Bettis v. Toys "R" Us
| Decision Date | 05 August 2009 |
| Docket Number | No. 06-80334-CIV.,No. 06-20418-CIV.,No. 09-60259-CIV.,No. 08-60565-CIV.,06-80334-CIV.,08-60565-CIV.,06-20418-CIV.,09-60259-CIV. |
| Parties | Renee BETTIS, Plaintiff, v. TOYS "R" US, Defendant. Sonya Gossard, Plaintiff, v. JP Morgan Chase & Co., Defendant. Ramon Sabatier, Plaintiff, v. SunTrust Bank, Defendant. Laisner Paul, Plaintiff, v. D & B Tile of Hialeah, Inc., Defendant. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Southern District of Florida |
Loring Noel Spolter, Loring N. Spolter PA, Fort Lauderdale, FL, for Plaintiffs.
Anthony Pogorzelski, Wendy A. Jacobus, U.S. Attorney's Office, Christine Lynne Wilson, Pedro Jaime Torres-Diaz, Jackson Lewis LLP, Miami, FL, Dawn Elizabeth Siler-Nixon, Kelly Hagan Chanfrau, Ford & Harrison LLP, Tampa, FL, Jeffrey Elliot Mandel, David Andrew Young, Fisher & Phillips, LLP, Orlando, FL, for Defendant.
THIS MATTER is before the Court upon the Report and Recommendation (DE 205) filed by United States Magistrate Judge Robin S. Rosenbaum. Plaintiffs have filed objections (DE 217) to the Report and Recommendation.1 The Court has conducted a de novo review of the entire record of each of the above-styled causes and is otherwise fully advised in the premises.
A brief procedural history is helpful, if not necessary, to understand why the Court is adopting Magistrate Judge Rosenbaum's Report and overruling Plaintiffs' objections to it. A complete thirty-page procedural and factual history of these cases is set forth in the Report (DE 205), and this brief background is only offered to frame the supplemental comments provided here and to aid any reviewing court in understanding those points.
Plaintiff Ramon Sabatier filed suit against his former employer SunTrust Bank, alleging that it retaliated against him for making a claim under the Fair Labor Standards Act, 29 U.S.C. §§ 201, et seq. At the summary judgment stage, in that case, the Court found that no genuine issues of material fact remained for the jury to decide and entered judgment for SunTrust. While Defendant SunTrust Bank's Motion For Summary Judgment was pending, Plaintiff filed a Motion To Recuse. Case No. 06-20418-CIV-ZLOCH, (DE 59). In it, he claimed that because the Court had handed down some rulings adverse to the Plaintiff in Bettis v. Toys "R" Us, who was represented by the same attorney, the Court was prejudiced against that attorney, Mr. Loring Spolter, Esq., and all of his clients. The alleged root of this illicit prejudice was the undersigned's "extreme religious and political beliefs," about which Mr. Spolter conjectured greatly. Id. p. 1. For 110 pages of court filings, Mr. Spolter set out how being Catholic, having law clerks educated at a Catholic law school, and being associated with the Federalist Society led to the conclusion that I hold personal animus against Renee Bettis and her attorney. The Court denied the Motion To Recuse as baseless, and the case was appealed. The Eleventh Circuit affirmed the granting of summary judgment and rejected Sabatier's argument that the undersigned should recuse. Sabatier v. SunTrust Bank, 301 Fed.Appx. 913 (11th Cir.2008); Case No. 06-20418-CIV-ZLOCH, DE 80 (Opinion of the Eleventh Circuit). It stated: "We also see no abuse of discretion in the district court's decision to deny Sabatier's motion to recuse." Id. p. 915.
In a separate case, Renee Bettis sued her former employer Toys "R" Us for employment discrimination; that case has proven to be the true epicenter of Mr. Spolter's spate of scurrilous allegations and rampant conjecture. After Bettis, through her Counsel, repeatedly failed to comply with the Court's Orders and made affirmative misrepresentations in her filings, the Court dismissed her suit, without prejudice. DE 122 (Final Order of Dismissal); DE 119 (Order denying extension of time because Plaintiff made affirmative misrepresentations in her Motion); DE 115, Ex. A (Plaintiff's misrepresentations). On appeal she challenged the sanction of dismissal and also raised the issue of the undersigned's recusal from her case, citing again, my Catholic faith, some of my law clerks' education, and my connections to the Federalist Society. Notably, the appeal looked past the fact that her attorney willfully failed to comply with the Court's Orders as the reason for dismissal. In its opinion, the Eleventh Circuit held that lesser sanctions than dismissal should be imposed against Bettis, and it also rejected Bettis's argument concerning recusal and alleged bias. The panel noted that Bettis v. Toys "R" Us, 273 Fed.Appx. 814, 820 (11th Cir.2008); Case No. 06-80334-CIV-ZLOCH, DE 135, p. 820 (Opinion of the Eleventh Circuit) (emphasis added). The Eleventh Circuit went on to note that Id. (emphasis added). The case was then remanded to consider lesser sanctions, and summary judgment was eventually granted for Toys "R" Us. DE Nos. 153 & 154.
