Full Opinion

Cite as 2026 Ark. 173 SUPREME COURT OF ARKANSAS No. CV-25-343 Opinion Delivered: November 5, 2026 CHRISTOPHER FRANKLIN, AS MAYOR OF HELENA-WEST APPEAL FROM THE PHILLIPS HELENA COUNTY CIRCUIT COURT APPELLANT [NO. 54CV-23-7] HONORABLE CHRISTOPHER W. V. MORLEDGE, JUDGE REVERSED AND DISMISSED. GREG WILLIAMS APPELLEE RHONDA K. WOOD, Associate Justice A declaratory judgment cannot be enforced by contempt. The circuit court declared that two city ordinances, which included a raise to the mayor’s salary, were null and void. Yet the city council later approved a budget that gave the new mayor a raise. Greg Williams, a party to the declaratory-judgment action, moved to hold the current mayor, Christopher Franklin, in contempt. The circuit court found Franklin in civil contempt and ordered him to repay some of his salary or report to jail. As the circuit court found Franklin in contempt for violating a declaratory judgment, we reverse and dismiss. I. Factual Background This case arises out of the same set of facts as City of Helena-West Helena v. Williams, 2024 Ark. 102, 689 S.W.3d 62. In December 2022, City of Helena-West Helena’s outgoing city council members passed two ordinances. Among their provisions, the mayor’s salary was increased from $48,000 to $70,000. The outgoing mayor disapproved of the ordinances and attempted to veto them. The newly elected mayor, Christoper Franklin, attempted to rescind the prior mayor’s veto. Greg Williams, a citizen of Helena-West Helena, filed a complaint in circuit court for a declaratory judgment and a temporary restraining order against the City and Franklin, claiming that the two ordinances had been vetoed and were null and void. The circuit court granted an ex parte temporary restraining order on January 11, 2023, and extended it on January 25, 2023. Subsequently, the circuit court held a hearing and ruled that the two challenged ordinances were null and void. The April 24th order held that the prior mayor had vetoed the two ordinances. The court therefore declared the two ordinances “null and void [and] any actions taken in accordance with said ordinances are hereby null and void.” The court did not enter injunctive relief. In other words, the order granted only a declaratory judgment. City of Helena-W. Helena, 2024 Ark. 102, at 4, 689 S.W.3d at 65. The City appealed and we affirmed. Id. at 1, 689 S.W.3d at 63. Following our decision, Williams filed a motion for contempt and an amended motion for contempt. He asked the circuit court to hold Franklin in contempt of court for failing to comply with the court’s January 11, 2023, TRO. The motion alleged that the circuit court’s TRO enjoined and prohibited Franklin from taking any action furthering the null and voided ordinances. Yet Franklin still received a salary increase. Franklin responded that the circuit court’s April 24, 2023, declaratory-judgment order could not serve as the basis for a contempt order because the order did not compel or prohibit him from taking any action. 2 The court held a hearing. The city clerk testified that Franklin was being paid a salary in excess of that provided for in the ordinance that preceded the null and voided ordinances.1 According to the clerk, sometime around February 1, 2023, Franklin directed him to increase the city’s budget line items for the mayor’s salary to $70,000. This was the same salary as in the null and voided ordinances. The clerk also testified that salaries were often increased during the budget process. Franklin asserted that he had accepted the larger salary amount based on the approved budget, not the voided ordinances. The circuit court found Franklin in contempt of court for violating the court’s prior order. The court’s basis for the contempt was the declaratory judgment finding the ordinances null and void: “The court further finds that . . . Franklin . . . willfully disobeyed the 2023 Order of this court declaring Ordinances 39-22 and 40-22 null and void.” The circuit court gave Franklin ninety days to purge his contempt by repaying $23,000.05 or report to jail. Franklin subsequently filed this appeal, and we stayed the contempt order pending resolution of the appeal. II. Law and Analysis We review civil contempt orders to determine whether the circuit court’s finding is clearly against the preponderance of the evidence. Cherry v. Cherry, 2021 Ark. 49, at 12, 617 S.W.3d 692, 699. Civil contempt is an attempt by a court to compel compliance with a valid court order. See Ark. Dep’t of Health & Hum. Servs. v. Briley, 366 Ark. 496, 505, 237 S.W.3d 7, 13 (2006). However, before a person can be held in contempt for violating the 1 An ordinance passed by the Helena-West Helena city council on August 2, 2022, established the mayor’s annual base pay at $48,000 and the chief of staff’s annual base pay at $32,000. 3 court’s order, the order must be definite in its terms and clear as to what duty the order imposes. Omni Holding & Dev. Corp. v. 3D.S.A., Inc., 356 Ark. 440, 450, 156 S.W.3d 228, 235 (2004). Franklin argues that he cannot be held in contempt of a declaratory judgment. 2 He claims that a declaratory judgment settles a dispute but does not order a party to comply with it. Williams responds that he asked the circuit court to hold Franklin in contempt for violating the January 11 TRO. But as discussed below, the order the court attempted to enforce was the declaratory judgment, not the now-extinguished TRO. Notably, the court’s TROs’ language dissolved them upon adjudication of the declaratory judgment. That adjudication did not include a permanent injunction. More precisely, on January 11, 2023, the circuit court granted an ex parte TRO against Franklin and enjoined him from “taking any action in accordance with Helena-West Helena Ordinance 39-22 and 40-22, until such time a full adjudication can be had.”