Hughes v. City of Ft. Collins, Colo.
| Decision Date | 25 February 1991 |
| Docket Number | Nos. 90-1205,90-1209 and 90-1213,s. 90-1205 |
| Citation | 926 F.2d 986 |
| Parties | Barry HUGHES, individually and as the parent and natural guardian of Nicole Ann Hughes and Cale Joseph Hughes, Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. CITY OF FORT COLLINS, COLORADO, a municipal corporation; Bruce Glasscock; Robert McKibben; Paul Landolt; Francis Gonzales; Ray Martinez; Joseph Clingan; Frank Russell; John Bradshaw; Sandra Gibson; Ruth Shanahan; James Anderson, Defendants, and Stuart VanMeveren; Terence Gilmore; and Jerry Roselle, Defendants-Appellants. Barry HUGHES, individually and as the parent and natural guardian of Nicole Ann Hughes and Cale Joseph Hughes, Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. CITY OF FORT COLLINS, COLORADO, a municipal corporation; Bruce Glasscock; Robert McKibben; Paul Landolt; Francis Gonzales; Ray Martinez; Frank Russell; John Bradshaw; Sandra Gibson; Ruth Shanahan; James Anderson, Defendants-Appellants, and Joseph Clingan; Stuart VanMeveren; Terence Gilmore; Jerry Roselle, Defendants. Barry HUGHES, individually and as the parent and natural guardian of Nicole Ann Hughes and Cale Joseph Hughes, Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. CITY OF FORT COLLINS, COLORADO, a municipal corporation; Bruce Glasscock; Robert McKibben; Paul Landolt; Francis Gonzales; Ray Martinez; Frank Russell; John Bradshaw; Sandra Gibson; Ruth Shanahan; James Anderson; Stuart VanMeveren; Terence Gilmore; Jerry Roselle, Defendants, and Joseph Clingan, Defendant-Appellant. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Tenth Circuit |
William F. Eggert, Malcolm S. Mead, Hall & Evans, Denver, Colo., for City of Fort Collins, Colo., Bruce Glasscock, Robert McKibben, Paul Landolt, Francis Gonzales, Ray Martinez, Frank Russell, John Bradshaw, Sandra Gibson, Ruth Shanahan, and James Anderson.
George H. Hass, Hardin, Schmidt, Hass & Zier, Fort Collins, Colo., for Stuart VanMeveren, Terence Gilmore and Jerry Roselle.
Louise B. Bruno, Bruno, Bruno & Colin, P.C., Denver, Colo., for Joseph Clingan, on a consolidated brief for defendants-appellants.
No brief was filed on behalf of the plaintiffs-appellees.
Before ANDERSON, TACHA, and BRORBY, Circuit Judges.
This is an appeal from a district court order denying defendants' motions for sanctions under Rule 11 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. We affirm. 1
Plaintiffs Barry Hughes and his two children brought a civil rights action under 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1983 against the city of Fort Collins, some of its police officers, and certain district attorneys, alleging deprivation of constitutional rights in the murder of Barry Hughes's spouse and the children's mother, Mona Hughes. They asserted that defendants' failure to solve a previous murder and apprehend the perpetrator before he murdered Mona Hughes deprived them of rights guaranteed by the United States Constitution.
The defendants moved to dismiss the complaint for failure to state a claim upon which relief could be granted, pursuant to Rule 12(b)(6) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. In addition, they all requested that the court impose sanctions pursuant to Rule 11 of the Federal Rules. After a hearing on September 14, 1988, the district court dismissed the complaint for lack of constitutional protection for members of the public against criminal attacks by third parties and for lack of state action. The court denied defendants' motions for sanctions, stating that a good faith argument might be made for a modification of existing law.
Plaintiffs appealed the dismissal of their complaint, and defendants cross-appealed the denial of their motions for sanctions. On July 13, 1989, this court affirmed the dismissal of the complaint, reversed the trial court for "summarily refusing to consider the award of sanctions," and remanded for "further proceedings on the defendants' motion[s] for sanctions." On remand, in an order dated June 26, 1990, the district court again denied defendants' motions for sanctions, citing the reason it had already articulated at the September 14th hearing, a reason that "[t]he Tenth Circuit apparently overlooked" in reviewing the record. Defendants once again appeal, arguing that the district court applied the wrong legal standard to its denial of sanctions under Rule 11.
