CONSTITUTIONAL LAW-JURY TRIAL FOR CONTEMPT-CONSTITUTIONALITY OF CLAYTON ACT

Authors

Abstract

The defendants, striking employees of a railway company, were proceeded against in a federal district court for contempt in violating a preliminary injunction, and demanded a jury trial under the Clayton Act (c. 323, 38 STAT. 738, sec. 21, 22), which provides that in cases of wilful disobedience of "any lawful writ, process, order, rule, decree, or command of any District court of the United States or any court of the District of Columbia by doing any act or thing" forbidden, if such act or thing also constitutes a criminal offense under any statute of the United States or law of any state in which the act is committed, the "trial may be by the court, or, upon demand of the accused, by a jury" * * *. The district court denied the application, tried the case without a jury, and adjudged the defendants guilty, sentencing them to pay fines. Upon writ of error the circuit court of appeals affirmed the judgments, holding that the section of the Clayton Act, supra, requiring jury trial upon demand, was unconstitutional, on the ground that the power of a court to vindicate or enforce its decree in equity is inherent, is derived from the Constitution as a part of its judicial power, and that Congress is without constitutional authority to deprive the parties in an equity court of the right to trial by the chancellor. Michaelson v. U. S. 291 Fed. 940. Held, upon appeal to the Supreme Court, that the proceedings in question were for criminal contempt, that the provision of the Clayton Act in question relates to criminal contempts only, and not to civil contempts, that it is mandatory, and constitutional, reversing the judgment of the circuit court of appeals. Michaelson v. the United States (Oct. 1924) 45 Sup. Ct. Rep. 18.

Recommended Citation

CONSTITUTIONAL LAW-JURY TRIAL FOR CONTEMPT-CONSTITUTIONALITY OF CLAYTON ACT, 23 Mich. L. Rev. 516 (1925).
Available at: https://repository.law.umich.edu/mlr/vol23/iss5/6