824
Opinion of the Court
pervisors at picket sites, and to report all violations to the court. App. to Pet. for Cert. 114a-116a.
On May 18, 1989, the trial court held a contempt hearing and found that petitioners had committed 72 violations of the injunction. After fining the union $642,000 for its disobedience,1 the court announced that it would fine the union $100,000 for any future violent breach of the injunction and $20,000 for any future nonviolent infraction, "such as exceeding picket numbers, [or] blocking entrances or exits." Id., at 111a. The court early stated that its purpose was to "impos[e] prospective civil fines[,] the payment of which would only be required if it were shown the defendants disobeyed the Court's orders." Id., at 40a.
In seven subsequent contempt hearings held between June and December 1989, the court found the union in contempt for more than 400 separate violations of the injunction, many of them violent. Based on the court's stated "intention that these fines are civil and coercive," id., at 104a, each contempt hearing was conducted as a civil proceeding before the trial judge, in which the parties conducted discovery, introduced evidence, and called and cross-examined witnesses. The trial court required that contumacious acts be proved beyond a reasonable doubt, but did not afford the union a right to jury trial.
As a result of these contempt proceedings, the court levied over $64 million in fines against the union, approximately $12 million of which was ordered payable to the companies. Because the union objected to payment of any fines to the companies and in light of the law enforcement burdens posed by the strike, the court ordered that the remaining roughly $52 million in fines be paid to the Commonwealth of Virginia and Russell and Dickenson Counties, "the two counties most heavily affected by the unlawful activity." Id., at 44a-45a.
1 A portion of these fines was suspended conditioned on the union's future compliance. The court later vacated these fines, concluding that they were " 'criminal in nature.' " App. to Pet. for Cert. 4a, n. 2.
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