Can I hold him in contempt of violating the injunction?

[johnpm]

What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? Florida

 

[ShyCat]

You may find this thread interesting:

https://forum.freeadvice.com/civil-litigation-46/contempt-not-following-injunction-639540.html

 

[quincy]

You may find this thread interesting:

https://forum.freeadvice.com/civil-litigation-46/contempt-not-following-injunction-639540.html

Ahh. The other party, perhaps?

Yes, johnpm, you can file a contempt of court motion.

Good luck.

 

[johnpm]

Thank you and the information at the link is useful.

Still I am undecided on my chances of winning a contempt of court motion and I request your advice as I need to hire an attorney if I wish to file this motion, etc.

I already drained most of my resources in this case from which I could not recover anything despite winning it. By the way, I no longer have any employees, clients, sponsors, and investors, which are mentioned in the injunction.

 

[quincy]

Thank you and the information at the link is useful.

Still I am undecided on my chances of winning a contempt of court motion and I request your advice as I need to hire an attorney if I wish to file this motion, etc.

I already drained most of my resources in this case from which I could not recover anything despite winning it. By the way, I no longer have any employees, clients, sponsors, and investors, which are mentioned in the injunction.

If you do not want to file a contempt motion, then you will have to be satisfied with the defendant's efforts (or lack thereof) in removing the defamatory material from the places online where it appears.

If you read the other thread - which has facts suspiciously similar to yours - you understand we believe the defendant has little defense to his failure to comply with the order, regardless of how "ambiguous" the defendant believes the court order is.

I don't know what else to tell you.

 

[johnpm]

Appreciate your response.

I appreciate if you provide any advice.

 

[quincy]

Appreciate your response. The earlier case you linked is similar to the case of Lawrence v. Lawrence, 384 So.2d at 279, Florida 4th DCA 1980 in which [Husband] appealed from an order holding him in contempt of court for nonpayment of child support arrearages, based on the lower tribunal order in 1978: “The father shall pay to the mother for the support of the children the sum of $300 every other week retroactive to the serving of the petition, March 9, 1977.” Then the appeals court stated: “While it may have been the trial court's intention to require immediate payment of arrearages there is nothing in the modification order which would have alerted [husband] to the necessity for immediate payment.”…[and] “We find that the trial court's order was not sufficiently explicit and precise with reference to the time for payment of arrearages to support a conclusion that [husband] willfully or wantonly violated that order.”

Therefore, I believe the defendant in the earlier case cannot be held in contempt.

However, my injunction is very short and its key part essentially states as follows:

“Defendant should remove a.com and b.com websites and related websites and should not post any defamatory or false statements regarding Plaintiff, his family, friends, employees, clients, sponsors, and investors” (a.com and b.com are not the actual names)

I appreciate if you provide any advice.

Both you and the defendant in the other thread are locked in a dance over the wording of the court order. By not returning to court to clear this up, you essentially are accepting the defendant's inaction.

If that is what you want to do, fine. If you want the defamatory material removed from its places online - as the defendant was ordered to do - you will want to file a contempt of court motion and let the court revisit the order.

 

[johnpm]

Appreciate your response.

 

[quincy]

Appreciate your response.

I have no intention of leaving it if there is “any” chance of winning. At the same time, as I said earlier, I am not in a position to spend any more money on this if it is almost evident that I cannot win. This is why I am contacting this forum for advice.

I contacted the court in the past to clarify the language but the defendant opposed arguing that the rehearing time (15 days I think) is already passed. Due to some reasons I could not appeal also.

FYI, in Reder v. Miller, 102 So.3d 742 Florida 2nd DCA 2012, the court said as follows:

"a court cannot base a finding of contempt on a violation of the court's intent in issuing the original order “when that intent was not plainly expressed in the written order"

and

"a judge cannot base contempt upon noncompliance with something an order does not say."

and

"While Reder's acts may have violated the "spirit" or "intent" of the trial court's orders, a finding of contempt requires the violation of the letter of an order — not its spirit. If "close enough" were the applicable standard, our result might be different. However, because Reder's actions did not violate the letter of any of the trial court's orders, we must reverse the orders finding him in contempt and imposing sanctions.”

Therefore, it seems to me that the “implied intent of the injunction” that you mentioned in the other link at 11-09-2017, 09:55 PM has not much weight unless that intention is reflected in the language of the injunction. It seems to me that the intention is not reflected in the language of my short injunction provided earlier. This makes me worried. Still looking for feedback to see if I have any chances of winning it.

You have NO chance of your defendant complying with the court order if you do not return to court, this if the defendant chooses not to comply with the order and you choose not to take action against him for violating the order.

File the contempt motion or not. It is up to you.

Good luck.

 

[johnpm]

Appreciate.

I got your message. Let me wait for a while to see if he removes those postings or else I will file a motion.

 

[LdiJ]

Appreciate.

I got your message. Let me wait for a while to see if he removes those postings or else I will file a motion.

If he is the guy we think he is he is not going to remove them until he gets in trouble with the judge...and now he probably knows that you are being wishy washy about taking him back to court for contempt.

 

[johnpm]

Appreciate.

At least for now, he is under tension on whether I file the motion or not and if so, what the judge will do. If I file the motion now and he wins then he has nothing to worry.

 

[Just Blue]

Appreciate.

At least for now, he is under tension on whether I file the motion or not and if so, what the judge will do. If I file the motion now and he wins then he has nothing to worry.

So what is it you want from this site? Because it seems to me this war you are having with the defendant is just a "pissing contest". Stupid.

 

[quincy]

Appreciate.

I got your message. Let me wait for a while to see if he removes those postings or else I will file a motion.

We have certainly encouraged your defendant to comply with the court order by removing his defamatory postings from their locations online. We have let him know that the judge is unlikely to believe any inaction on his part is due solely to the ambiguous wording in the order.

I see little point in having a court order if one party refuses to comply with it and the other party refuses to enforce it. But if you want to wait, fine.

Good luck.

 

[not2cleverRed]

What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? Florida

I won a lawsuit regarding online defamation on my former colleague. The injunction ordered my former colleague to remove two websites (those website details are provided in the injunction) and related websites and ordered him to do not make further defamatory statements regarding my family, friends, employees, clients, sponsors, and investors. He did not make any new websites or statements since this injunction was entered, for which I am happy. However, he did not take any action to remove the existing websites. I informed my intention to file a motion for contempt of the injunction. He is saying that the injunction is unclear and ambiguous because it is not detailed enough to identify “related websites” (saying that there are billions of websites in the world and the injunction did not explain how to find "related websites" ). He is saying that the injunction is ambiguous or unclear, also because of the fact that nowhere in the injunction it is explained who are (or how to identify) my family, friends, employees, clients, sponsors, and investors. Thereby, he is claiming that he cannot be held in contempt and provided a reference to case law: Reder v. Miller, 102 So.3d 742, Florida 2nd DCA 2012 which says “For a person to be held in contempt of a court order, the language of the order must be clear and precise, and the behavior of the person must clearly violate the order.”. He did not even remove the two websites also (although they are clearly mentioned in the injunction) and saying that the injunction, as a whole, is unclear and imprecise.
Can I hold him in contempt of violating this injunction if I file a motion for the same?

Legally, only a *judge* can find someone in contempt of court.

*You* can only petition/"ask" that the court find your nemesis in contempt of the judge's orders.

Stop dithering. Just go back to court. Let *him* be the one to explain why he hasn't complied with a court order - focus on the 2 websites explicitly named in the injunction that he has refused to take down/remove defamatory information from.

P.S. Of course, non-legally.... You can look down upon him with contempt.