(Emphasis added.) On January 25, 2023, the court extended the TRO “until further order from this Court.” Again, it provided that Franklin was “still enjoined and prohibited from taking any action . . . until such time a full adjudication can be had.” (Emphasis added.) That subsequent full adjudication occurred, and the circuit court entered a final order in April 2023. That order declared ordinances 39-22 and 40-22 null and void. It did not make the TRO permanent or contain any language ordering Franklin to comply. And after 2 As his second point on appeal, Franklin makes an argument on behalf of James Valley. Franklin lacks standing on appeal to assert Valley’s due-process arguments. See, e.g., Springdale Sch. Dist. No. 50 v. Evans L. Firm, P.A., 360 Ark. 279, 285, 200 S.W.3d 917, 921 (2005). 4 the contempt hearing that is the subject of this appeal, the circuit court concluded that Franklin’s actions violated the judgment declaring the ordinances void: The fact that [Franklin and Valley] authorized and accepted the exact amount of salary or pay that this court declared that they should not receive is an intentional disobedience of the court’s prior Order and they are hereby held in contempt of court. We hold that the court’s decision was clearly against the preponderance of the evidence. First, the TROs, by their own language, terminated upon final adjudication.3 Adjudication occurred in April 2023. Recall, both TROs provided they were in effect “until such time a full adjudication can be had.” While the court issued a declaratory judgment, it did not award further injunctive relief. And a declaratory judgment itself cannot be enforced by contempt. Declaratory judgments4 determine the rights and liabilities of respective parties. See Stilley v. James, 345 Ark. 362, 372, 48 S.W.3d 521, 528 (2001). The purpose of the declaratory-judgment statutory scheme “is to settle and to afford relief from uncertainty and insecurity with respect to rights, status, and other legal relations.” Ark. Code Ann. § 16- 3 Regardless of the order’s language, a circuit court cannot issue a TRO for more than 14 days and cannot extend it for more than 14 additional days. Ark. R. Civ. P. 65(b)(2). 4 The Federal Declaratory Judgment Act contains similar language, so authorities discussing federal principles have persuasive force in Arkansas. “[V]irtually all states have statutes similar to the federal statute.” Wright & Miller, Fed. Prac. & Proc. Civ. § 2756 Westlaw (database updated April 2026); compare 28 U.S.C.A. § 2201(a) (“[A]ny court of the United States, upon the filing of an appropriate pleading, may declare the rights and other legal relations of any interested party seeking such declaration, whether or not further relief is or could be sought. Any such declaration shall have the force and effect of a final judgment or decree and shall be reviewable as such.”) with Ark. Code Ann. § 16-111-101 (“Courts of record within their respective jurisdictions shall have power to declare rights, status, and other legal relations whether or not further relief is or could be claimed. . . . [A]nd such declarations shall have the force and effect of a final judgment or decree.”). 5 111-112 (Repl. 2016). The declaratory judgment offers litigants a noncoercive way to declare their legal rights. See David Newbern et al., Arkansas Civil Practice & Procedure § 36:1 Westlaw (database updated May 2026). Thus, as many authorities have noted, a declaratory judgment cannot be enforced by contempt. See, e.g., Samuel L. Bray, The Myth of the Mild Declaratory Judgment, 63 Duke L.J. 1091, 1110 (2014) (“It is certainly black-letter law that a declaratory judgment cannot be the basis for contempt proceedings.”); see also Steffel v. Thompson, 415 U.S. 452, 471, (1974) (“[N]oncompliance with [a declaratory judgment] may be inappropriate, but is not contempt.”). Injunctions are a different matter. These rest on a court’s equitable power, which acts in personam. Vera Lee Angel Revocable Tr. v. Jim O’Bryant & Kay O’Bryant Joint Revocable Tr., 2018 Ark. 38, at 5, 537 S.W.3d 254, 257 (noting that granting an injunction “sounds in equity”); Harrison v. Knott, 219 Ark. 565, 568, 243 S.W.2d 642, 644 (1951) (“injunction is an equitable remedy that is exercised in personam”). Arkansas cases have defined an injunction as a command, based on equitable grounds, by a court to a person to do or refrain from doing a particular act. See State Game & Fish Comm’n v. Sledge, 344 Ark. 505, 509–10, 42 S.W.3d 427, 429 (2001). It is mandatory when it commands a person to do a specific act, and prohibitory when it commands him or her to refrain from doing a specific act. Id. Therefore, violation of an injunction can be punished via the circuit court’s contempt powers. See Omni Holding, 356 Ark. at 455, 156 S.W.3d at 239. A contempt proceeding was not the legal avenue to contest Franklin’s conduct. The declaratory-judgment statute permits a party to seek supplemental relief. Ark. Code Ann. § 16-111-108 (“Further relief based on a declaratory judgment or decree may be granted 6 whenever necessary or proper.”). This can include equitable relief in the form of an injunction. See Owen M. Fiss, Dombrowski, 86 Yale L.J. 1103, 1122 (1977) (“The declaratory judgment . . . consists of a declaration of rights and duties, and if the defendant disobeys the plaintiff cannot get a contempt order, but only an injunction to prevent another act of disobedience.”). Although Williams sought contempt for the TRO violation, the circuit court found Franklin in contempt of the declaratory judgment. We hold that the circuit court’s finding was clearly against the preponderance of the evidence, and we reverse and dismiss. Reversed and dismissed. Special Justice CORY COX joins. WOMACK, J., concurs without opinion. WEBB, J., not participating. Terrence Cain, for appellant. Quattlebaum, Grooms & Tull, PLLC, by: Laura L. O’Hara, for appellee. 7