United Mine Workers of America, District 28, engaged in a protracted labor dispute with the Clinchfield Coal Co. and Sea "B" Mining Co. over alleged unfair labor practices.
In April 1989, the companies filed suit in Virginia to enjoin the union from conducting unlawful strike-related activities. The trial court entered an injunction that prohibited the union and its members from, among other things, obstructing ingress and egress to company facilities, throwing objects at and physically threatening company employees, placing tire-damaging "jackrocks" on roads used by company vehicles, and picketing with more than a specified number of people at designated sites. The court additionally ordered the union to take all steps necessary to ensure compliance with the injunction, to place supervisors at picket sites, and to report all violations to the court.
On May 16, 1989, the trial court held a contempt hearing and found that the union had committed 72 violations of the injunction. After fining the union $642,000 for its disobedience, the court announced that it would fine the union $100,000 for any future violent breach of the injunction and $20,000 for any future nonviolent infraction. In seven subsequent contempt hearings held between June and December 1989, the court found the union in contempt for more than 400 separate violations of the injunction, many of them violent.
Each contempt hearing was conducted as a civil proceeding before the trial judge, in which the parties conducted discovery, introduced evidence, and called and cross-examined witnesses. The trial court required that contumacious acts be proved beyond a reasonable doubt, but did not afford the union a right to jury trial. The court levied $52 million in fines against the unions and directed that the money be paid to the state and two of its counties. The union contends that the fines were criminal and could not be imposed absent a criminal trial. The state contends that the fine schedule was intended to coerce compliance with the injunction and therefore the fines were civil and properly imposed in civil proceedings. Decide.