Opinion
No. 1D06-2972.
December 21, 2006. Rehearing Denied January 26, 2007.
Petition for Certiorari — Original Jurisdiction.
J. Nixon Daniel, III, Mary Jane Bass, and Terrie L. Didier of Beggs Lane, Pensacola; Major B. Harding and John R. Beranek of Ausley McMullen, P.A., Tallahassee, for Petitioners.
Jeffrey P. Whitton, Panama City; W. Dexter Douglass and Thomas Porter Crapps, Tallahassee; Philip A. Bates, Pensacola; and Martha Blackmon-Milligan, Panama City, for Respondents Robert E. Blackerby, Florida Bahama Group, LLC, and Robert Blackerby Associates, LLC.
The petitioners challenge an order granting sanctions and a Warrant for civil contempt. Because underlying orders have been' reversed, the certiorari petition is granted and the challenged orders are quashed.
We do not doubt the trial court's authority to resort to civil contempt in an appropriate case. We have quashed the civil contempt order only because the underlying orders with which it was designed to compel compliance have themselves been reversed.
No litigant is at liberty to pick and choose which court orders to obey and which to disregard. The failure to comply with a court order may be the basis for criminal contempt proceedings. Every litigant subject to a court order must comply with the order or appeal it and, even when review has been sought, is under a duty to comply with any court order that has not been stayed or reversed.
ALLEN, BENTON, and HAWKES, J.J., concur.