Page:North Dakota Reports (vol. 2).pdf/491

This page needs to be proofread.
NORTH DAKOTA EX REL. EDWARDS v. DAVIS.
465

was passed to afford to the successful litigant a legal right to demand that the power of the court to punish for contempt be so exercised to enforce a decree or order in his favor as to indemnify him for damage sustained by the contempt. The other New York authorities follow the decision. The Michigan authorities belong to the same class. In People v. Simonson, 9 Mich. 491, the court said: “This is an appeal from an order made under section 4094 of Compiled Laws, punishing defendants for a contempt for violating an injunction, which the relator moves to have dismissed. The section is as follows: ‘If an actual loss or injury has been produced to any party by the misconduct alleged, the court shall order a sufficient sum to be paid by the defendant to such party to indemnify him and to satisfy his costs and expenses, instead of imposing a fine upon such defendant; and in such case the payment and acceptance of such sum shall be an absolute bar to any action by such aggrieved party to recover damages for such injury or loss.’ The order is final, and cannot be reviewed unless on an appeal from the order itself. It is more of a civil than of a criminal nature, its principal objects being to compel defendants to make compensation to the relator for the injury they have done him in violating the injunction, rather than to vindicate the dignity of the court and the majesty of the laws. For these reasons we are of the opinion the motion should be denied.” In Romeyn v. Caplis, 17 Mich. 449, the court said: “It has been contended before us that the order in this case was not one from which an appeal could be taken, since the appellee did not claim that an actual loss or injury had been produced to the party by the misconduct alleged, and did not ask for any sum to indemnify him. I think that this position cannot be sustained. The injunction was an appropriate civil process, belonging to the remedy in the action in which it issued, and the proceeding for its violation was under the chapter entitled ‘Of proceedings as for contempt to enforce civil remedies and to protect the rights of parties in civil actions.’ The order complained of was final, and not merely a step in the course of the proceeding contemplating further action by the court in relation to the same matter, and it belonged to that