Australasian Meat Industry Employees Union v Mudginberri Station Pty Ltd - [1986] HCA 46 - HCA 1985 case summary — Zoe

CTHHCA

Australasian Meat Industry Employees Union v Mudginberri Station Pty Ltd

[1986] HCA 46

High Court of Australia|1985-06-12|Before: Deane JJ, Beaumont J

View original source

At a glance

Source facts

Court

High Court of Australia

Decision date

1985-06-12

Before

Deane JJ, Beaumont J

Source

Original judgment source is linked above.

Judgment (57 paragraphs)

[1]

High Court of Australia Gibbs C.J. Mason, Wilson, Brennan and Deane JJ. Australasian Meat Industry Employees Union v Mudginberri Station Pty Ltd [1986] HCA 46

[2]

The principal issue in this appeal is whether the Federal Court has power to impose a fine in respect of a contempt consisting of wilful disobedience to an injunction and future acts of disobedience. There are subsidiary issues which relate to (a) the Federal Court's power to issue subsequently a writ of sequestration in respect of the appellants' non-payment of the fines; and (b) compliance with proper procedures applicable to proceedings for contempt.

[3]

The circumstances in which the proceedings for contempt were initiated against the appellants may be briefly stated. The respondent ("Mudginberri") conducts an abattoir and export meat processing works some 200 kilometres east of Darwin. Its operations include the slaughter, boning, sale and export of cattle and buffalo. A dispute arose between the appellant Union ("the Union") and Mudginberri over the system of payment which was in operation at the abattoir. Following decisions of the Australian Conciliation and Arbitration Commission ("the Commission") a contract system was introduced. It included a minimum payment provision which was designed to ensure that for work done an employee would receive not less than his entitlement under the relevant award plus 20 per cent. The amount of remuneration to which an employee was entitled under the contract system varied in accordance with the particular employee's rate of production. The Union objected to the negotiation by Mudginberri of agreements with individual employees rather than with the Union. The Union established a picket line at the abattoir in support of its objection.

[41]

However, the position has been illuminated by the decisions since Morgan. It can now be seen that Cross J.'s interpretation in Phonographic Performance [51] of the word "wilfully" in O. 42, r. 31 of the Rules of the Supreme Court 1883 accorded with a proper understanding of what had been said by the English Court of Appeal in Fairclough where the Court contrasted "casual, or accidental and unintentional disobedience" with what was required in a case where "it were sought to commit a private individual to prison for contempt" or "to sequestrate the property" "of a company" upon the ground of disobedience: see, e.g., Steiner [52] ; Mileage Conference [53] ; and Flamingo [54] . In Steiner Stamp J. imposed a fine upon the defendants as punishment for a contempt constituted by breach of an undertaking to the court in a case which was not one which it was "possible to regard as an obstinate disregard" of the undertaking but which was "simply a case of a failure by the company, for no excuse whatever, to carry out the terms of its undertaking" [55] . In the course of his judgment [52] , Stamp J. pointed out that the Court of Appeal in Fairclough , in expressing the view that it was necessary, in such cases, that the court's "order has been contumaciously disregarded", was using the word "contumaciously" in the narrow sense of "wilfully". Stamp J. expressed the conclusion, in support of which he cited the judgments of Chitty J. in Attorney-General at the Relation of the Leyton (Essex) Urban District Council v. Walthamstow Urban District Council [56] and Warrington J. in Stancomb v. Trowbridge Urban District Council [57] , that any "disobedience which was worse than casual, accidental or unintentional must be regarded as wilful" [58] . His Lordship had earlier [59] indicated that, if the effect of the decision of Stirling J. in Worthington [50] was that "nothing short of stubborn opposition to the terms of an order or undertaking amounted to wilful disobedience so as to be punishable by proceedings for attachment", he was not prepared to follow it. In that regard, it is of interest to note that in Mileage Conference [61] ) the members of the Restrictive Practices Court, who included Megaw J. as President and McVeigh L.J., suggested that the approach of Stirling J. in Worthington , which they rejected, had resulted from the fact that the only report of Fairclough which had been cited to Stirling J. had been "the abbreviated eight-line report in the Weekly Notes, and not the fuller and better report in the Solicitors Journal" and that Windeyer J., in Morgan, had likewise referred only to the report of Fairclough in the Weekly Notes when citing that case and Worthington in support of the proposition that conduct which was "wilful, but not contumacious", was not punishable by fine or sequestration. In Mileage Conference [62] , the members of the Restrictive Practices Court accepted as correct the view of the law expressed by Warrington J. in Stancomb [63] , namely, that it is no answer to proceedings for contempt "to say that the act was not contumacious in the sense that, in doing it, there was no direct intention to disobey the order". Thus, it would suffice that the relevant act or omission was wilful even if, in a case where the breach was constituted by an act or failure to act by a servant or agent, the act or omission of the servant or agent was "through carelessness, neglect, or even in dereliction of his duty": per Warrington J. in Stancomb . In Mileage Conference [64] itself, substantial fines were imposed on companies for contempt by breach of undertaking which was not merely non-contumacious but was committed reasonably on legal advice.