In reviewing all aspects of a district court's Rule 11 determination, this court applies an abuse of discretion standard. Under this standard, reversal would be appropriate only if a district court "based its ruling on an erroneous view of the law or on a clearly erroneous assessment of the evidence." Cooter & Gell v. Hartmarx Corp., --- U.S. ----, 110 S.Ct. 2447, 2461, 110 L.Ed.2d 359 (1990).
A deferential standard for reviewing matters of both fact and law has been adopted for several reasons. First, the fact-specific nature of the inquiry demands it. Analogizing to its reasoning in Pierce v. Underwood, 2 the Supreme Court in Cooter & Gell observed:
Because a determination whether a legal position is "substantially justified" depends greatly on factual determinations, the Court [in Pierce ] reasoned that the district court was "better positioned" to make such factual determinations. A district court's ruling that a litigant's position is factually well grounded and legally tenable for Rule 11 purposes is similarly fact-specific. Pierce also concluded that district court's rulings on legal issues should be reviewed deferentially.
Cooter & Gell v. Hartmarx Corp., 110 S.Ct. at 2460 (citations omitted) (emphasis added).
Second, the deferential abuse of discretion standard enhances the goal of judicial economy and serves to maintain the integrity of the trial and appellate courts. As to the appellate court function, the Supreme Court has concluded that a more stringent de novo standard of review for legal determinations would distort the appellate process and, at the same time, fail to advance the development of the law:
[A]n appellate court reviewing legal issues in the Rule 11 context would be required to determine whether, at the time the attorney filed the pleading or other paper, his legal argument would have appeared plausible. Such determinations "will either fail to produce the normal law-clarifying benefits that come from an appellate decision on a question of law, or else will strangely distort the appellate process" by establishing circuit law in "a most peculiar, second-handed fashion."
Id. (citations omitted).
The Supreme Court also noted that the deferential standard of review enhances the trial court's integrity:
The district court is best acquainted with the local bar's litigation practices and thus best situated to determine when a sanction is warranted to serve Rule 11's goal of specific and general deterrence. Deference to the determination of courts on the front lines of litigation will enhance these courts' ability to control the litigants before them. Such deference will streamline the litigation process by freeing appellate courts from the duty of reweighing evidence and reconsidering facts already weighed and considered by the district court; it will also discourage litigants from pursuing marginal appeals, thus reducing the amount of satellite litigation.
The Supreme Court's message is clear. It is not the role of the circuit court to second-guess the district court's Rule 11 determinations. While we are sympathetic with the burdens this litigation has imposed on the City, we are not the district court, and we cannot reverse that court simply because, had we been the triers of fact, we might have decided the case differently. Anderson v. Bessemer City, 470 U.S. 564, 573, 105 S.Ct. 1504, 1511, 84 L.Ed.2d 518 (1985).
The essence of defendants' appeal is that the trial court based its denial of sanctions on an improper hybridization of the old and new standards mandated by Rule 11. By confusing the old subjective standard with the new objective standard, defendants argue, the court "based its ruling on an erroneous view of the law," Cooter & Gell v. Hartmarx Corp., 110 S.Ct. at 2461, thus mandating reversal.
We agree that, prior to 1983, Rule 11 spoke in "plainly subjective terms." Nemeroff v. Abelson, 620 F.2d 339, 350 (2d Cir.1980); Burkhart v. Kinsley Bank, 804 F.2d 588, 589 (10th Cir.1986). If a showing of subjective bad faith on the part of an attorney could be shown, fees and costs could be assessed against that attorney. Indianapolis Colts v. Mayor of Baltimore, 775 F.2d 177, 181 (7th Cir.1985). In contrast, the 1983 amendment added language that "in effect changed the standard for finding a violation of the rule from a subjective to an objective standard." Id. The revised standard is characterized by an objective assessment of "reasonableness under the circumstances." Fed.R.Civ.P. 11, Advisory Committee Notes. See also White v. General Motors Corp., 908 F.2d 675, 680 (10th Cir.1990).
In pertinent part, Rule 11 now provides that the signature of an attorney on a pleading or motion certifies "that to the best of the signer's knowledge, information, and belief formed after reasonable inquiry it is well grounded in fact and is warranted by existing law or a good faith argument for the...
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