in its presence, and the statute does not prescribe the form of the order of commitment, the defendant may be imprisoned until he be discharged by order of the court, or until further order of court. Green v. Elgie, 8 Jurist, part 1, p. 187, per Denman, C. J.; opinion of Chief Justice Kent in In re Yates, 4 John. 317; S. C. 9 John. 395. Chief Justice Kent, in In re Yates,
In Green v. Elgie, above cited, also reported in 5 Ad. & Ell. (N. S.) 99, the court of review in bankruptcy ordered one Green, a party before it, to pay certain costs within four days, or, in default, to stand committed to prison. He was committed. Afterwards he sued in the queen’s bench, for false imprisonment, the person on whose application he was committed and his attorney. There was a verdict against the latter. One ground urged for sustaining the verdict was that the warrant of commitment was void because it' did not direct how long the party should remain in prison. The court held that in that respect there was no objection to the warrant; but it was held bad because the order on which it was founded did not adjudge a contempt, or direct anything to be done by the party to clear himself from it.
In Doubleday v. Sherman, 8 Blatchf. 45, a fine was imposed for contempt in the violation of an injunction, and the defendant was ordered to stand committed until the fine should be paid.
It must, therefore,be held that this court had power to order the defendant to be committed until the fine should be paid.
It is equally clear that the court did not exhaust its power by the order of February 17th. That order adjudged the contempt, and set on foot, a proceeding for ascertaining what amount of pecuniary fine should be imposed therefor, directing on what principle and by what means it should be fixed. The subsequent order of March 13th fixed the amount, im
All the points urged in favor of the motion made by the defendant fall within the foregoing considerations, and the motion must be denied. The motion of the plaintiff is granted.