People ex rel. King v. Barnes — 28 N.Y. St. Rep. 624

Majority

p. 624

The People ex rel. Thomas M. King et al., Resp’ts, v. Reon Barnes, App’lt.

(Supreme Court, General Term, Second Department,

Filed December 9, 1889.)

Headnote

•Contempt—What constitutes.

An injunction order restraining defendant and others from interfering with property of a corporation of which they were officers was served in defendant’s presence upon the president of the corporation. Thereafter defendant delivered a deed of such property, which at that time he had in his possession. Held, that he was guilty of contempt.

Appeal from order adjudging defendant in contempt and punishing him by imprisonment for six months and by a fine of $250.

In an action brought by King and others against defendant and ■others, an order was made by which, among other things, the defendants therein were enjoined from disposing of the property of the New York Transit & Terminal Company. This order was •.served on Post, the president of the company, in the presence and to the knowledge of this defendant. Thereafter this defendant, with such knowledge of the service of the order, delivered a deed

p. 625

purporting to convey the real property of said corporation to one Effingham Morris.

Hornblower & Byrne, for appl’t; Tracy, MacFarland, Boardman & Platt, for resp’ts.

This is an appeal from an order dated July 20, 1889, which adjudges the appellant, Peon Barnes, to be in contempt for a violation of a previous order of the court. The notice ■of appeal also specified several other orders which he desired to review, but they are all connected with the same proceeding, and require no separate examination.

The guilt of the appellant, Barnes, is fully established in the record before us, and he has well merited the punishment imposed upon him.

The persistence of this appellant in his defense and disobedience «of the mandates of the court seems to be unprecedented in the annals of litigation.

This court and the court of appeals have both justified the imposition of a severe punishment upon him for a contempt, and now he is before us again in an effort to escape from punishment for an act of contumacy of equal enormity with the other.

If the majesty of the law is to be maintained, and the authority of the courts is to be vindicated, this man must not escape from severe punishment.

The order from which the appeal is taken should be affirmed, with ten dollars costs and disbursements, and all the orders specified in the notice of appeal should also be confirmed and affirmed.

Pratt, J., concurs; Barnard, P. J., not sitting.