Abortion Rights Mobilization, Inc., and others (ARM) filed suit
against Government officials and petitioners, the United States
Catholic Conference and the National Conference of Catholic
Bishops, to revoke the Roman Catholic Church's tax-exempt status on
the ground that the Church had violated the anti-electioneering
provision of 26 U.S.C. § 501(c)(3). After petitioners were
dismissed as parties, they refused to comply with ARM's subpoenas
seeking extensive documentary evidence, and were held in contempt.
The Court of Appeals affirmed the contempt citations, ruling that a
nonparty witness' jurisdictional challenge is limited to a claim
that the district court lacks even colorable jurisdiction, a
standard not met here.
Held: A nonparty witness may defend against a civil
contempt adjudication by challenging the district court's subject
matter jurisdiction, and is not limited to the contention that the
court lacked even colorable jurisdiction to hear the suit. Since a
court's subpoena power cannot be more extensive than its
jurisdiction, the subpoenas it issues in aid of determining the
merits are void if the court lacks subject matter jurisdiction over
the underlying suit. Moreover, a nonparty witness has an
unquestionable right to appeal a contempt adjudication,
notwithstanding the absence of a final judgment in the underlying
action. The contention that permitting a nonparty to challenge the
court's jurisdiction would invite collusion, allowing parties to
avoid restrictions on interlocutory appeals and to test
jurisdiction by proxy, is not persuasive. Ample protections against
collusive appeals exist in the courts of appeals' power to decline
to treat the witness as a nonparty for purposes of the
jurisdictional question, and in the usual provisions for
sanctioning frivolous appeals or abuse of court processes. The rule
followed in this case does not apply in criminal contempt
proceedings, and does not affect a district court's inherent and
legitimate authority to issue binding orders, including discovery
orders, to nonparty witnesses, as necessary for the court to
determine and rule upon its own jurisdiction, including subject
matter jurisdiction. Here, however, the District Court's order was
not issued to aid a jurisdictional inquiry, since the subpoenas
were meant to obtain discovery on the merits, and before the
contempt order the District
Page 487 U. S. 73
Court twice ruled that it had subject matter jurisdiction.
Accordingly, on remand, the Court of Appeals must determine whether
the District Court had such jurisdiction in the underlying action.
If not, the subpoenas are void, and the contempt citation must be
reversed. Pp.
487 U. S.
76-80.
824 F.2d 156, reversed and remanded.
KENNEDY, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which
REHNQUIST, C.J., and BRENNAN, WHITE, BLACKMUN, STEVENS, O'CONNOR,
and SCALIA, JJ., joined. MARSHALL, J., filed a dissenting opinion,
post, p.
487 U. S.
80.
JUSTICE KENNEDY delivered the opinion of the Court.
The petitioners are the United States Catholic Conference and
the National Conference of Catholic Bishops. Both organizations
were held in civil contempt for failure to comply with subpoenas
duces tecum issued by the United States
Page 487 U. S. 74
District Court for the Southern District of New York. The
Conferences objected to issuance of the process, arguing,
inter
alia, that the District Court lacked subject matter
jurisdiction in the underlying suit. The Court of Appeals for the
Second Circuit rejected this argument, ruling that a nonparty
witness' jurisdictional challenge is limited to a claim that the
District Court lacks even colorable jurisdiction, a standard not
met here. We granted certiorari to resolve whether a nonparty
witness may defend against a civil contempt adjudication by
challenging the subject matter jurisdiction of the district court.
484 U.S. 975 (1987). We hold the nonparty witness may raise such a
claim, and now reverse.
I
In the underlying action, Abortion Rights Mobilization, Inc.,
and others (ARM) sued to revoke the tax-exempt status of the Roman
Catholic Church in the United States. ARM alleged that the
Conferences had violated the rules governing their tax-exempt
status by participating in political activities.
* Specifically, ARM
claimed that
"the Roman Catholic
Page 487 U. S. 75
Church in the United States . . . in violation of the clear
language and intent of the anti-electioneering provision of 26
U.S.C. § 501(c)(3), has engaged in a persistent and regular pattern
of intervening in elections nationwide in favor of candidates who
support the Church's position on abortion and in opposition to
candidates with opposing views."
Brief for Respondents 7-8. The Conferences were originally named
as parties to this suit, but were later dismissed, leaving the
Secretary of the Treasury and the Commissioner of Internal Revenue
as the sole defendants.
ARM served subpoenas on the Conferences in 1983, seeking
extensive documentary evidence to support its claims. A series of
court orders to produce, intertwined with other procedural motions,
were followed by objections and refusals. These matters were
extensively reported by the District Court.
See Abortion Rights
Mobilization, Inc. v. Regan, 544 F.
Supp. 471 (1982) (
ARM I);
Abortion Rights
Mobilization, Inc. v. Regan, 552 F.
Supp. 364 (1982) (
ARM II);
Abortion Rights
Mobilization, Inc. v. Regan, 603 F.
