Dormeyer v. Comerica Bank IL et al, s. 99-1089 and 99-3252

• Decision Date: 30 August 2000
• Docket Number: Nos. 99-1089 and 99-3252,s. 99-1089 and 99-3252
• Citation: 226 F.3d 915
• Parties: (7th Cir. 2000) Jennifer Dormeyer, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Comerica Bank-Illinois, et al., Defendants-Appellees
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit

Page 915

226 F.3d 915 (7th Cir. 2000)

Jennifer Dormeyer, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Comerica Bank-Illinois, et al., Defendants-Appellees.

Nos. 99-1089 and 99-3252

In the United States Court of Appeals For the Seventh Circuit

Submitted August 7, 2000

Decided August 30, 2000

Appeals from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division. No. 96 C 4805--David H. Coar, Judge.

Before Posner, Manion, and Kanne, Circuit Judges.

Per Curiam.

In our opinion of July 24, 2000, affirming the district court's decision, we ordered the plaintiff-appellant's counsel, Ernest T. Rossiello, to show cause why he should not be sanctioned for having taken a frivolous appeal (Fed. R. App. P. 38) from the district court's order cutting down the attorneys' fees that he had requested. Mr. Rossiello has submitted his response and the disciplinary matter is now ripe for determination.

In our opinion we had described Mr. Rossiello's brief as "a remarkable document. It is only five pages long, of which the argument section occupies not quite two pages entirely given over to truisms and conclusions. The perfunctory character of the appeal, which alone would justify an affirmance, [citations omitted], is remarkable rather than merely lamentable because of the serious accusations made by the district judge against the plaintiff's attorney, Ernest T. Rossiello, in support of the judge's decision to cut down the fees and costs sought by some 80 percent. Citing several previous judicial opinions criticizing (in one case actually sanctioning) Mr. Rossiello for his fee requests or affirming stiff cuts in the requested fees, [citations omitted], but missing still others (again including one case in which he was actually sanctioned), [citations omitted], the judge accused Rossiello, just as the judge in [citation omitted] had done, of engaging in the dishonest practice of joining to small valid claims, here the plaintiff's FLSA claim, large invalid and even frivolous claims, and seeking a large award of attorneys' fees for services ostensibly devoted to the small claim but actually devoted to the large." We pointed out that "in his application for fees, Rossiello allocated 124 hours, constituting half the total time that he and his associates put in on the plaintiff's entire case, to the FLSA claim, even though it was a tiny claim which required little more than the record of the days and hours worked by the plaintiff and which the defendant did not resist. The defendants had made an offer of judgment for the full amount sought before trial, which the plaintiff accepted. And before the offer was made the parties had engaged in only the most limited discovery on the claim, consisting of...