## Facts

- A labor dispute arose between the Water Works Board of the City of Birmingham and Local Union No. 1317 regarding union recognition, collective bargaining, and payroll dues check-off.
- The union announced a strike, and strike and picketing activities began at Water Works Board facilities.
- The Board sought emergency injunctive relief, alleging the strike was illegal and that picketing interfered with access to facilities, risking immediate harm to the water system and the public.
- The circuit court issued an ex parte temporary restraining order (TRO) enjoining the strike and restricting picketing that interfered with ingress and egress at Board facilities.
- James R. Purvis, a union representative, had actual notice of the TRO and admittedly continued to participate in and encourage conduct barred by the order.
- The circuit court found Purvis in criminal contempt for three willful violations and sentenced him to five days per violation (15 days total).
- After Purvis served eight days, the Alabama Supreme Court stayed execution of the remaining sentence.
- Purvis petitioned for a writ of habeas corpus, arguing the TRO was unconstitutional and therefore could not support a criminal contempt judgment; he had not sought to dissolve or modify the TRO before disobeying it.

## Issues

1. Whether a person jailed for criminal contempt may use habeas corpus to collaterally challenge the constitutional validity of an outstanding TRO that he knowingly violated without first seeking to dissolve or modify it.
2. Whether habeas review of a contempt judgment extends beyond jurisdictional defects and facial invalidity to alleged constitutional errors in the underlying injunction.

## Decision

- The Alabama Supreme Court denied the petition for writ of habeas corpus.
- The court held Purvis could not collaterally attack the TRO’s constitutionality in habeas after willfully disobeying it without first pursuing available procedures to dissolve, modify, or directly challenge the order.
- The court concluded the trial court had jurisdiction over the parties and subject matter, and the contempt judgment was not void on its face.

## Legal Principles

- Court orders must be obeyed unless and until vacated or modified through proper legal process, even if the order is alleged to be unconstitutional or erroneous.
- A party generally may not violate an injunction and later defend against contempt by collaterally attacking the injunction’s validity; the proper route is a timely motion to dissolve/modify or other direct review.
- In habeas proceedings challenging imprisonment for contempt, review is limited to whether the issuing court had jurisdiction and whether the contempt judgment is void on its face; habeas is not a substitute for appeal of interlocutory orders.
- Criminal contempt punishes willful disobedience of a court order, not the underlying conduct that the order regulated, where the order is within the court’s jurisdiction and remains in force.

## Conclusion

The court upheld Purvis’s criminal contempt confinement because he knowingly violated a TRO that remained in effect and, having bypassed available procedures to challenge it directly, could not use habeas corpus as a collateral vehicle to litigate the TRO’s alleged unconstitutionality.


Ex parte Purvis, 382 So. 2d 512 (Ala. 1980)