Supp. 970 (1985) (
ARM III);
Abortion Rights
Mobilization, Inc. v. Baker, 110 F.R.D. 337 (1986) (
ARM
IV). After the Conferences informed the court that they could
not "in conscience, comply with the subpoenas in question," the
court, which had made detailed orders including orders limiting
discovery at the behest of the Conferences, found the Conferences
in civil contempt.
ARM IV, supra, at 337. The court
assessed fines of $50,000 per day against each Conference for each
day of further noncompliance. The Court of Appeals affirmed,
stating that
"the
witnesses have standing to question only whether
the District Court has a colorable basis for exercising subject
matter jurisdiction. . . ."
In re United States Catholic Conference, 824 F.2d 156,
158 (1987). The order was stayed pending appeal, and the stay
remains in effect.
Page 487 U. S. 76
II
We hold that a nonparty witness can challenge the court's lack
of subject matter jurisdiction in defense of a civil contempt
citation, notwithstanding the absence of a final judgment in the
underlying action. Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 45 grants a
district court the power to issue subpoenas as to witnesses and
documents, but the subpoena power of a court cannot be more
extensive than its jurisdiction. It follows that, if a district
court does not have subject matter jurisdiction over the underlying
action, and the process was not issued in aid of determining that
jurisdiction, then the process is void, and an order of civil
contempt based on refusal to honor it must be reversed. As we
observed in
United States v. Morton Salt Co., 338 U.
S. 632,
338 U. S. 642
(1950),
"[t]he judicial subpoena power not only is subject to specific
constitutional limitations, . . . but also is subject to those
limitations inherent in the body that issues them because of the
provisions of the Judiciary Article of the Constitution."
Therefore, a nonparty witness may attack a civil contempt
citation by asserting that the issuing court lacks jurisdiction
over the case.
The right of a nonparty to appeal an adjudication of contempt
cannot be questioned. The order finding a nonparty witness in
contempt is appealable notwithstanding the absence of a final
judgment in the underlying action.
United States v. Ryan,
402 U. S. 530,
402 U. S. 532
(1971);
Cobbledick v. United States, 309 U.
S. 323,
309 U. S. 328
(1940). Once the right to appeal a civil contempt order is
acknowledged, arguments in its legitimate support should not be so
confined that the power of the issuing court remains untested. We
are not confronted here with a nonparty witness attempting to
challenge its civil contempt by raising matters in which it has no
legitimate interest, for instance, the District Court's lack of
personal jurisdiction over the parties or a limitations statute
that would compel dismissal of the action. As to such matters, even
if it were ultimately determined that the court
Page 487 U. S. 77
should not have allowed the suit to proceed, the order or
process it issued in the conduct of the litigation would still be
valid.
The challenge in this case goes to the subject matter
jurisdiction of the court, and hence its power to issue the order.
The distinction between subject matter jurisdiction and waivable
defenses is not a mere nicety of legal metaphysics. It rests
instead on the central principle of a free society that courts have
finite bounds of authority, some of constitutional origin, which
exist to protect citizens from the very wrong asserted here, the
excessive use of judicial power. The courts, no less than the
political branches of the government, must respect the limits of
their authority.
The Court of Appeals found that our decision in
Blair v.
United States, 250 U. S. 273
(1919), controlled its decision, but we think not.
Blair
involved defiant witnesses in a grand jury investigation. The
witnesses refused to testify, contending the grand jury lacked
jurisdiction because the statute that prohibited the conduct under
investigation was unconstitutional.
Id. at
250 U. S.
277-279. We affirmed the denial of habeas corpus relief
to the witnesses, and refused to consider their jurisdictional
challenge. As this Court was careful to say, the jurisdiction of
the grand jury did not depend upon the validity of the statutes
attacked by the witnesses. The grand jury's investigative powers
included the authority to conduct a wide-ranging investigation of
the subject matter, and existed independently of the statutes
challenged by the witnesses.
Blair, in effect, addressed
the jurisdiction of the grand jury, and found it sufficient to
support the order of contempt.
See Morton Salt, supra, at
338 U. S.
642-643.
Blair does not hold that the limited
subject matter jurisdiction of an Article III court may not be
raised by a nonparty witness whom the court seeks to hold in civil
contempt.
Additionally, the Court of Appeals was concerned that permitting
the nonparty witness to challenge the jurisdiction of the court
would invite collusion, allowing parties to avoid
Page 487 U. S. 78
restrictions on interlocutory appeals and to test jurisdiction
by proxy.
See Catlin v. United States, 324 U.
S. 229,
324 U. S. 236
(1945). We are not persuaded that such considerations should alter
the rule we apply in this case. To begin with, the objection does
not meet the fundamental premise that the nonparty should not be
denied the right to object to the very jurisdictional exercise that
causes the injury. Further, we conclude that there are ample
protections against collusive appeals. If the Court of Appeals
finds that the witness and a party acted in collusion to appeal in
order to gain an interlocutory ruling on jurisdiction, it can
decline to treat the witness as a nonparty for purposes of the
question.
Cf. Karcher v. May, 484 U. S.
