Rule 70.Judgment for specific acts; vesting title; contempt

When someone will not act. Where a judgment directs a party to execute a conveyance of land, deliver deeds or other documents, or perform any other specific act, and they fail to comply in the time specified, the court may direct the act to be done at the noncompliant party's cost by the Clerk or another person the court appoints, if the law permits. The act, so done, has the same effect as if the party had done it.

Pressure and title. On the application of the party entitled to performance, the Clerk issues a writ of attachment or sequestration against the noncompliant party's property to compel compliance. The court may also adjudge the party in contempt. And where the property is within the court's jurisdiction, the court may skip the conveyance altogether: it may enter a judgment divesting title from one party and vesting it in another, with the effect of a conveyance executed in due form of law.

That last power is the elegant one. A signature that will not be given is simply dispensed with, and the property moves without it. Nobody has to be punished to get the result the judgment ordered. The rule adds that none of this replaces the statutory authority this court already has to compel performance by a substitute.

Contempt. Except as otherwise provided by law, for failure to obey a restraining or injunctive order, or to obey or perform any order, the court may order an attachment on an affidavit showing service on the respondent — or that the respondent knows of the order — and setting out the facts of the noncompliance. At the hearing, the respondent and the witnesses are examined orally before the court unless it orders otherwise.

In this court that is the sharpest end of the rules. Most family orders are not about money and cannot be enforced by seizing anything. An order about custody exchanges, or about staying away, is obeyed because disobeying it is contempt.