46 Neb. 402 | Neb. | 1895
These proceedings were instituted in this court to review certain orders made by the court below by which Jeremiah C. Wilcox and Sherman Wilcox were adjudged to be in contempt of court. .It appears from the record that on the 6th day of June, 1894, one Harry Carton recovered a judgment in the district court of Douglas county against the plaintiff in error, Jeremiah C. Wilcox, in the sum of $1,287.13, besides costs of suit. An execution was issued upon this judgment on the 25th day of June, 1894, which upon the same day was returned by the sheriff unsatisfied for want of goods and chattels or lands and tenements of the defendant in the county upon which to levy the writ. Thereupon proceedings in aid of execution were instituted before Judge Blair, one of the judges of the district court in and for Douglas county, under the provisions of section 532 et seq. of the Code of Civil Procedure, by the filing of the affidavit of one L. E. Crofoot, setting up the recovery of the aforesaid judgment, the issuing of the execution thereon, and the return thereof unsatisfied; that the judgment debtor is interested as a stockholder in certain specified corporations, which interests, together with other property, both real and personal, of which he is possessed, he refuses to disclose or apply towards the satisfaction of said judgment, and that Sherman Wilcox is in possession of the facts with reference to Jeremiah C. Wilcox’s ownership of the stock in said corporations, and is a material witness in the proceedings. The district judge made an order com
It will be observed that Sherman Wilcox was adjudged in contempt of court for declining to be .sworn and for refusing to testify, and Jeremiah C. Wilcox was punished as for a contempt for declining to answer questions. Under
It remains to be determined whether the plaintiffs in error were rightfully adjudged guilty of contempt for refusing to testify. It cannot be doubted that the refusal of a witness to testify at all may be punished as a contempt of the court or officer of whom his testimony is required, in case the court or officer has jurisdiction of the controversy
Reversed and remanded.