72,
484 U. S. 78
(1987) (applying "[t]he concept of
legal personage'" as a
"practical means of identifying the real interests at stake in a
lawsuit"); Bender v. Williamsport Area School District,
475 U. S. 534,
475 U. S. 548,
n. 9 (1986) (assessing the congruence of interests between the
"parties" to the appeal). See generally In re Coordinated
Pretrial Proceedings in Petroleum Products Antitrust
Litigation, 747 F.2d 1303, 1305 (CA9 1984). Additionally,
there remain the usual provisions for sanctioning frivolous appeals
or the abuse of court processes. See Roadway Express, Inc. v.
Piper, 447 U. S. 752,
447 U. S. 762
(1980); Fed.Rule App. Proc. 38.
The limitations of the rule we follow in this case should be
well understood. First, we do not undertake to explore in detail
the differences between civil and criminal contempt. It suffices to
note that we have distinguished between the two before, and have
held that a civil contempt order may depend upon the jurisdiction
of the court. In
United States v. Mine Workers,
330 U. S. 258
(1947), we noted the different treatment criminal and civil
contempt are accorded based on appellate review of the issuing
court's jurisdiction.
"It does not follow, of course, that, simply because a defendant
may be punished for criminal contempt for disobedience of an order
later set aside on appeal, that the plaintiff in the action may
profit by way of a fine imposed
Page 487 U. S. 79
in a simultaneous proceeding for civil contempt based upon a
violation of the same order. The right to remedial relief falls
with an injunction which events prove was erroneously issued, and
a fortiori when the injunction or restraining order was
beyond the jurisdiction of the court."
Id. at
330 U. S.
294-295 (citations omitted; footnote omitted). Though it
may seem at first that denying a defense in a criminal case and
granting it in a civil one reverses our usual priorities, the
distinction is sound, for it rests on the different purposes and
necessities of the two types of orders.
Ibid. If either of
the two orders appears efficacious, the better practice is to enter
civil contempt to persuade a party to comply, reserving the more
drastic, punitive sanction only if disobedience continues.
Yates v. United States, 355 U. S. 66,
355 U. S. 74-75
(1957). That course of action is not always available to a court,
which at times must assert its authority at once to preserve the
status quo or to determine its jurisdiction.
See
18 U.S.C. §§ 401, 402. It was available here, however, as the
District Court correctly recognized. When a district court elects
to apply civil contempt to enforce compliance, it is consistent
with that approach to allow full consideration of the court's
subject matter jurisdiction.
The second point is closely related. Nothing we have said puts
in question the inherent and legitimate authority of the court to
issue process and other binding orders, including orders of
discovery directed to nonparty witnesses, as necessary for the
court to determine and rule upon its own jurisdiction, including
jurisdiction over the subject matter.
United States v.
Shipp, 203 U. S. 563,
203 U. S. 573
(1906).
Though the concurring opinion in the Court of Appeals indicated
that the order of the District Court in the case before us might be
sustained as an inquiry in aid of the court's jurisdiction over the
subject matter, the record shows that the process was issued to
obtain discovery on the merits of the litigation. It is a
recognized and appropriate procedure for a
Page 487 U. S. 80
court to limit discovery proceedings at the outset to a
determination of jurisdictional matters,
see 13A C.
Wright, A. Miller, & E. Cooper, Federal Practice and Procedure
§ 3536, and n. 2 (1984 and Supp.1987), but that was not the
objective of this discovery order, even by implication. Before the
contempt order, the District Court twice ruled that it had subject
matter jurisdiction of the case.
Accordingly, on remand, the Court of Appeals must determine
whether the District Court had subject matter jurisdiction in the
underlying action. If not, then the subpoenas
duces tecum
are void, and the civil contempt citation must be reversed "in its
entirety."
Mine Workers, supra, at
330 U. S.
295.
III
We hold that the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit erred
in limiting the Conferences' jurisdictional challenge to the
argument that the District Court lacked even colorable jurisdiction
to hear the suit. The judgment of the Court of Appeals is therefore
reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings
consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
* The Internal Revenue Code, 26 U.S.C.A. § 501(c)(3)
(Supp.1988), as amended by Pub.L. 100-203, § 10711(a)(2), 101 Stat.
1330-464, exempts organizations from the payment of income taxes if
they meet certain criteria. In pertinent part, that section
provides:
"(c) List of exempt organizations. -- The following
organizations are referred to in subsection (a) [as exempt from
taxation]:"
"
* * * *"
"(3) Corporations, and any community chest, fund, or foundation,
organized and operated exclusively for religious, charitable,
scientific, testing for public safety, literary, or educational
purposes, or to foster national or international amateur sports
competition (but only if no part of its activities involve the
provision of athletic facilities or equipment), or for the
prevention of cruelty to children or animals, no part of the net
earnings of which inures to the benefit of any private shareholder
or individual, no substantial part of the activities of which is
carrying on propaganda, or otherwise attempting, to influence
legislation (except as otherwise provided in subsection (h)), and
which does not participate in, or intervene in (including the
publishing or distributing of statements), any political campaign
on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for public
office."
JUSTICE MARSHALL, dissenting.
I respectfully dissent. I would affirm the judgment of the Court
of Appeals for the Second Circuit for much the same reasons set
forth in the majority opinion written by Judge Newman.