[45]

The imposition of a daily fine of $2,000 was clearly coercive as well as punitive, designed to encourage the Union to lift the picket line. It was submitted for the Union that what counsel described as "an anticipatory punishment for future default in complying with a Court order" is beyond power and in support of that proposition reliance was placed on the decision of the House of Lords in Stonor v. Fowle [67] and the decision of Wills J. in Hulbert & Crowe v. Cathcart [68] . Those cases may indeed support the proposition. But does the formula upon which the proposition is based describe correctly the imposition of the daily penalty in the present case? We do not think so. In our opinion, the Chief Judge imposed the daily fine in respect of a then presently existing contempt which was continuing in conformity with an attitude of determined disobedience earlier expressed by the secretary of the Union. It was not a case of successive contempts. There was one contempt which began with the refusal of the Union to abide by the interlocutory injunction granted by Beaumont J. and was continuing on 21 June 1985 when the matter was before Bowen C.J. There will often be elements of futurity in orders of a court which are designed to bring a contempt of court to an end. At stake is the public interest in vindicating the authority of the court and maintaining respect for the law. In principle, there is no good reason in appropriate circumstances for denying a court access to such a means of bringing a contempt to an end. There are ample precedents where courts have taken strong measures in order to coerce compliance with an order of the court. In the case of an individual contemnor, he may be imprisoned until the contempt is purged. The committal to prison is of a conditional nature, remaining in force until the contempt comes to an end or further order is made. As soon as the contempt is purged, the offender is entitled to release ex debito justitiae: In re Freston [69] . In the case of a corporation, its assets may be seized and remain seized until the contempt ceases. Such an order again exhibits a conditional character. There is much to be said for securing to a superior court a wide range of remedies so that it will be better able to meet the exigencies of particular circumstances. In the United States the suspended fine is well known: Miller, Contempt of Court (1976), p. 12. In Doyle v. London Guarantee Co. [70] , a case of continuing civil contempt, the Supreme Court offered no criticism of a conditional order imposing a fine of $250 if certain books and papers were not produced by a certain date. Again, in United States v. United Mine Workers of America [71] the Supreme Court imposed a fine of $2,800,000 conditioned on the failure of the union to comply with a labour injunction within five days. It was considered that such an order would effectively coerce the union into a future compliance with the Court's order. Another example of the flexibility of the orders available to the court may be seen in Con-Mech (Engineers) Ltd. v. Amalgamated Union of Engineering Workers (Engineering Section) [72] , where the National Industrial Relations Court ordered sequestration of assets to the value of £100,000, but postponed a final decision on the amount of the fine which would become payable so as to give the union time for further reflection. On continued disobedience, a fine of £75,000 was imposed.

[50]

The Union then relies on certain procedural irregularities, the first of which is that the motion seeking the issue of a sequestration order was framed in terms unrelated to the payment of the fines. It was couched in traditional form and sought the detention of the assets pending compliance with the order of Beaumont J. It was filed at a time when the interlocutory injunction was still in force. However, when the motion came on for hearing before Bowen C.J. the interlocutory injunction had been overtaken by the permanent injunction ordered by Morling J. It does not appear how the sequestration order came to assume the form in which it was made whereby it authorized the seizure of the assets of the Union and called on the sequestrators to pay to the Registrar the amount of the fines. However, as the reasons for judgment of Toohey J. in the Full Court show, no objection was taken by the Union either in the hearing before the Chief Judge, or on appeal, to the form of the motion for leave to issue a sequestration order or to the form in which the order issued. It is not open now for the point to be taken. Toohey J. also expressed the opinion that the motion for a writ of sequestration should not have been the vehicle for the imposition of monetary penalties beyond $10,000, at any rate not without notice to the Union of an intention to seek those penalties and without observance of the requirements of O. 40 of the Federal Court Rules. But these matters were not raised by the Union on the hearing of the appeal to the Full Court and there is manifest difficulty in entertaining them now. Certainly, we would not minimize the importance of the observance of the rules of court with a view to giving to an alleged contemnor the fullest notice of the conduct that is alleged against him and of the relief that is sought. However, with respect to his Honour, we do not think it is correct to regard the occasion of the hearing of the motion for a writ of sequestration as one for the imposition of monetary penalties. In our opinion, the daily fines were imposed by force of the original order of Bowen C.J. made on 21 June 1985. All that was required at the later hearing was their quantification. That does not mean that the respondent should not have made clear, by an updated motion as soon as the interlocutory injunction ceased to be operative, the terms of the order it sought. But, contrary to the submission of the appellant, it was not necessary for a further charge to accompany the motion for the issue of a writ of sequestration. There was at all times only one charge, that of actively maintaining a picket line contrary to the order of Beaumont J. That charge was duly laid and formed the basis of the first hearing before Bowen C.J. which resulted in the imposition of the fines.