Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 10.djvu/637

IN EB CAKT. tt25 �It ia to be regretted that so much time, both of the court and the parties, should be expended upon so trifling a matter. The daim that any essential principle is involved in it is dissipated by the ambiguous charaoter of the injunction order itself, the entire want of service of it upon either of the respondents, and the doubt which still exists as to their knowledge of it-^oubts which thus hang over every important element in the alleged contempt. �1. The enjoining part of the order of January 7th was not drawn in language exact enough or broad enough, if it were intended to enjoin Youmans, and all other persons, from any further proceedings upon any execution issued, or that might be issued, upon the judg- ment referred to. The only persons enjoined are the "said Edgar W. Youmans, his marshals, agents, and servants ira charge of said writ of execution," and those persons, and no others, were enjoined "from making any levy upon or sale of said bankrupt's property." As it reads, its meaning and design would seem to be to stop further proceedings upon the execution then in the hands of Marshal Taylor. The order was served upon him alone. No attorney is named or referred to in the order; and, though both Prentiss, the attorney, and Youmans, the plaintifF, were all the time easily accessible, no attempt was made to serve or to notify either of them of the injunc- tion. This confirms the apparent object of the order, as gathered from its language, viz., to restrain any levy or sale upon the execu- tion then in the hands of Taylor. This injunction was obeyed by Marshal Taylor's return of that execution unsatisfied. There is noth- ing in this order which can apply in terms to Wagner, another mar- shal, to whom another execution was issued by the clerk of the court a month afterwards. He was never "in charge of the execution" referred to in the injunction order. Doubtless, the order might just as well have been drawn so as to restrain all proceedings by any per- son upon any other execution issued on the judgment; but it does not do so; and the failure either to express such an intention or to serve the order on Prentiss or Youmans, as would naturally have been done if there had been any such intention, leads me to the conclusion that such was not the actual design of the parties who obtained the order. �The act of March 2, 1831, (4 St. at Large, 487,) was designed to limit, and does limit, the power of the United States courts to pun- ish for contempt to the specifie cases therein named. That of diso- bedience "to any lawful order of the court" is the only one applica- ble here. Ex parte Robinson, 19 'Wall. 505. To sustain proceedings v.l0,no.6— 40 ��� �