Armstrong v. Superior Court

THE COURT.

This is an application for a writ of

certiorari

to review an order of the superior court of San Francisco adjudging one A. C. Armstrong guilty of contempt of court, and imposing a penalty therefor.

The contempt alleged was disobedience, with knowledge of the terms thereof, of a restraining order of said court made in an action pending therein, whereby the defendants, being certain voluntary associations, alleged to be associations composed of more than two persons associated in business and transacting such business under a common name, including

[342]

Cooks’ Union No. 44 and their members, officers, agents, representatives, and employees, and various fictitious defendants, were enjoined and restrained from placing or stationing or maintaining pickets in front of the plaintiff's place of business. Violation of this order on the part of petitioner and others, alleged to be members of said Cooks’ Union No. 44, and to have violated the same with knowledge of its terms, were alleged in the affidavit upon which the contempt proceeding was based, and the superior court found, after hearing the parties on an order to show cause, that Armstrong was guilty of such violation.

In view of the fact that

certiorari

will lie only to review an excess of jurisdiction, and that errors in the exercise of jurisdiction may not be considered in such a proceeding, we see no good ground for the granting of the application. Something is said, for instance, in support of the claim that the restraining order is too broad in that it enjoined

all

“picketing,” the theory being that there are certain kinds of “picketing” as that term is used in connection with labor disputes, that should not have been enjoined. However this may be, we are satisfied that it cannot be held that a court of equity is without

jurisdiction

to enjoin any and all picketing, as it has done in this case, and that if there be any error in this regard, a matter as to which we are not to be understood as intimating any opinion, it is simply error in the exercise of jurisdiction which can be reviewed by a higher court only upon direct appeal from the order.