## Facts

- During the 1981 nationwide PATCO strike, the United States obtained a preliminary injunction governing picketing at the FAA Air Route Traffic Control Center in Nashua, New Hampshire.
- The injunction limited picketing to no more than 30 informational pickets at any time, required pickets to remain at least 40 feet from the entrance/exit gates, and barred threats or interference with FAA employees or lawful visitors.
- Robert Belanger, president of PATCO Local 202, was personally served with the injunction on the day it issued.
- On September 7, 1981, a crowd of roughly 200–300 gathered at a shift change; Belanger was present among the crowd, which included more than 30 PATCO members, and the crowd used strike-related epithets and interfered with exiting vehicles.
- On September 19, 1981, a crowd of about 100 gathered; 74 were identified as PATCO members, and Belanger led intermittent strike-related cheering using a megaphone.
- Based on testimony and film, the district court found Belanger in civil contempt and imposed a $5,000 lump-sum fine for violating the injunction.
- Belanger appealed, arguing the fine was punitive and therefore criminal contempt imposed without required criminal procedures.

## Issues

1. Whether a fixed, unconditional $5,000 fine for past violations was a permissible civil contempt sanction or a criminal contempt punishment requiring criminal-contempt procedures.
2. Whether the evidence supported findings that the injunction was violated and that Belanger was responsible for the violations.

## Decision

- The First Circuit vacated the contempt sanction and remanded.
- The court held the $5,000 fine could not be sustained as civil contempt because it was a fixed, retrospective penalty with no purge opportunity and no compensatory basis.
- Because the fine functioned as criminal contempt in substance, imposing it without criminal-contempt safeguards required vacatur.
- The court did not materially disturb the district court’s findings that the injunction was violated and that Belanger participated in the events.

## Legal Principles

- Civil contempt sanctions must be remedial: either (a) coercive and structured to permit the contemnor to purge contempt through compliance, or (b) compensatory and grounded in proof of the complainant’s actual loss.
- A fixed, unconditional fine imposed to punish completed disobedience is criminal contempt in substance, regardless of how the trial court labels it.
- Criminal contempt penalties require criminal-type procedural protections; absent those procedures, a criminal contempt sanction cannot stand.

## Conclusion

A lump-sum, nonpurgeable $5,000 fine imposed for past injunction violations was criminal in character rather than civil, so the sanction was vacated because it was imposed without the procedures required for criminal contempt.


United States v. Pro. Air Traffic Controllers Org., 678 F.2d 1 (1st Cir. 1982)