While both the Sabatier and Bettis cases were on appeal, Plaintiff Sonya Gossard sued her former employer JP Morgan and the case was assigned to me. She claimed that she was discriminated against by JP Morgan on a variety of bases. After Defendant moved for summary judgment, the Court found that no genuine issues of material fact existed for a jury to determine, and the Court entered Judgment in favor of Defendant. See Gossard v. JP Morgan Chase & Co., Case No. 08-60565-CIV-ZLOCH, DE Nos. 59 & 60.
After Judgment was entered in Bettis and Gossard, and six months after the Mandate was handed down in Sabatier, Plaintiffs, all represented by Mr. Spolter, filed Motions For Reconsideration and Recusal in the above-styled causes, which again raised as a basis for recusal my Catholic faith, some of my law clerks' education, and my connections to the Federalist Society. DE 156.2 This time the Motions had an added twist: Plaintiff now claimed that I had rigged the blind, random case assignment system for cases filed in the Southern District of Florida, so that I would receive a disproportionate number of Plaintiff's cases in order to dismiss them unjustly. See DE 156, pp. 13-20. An almost identical motion was filed in each of the above-styled causes. While the Motions were pending, and despite the prohibitions of Local Rule 77.2.A.7.E, Mr. Spolter sat for an interview with a local tabloid to showcase his accusations. See John Pacenti, Lawyer Say Statistics Prove He's Been Treated Unfairly Daily Business Review, June 8, 2009, at A1. In the Motions, Mr. Spolter also sought a public airing of his accusations, presumably other than the one the tabloid provided. Id. p. 21. And the Court obliged. DE 173.
In an effort "to fully develop the record in these cases, to ensure the Parties' and the public's confidence in an honest and independent judiciary, and to determine the truth of the matters at issue," I referred the matter to United States Magistrate Judge Robin S. Rosenbaum for an evidentiary hearing. DE 173, p. 2. Additionally, I directed that all Clerk's office personnel who handled the assignment of Mr. Spolter's cases be made available for Plaintiffs to examine and that Plaintiffs were free to call whatever witnesses Mr. Spolter felt would be necessary to substantiate his allegations. The only exception was me; pursuant to Federal Rule of Evidence 605, I cannot be called upon as a witness.
In the Order of Referral, the Court directed Magistrate Judge Rosenbaum to make specific findings, aside from any other findings she found it necessary to make, concerning the following questions:
a. whether Plaintiffs' Motions cited above were presented for an improper purpose;
b. whether a reasonable attorney in like circumstances could believe Plaintiffs' claims that the undersigned has manipulated the blind, random case assignment system in the Southern District of Florida were factually and legally justified;
c. whether the undersigned has in any way manipulated the case assignment system in the Southern District of Florida generally;
d. whether the undersigned has in any way manipulated the case assignment system in the Southern District of Florida specifically concerning cases filed by Plaintiffs' Counsel Mr. Loring Spolter, Esq.; and
e. whether the undersigned has ever directed any individual in the Clerk's office to manipulate the case assignment system generally or with respect to cases filed by Mr. Spolter.
DE 173, pp. 2-3. After holding two days of hearings, Magistrate Judge Rosenbaum issued a 92-page Report and Recommendation. DE 205. As to points three through five, she found that there was no evidence whatsoever that the case assignment system in this District was manipulated by the undersigned or any other person. DE 205, p. ___. Nothing can be added to points three through five. A thorough review of the transcript establishes the intricacies of the computerized case assignment system, and why it borders on the impossible for anyone to manipulate it. In addition, Magistrate Judge Rosenbaum found, and the record establishes, that Plaintiff's expert, Professor Dragan Radulovic, Ph.D., relied on data and assumptions about the case assignment system that were both supplied by Mr. Spolter and wholly inaccurate. These false assumptions could have been easily discovered by anyone who read the Local Rules and Internal Operating Procedures of this District. And this information was particularly available to Mr. Spolter, who is a member of the Southern District Bar and was notified of the Internal Operating Procedures and certain preferences in the assignment of cases by a letter dated March 6, 2009, sent to him by the Clerk of the Court in response to his Freedom Of Information Act ("FOIA") request. Clerk's Exhibit 9.3...
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