STATE EX REL. N. BUCKNER, LEON ST. JOHN AND R. G. BUCKNER
v.
H. L. CULBREATH, AS SHERIFF OF HILLSBOROUGH COUNTY, FLORIDA
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The Florida Supreme Court affirmed the commitment of optometrists to county jail for contempt of court after they violated an injunction against practicing optometry. The court held that habeas corpus is not the proper remedy to challenge the underlying validity of an injunction; violators must appeal the injunction itself, not seek relief through habeas corpus.
Habeas corpus is not the proper remedy to challenge the correctness or validity of an injunction; the proper remedy is appeal of the original injunctive order. When a person violates a court order, even if erroneously entered, they may be punished for contempt and cannot use habeas corpus to have the underlying order reviewed. The defendants must desist from the enjoined acts or appeal the injunction.
“It is the well recognized rule that one may not violate a court order, even though erroneously entered, and when punished for his misdeed have the propriety of the order which he has violated reviewed in habeas corpus.”
Establishes the core holding that habeas corpus cannot be used to challenge the validity of an underlying order when the petitioner is being punished for contempt of that order.
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Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligenceThe Florida State Board of Optometry obtained an injunction against the defendants prohibiting them from practicing optometry in violation of Chapter …
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After hearing the evidence of the respective parties in a suit for injunction instituted by the Florida State Board of Optometry against persons who have now become the plaintiffs-in-error in this case the chancellor entered an order restraining the defendants from engaging in the practice of optometry or in anywise violating Chapter 19031, Laws of Florida, Acts of 1939, and specifying in the language of that part of the statute defining such practice, the acts which were enjoined. A few months later the successful litigant represented to the court that the injunctive order had been violated and in its petition detailed certain acts committed by the defendants which were alleged to have violated provisions of the decree. Upon an order to show cause why the defendants should not be held in contempt of court returns were filed and testimony was taken, whereupon the *562chancellor found the defendants in contempt of court and fined them ten dollars, and upon failure to pay the fine, sentenced them to the county jail for a period of one day.
The defendants then obtained a writ of habeas corpus directed to the sheriff of the county who filed a return stating that he had the defendants in his custody under the commitment for contempt. After a hearing on the writ and return the circuit judge re1 manded the petitioners to the custody of the sheriff and it is by an appeal from that order that the matter reaches this court.
The questions which the original defendants in the chancery suit, petitioners in the habeas corpus proceeding and now plantiffs-in-error, present to us for determination deal with the sufficiency of the facts to show that their activities- constituted the practice of optometry as defined by Chapter 19031, Laws of Florida, Acts .of 1939. The record does not disclose precisely what conduct of the defendants was originally held to constitute the practice of optometry and we cannot therefore discern whether the acts per?formed subsequent to the issuance of the injunction were identical with those enjoined, and no presumption in this regard is indulged in favor of the petitioners for writ of habeas corpus. Therefore the matters sought to be decided are not properly determinable in this appeal because the inquiry in the case before the circuit judge, where persons in custody under process for contempt had resorted to the collateral remedy of habeas corpus, was limited to the jurisdiction of the court or lack of it, in the first instance, and the voidness of the process upon its face. 25 Am. Jur., Habeas Corpus, p. 212.
*563No attack is made upon the jurisdiction of the court to entertain the initial controversy, nor is it urged that the conduct of the petitioners shown in the hearing upon habeas corpus was not that enjoined in the suit in equity but we are asked in this appeal to hold that those acts did not establish the practice of optometry in violation of the provisions of the law we have cited and consequently of the injunction. Were we to make the investigation upon which the plaintiffs-in-error insist it would be, in effect, an examination of the correctness of the original decree and it seems hardly necessary to observe that even if that order was infected with error it could not be rectified in this fashion because that would be the function of an appeal for which habeas corpus could not be substituted.
We do not discuss whether the process was void upon its face because that position is not taken by the plaintiffs-in-error.
We conclude that the plaintiffs-in-error could find relief from the injunctive order only by appeal and that inasmuch as the court had jurisdiction to restrain them and the acts committed subsequent to the entry of the order were not shown to be different from those intended to be prohibited they were properly remanded to custody.
It is the well recognized rule that one may not violate a court order, even though erroneously entered, and when punished for his misdeed have the propriety of the order which he has violated reviewed in habeas corpus. In such a situation he should desist from the performance of the acts enjoined as long as the order remains in force.
We hold that the order of the court remanding the ■ petitioners to custody was proper and it is therefore^-
*564Affirmed.
Brown, C. J., Whitfield, Buford and Adams, J. J., concur.
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Wilson v. Sandstrom, 317 So. 2d 732 (Fla. 1975)…o punish by appropriate fine or imprisonment or otherwise any conduct that in law constitutes an offense against the authority and dignity of a court or a judicial officer in the performance of judicial functions. State ex rel. Buckner v. Culbreath, 147 Fla. 560, 3 So. 2d 380 (1941). The sole reason for the incarceration of the kennel owners was their willful failure to comply with the temporary injunctive order of the court. Just as in any other contempt proceedings, the kennel owners carry the keys of the…
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Ellis S. Rubin v. State, 490 So. 2d 1001 (Fla. 3d DCA 1986)…So. 2d 28 (Fla. 5th DCA 1979), appeal dismissed sub nom., Cataldo v. Eagen, 383 So. 2d 1191 (Fla.1980) (appellant’s failure to obey 'injunction found to be erroneous as overbroad, punishable by contempt). See also State ex rel. Buckner v. Culbreath, 147 Fla. 560, 3 So. 2d 380 (1941); State ex rel. Pearson v. Johnson, 334 So. 2d 54 (Fla. 4th DCA 1976); Friedman v. Friedman, 224 So. 2d 424 (Fla. 3d DCA 1969); Annot., Right to Punish for Contempt for Failure to Obey Court Order or Decree Either Beyond Power or…
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Sandstrom v. State, 309 So. 2d 17 (Fla. 4th DCA 1975)…it, or reversed on appeal by the appellate court.” Anno: Contempt— Disobeying Invalid Decree, 12 A.L.R.2d 1059, 1107. See too, Seaboard Airline Ry. Co., v. Tampa Southern R. Co., 101 Fla. 468, 134 So. 529 (1931); State ex rel. Buckner v. Culbreath, 147 Fla. 560, 3 So. 2d 380 (1941); Friedman v. Friedman, Fla.App.1969, 224 So. 2d 424; United States v. United Mine Workers of America, 330 U.S. 258, 67 S. Ct. 677, 91 L.Ed. 884 (1947); United States v. Dickinson, 465 F. 2d 496 (5th Cir.1972). One of the decisio…
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