Jemison v. National Baptist Convention

• Decision Date: 05 November 1998
• Docket Number: No. 95-CV-1031, No. 95-CV-972, No. 95-CV-973, No. 96-CV-415, No. 96-CV-414, No. 96-CV-620., No. 96-CV-593
• Citation: 720 A.2d 275
• Parties: T.J. JEMISON, et al., Appellants, v. NATIONAL BAPTIST CONVENTION, USA, INC., et al., Appellees. NATIONAL BAPTIST CONVENTION, USA, INC., et al., Appellants, v. T.J. JEMISON, et al., Appellees.
• Court: D.C. Court of Appeals

720 A.2d 275

T.J. JEMISON, et al., Appellants, v. NATIONAL BAPTIST CONVENTION, USA, INC., et al., Appellees.

NATIONAL BAPTIST CONVENTION, USA, INC., et al., Appellants, v. T.J. JEMISON, et al., Appellees.

Nos. 95-CV-972, 95-CV-973, 95-CV-1031, 96-CV-414, 96-CV-415, 96-CV-593, 96-CV-620.

District of Columbia Court of Appeals.

Argued June 3, 1997.

Decided November 5, 1998.

Jerry A. Moore, III, and John D. Maddox, Washington, DC, for appellants T.J. Jemison and Jo A. Fleming.

Philip J. Harvey, Washington, DC, for appellant Felix N. Nixon.

Clifton S. Elgarten, with whom Laurel Pyke Malson, James J. Regan, Amy J. Mauser, and Monica G. Parham, Washington, DC, were on the brief, for appellees, National Baptist Convention, USA, Inc., and Henry J. Lyons, et al.

Before TERRY and REID, Associate Judges, and KING, Associate Judge, Retired.¹

TERRY, Associate Judge:

The Alabama State Baptist Missionary Convention, Inc., and its president, Dr. Felix Nixon, filed a complaint against the National Baptist Convention, USA, Inc. (NBC), and others, alleging breach of contract and seeking injunctive relief. Along with the complaint, they filed a motion for a temporary restraining order (TRO) to prevent the transfer of authority from NBC's prior president, Dr. T.J. Jemison, to its newly elected president, Dr. Henry Lyons, because of allegedly defective election procedures at the September 1994 NBC convention in New Orleans.

The trial court eventually granted the motion of NBC and Dr. Lyons for summary judgment. No party contests the merits of that decision. The court then turned its attention to the motion of NBC and Dr. Lyons for sanctions based on improper affidavits offered in support of the original request for a TRO. There followed numerous depositions, additional discovery, and evidentiary hearings over a period of several weeks. About five months after the last hearing, in a thorough and meticulously detailed 61-page order, the court found Dr. Nixon, Dr. Jemison, Jo A. Fleming, Esquire (Jemison's attorney),² and the former board of directors of NBC under Dr. Jemison jointly and severally liable for $150,000 in punitive damages for "perpetrating a gross and serious fraud against the court." The court imposed additional sanctions on the same individuals by directing them to reimburse NBC and Dr. Lyons for their attorneys' fees, costs, and expenses, the amount of which was yet to be determined.³

In a second order, issued after further submissions relating to attorneys' fees, the court awarded NBC and Dr. Lyons $237,322.00 for their attorneys' fees, costs, and expenses. The court also denied Jemison and Fleming's motion to alter or amend the judgment under Super.Ct.Civ.R. 59(e), their separate motion for reconsideration, and their motion to strike evidence. Nixon, Jemison, and Fleming appeal from both the award of punitive damages and the imposition of sanctions. We affirm.⁴

I. FACTUAL BACKGROUND

NBC held its annual convention in New Orleans in September 1994 to elect a new president, officers, and members of the board of directors. The term of the former president, Dr. Jemison, would expire at the end of the convention, and he was barred by a term limitation in the NBC constitution from running for a new term. Dr. W. Franklyn Richardson was Jemison's choice for a successor, and Dr. Nixon also supported Richardson. There were, however, three additional candidates for the presidency, including Dr. Henry Lyons.

This was the first time in the history of NBC that the election was to be held by a secret ballot. To conduct the election, each of the four candidates chose two representatives to a multi-partisan Election Committee, which selected Rev. James S. Allen as its chairman. Under procedures adopted by the Committee, each delegate was required to obtain a badge and an identification card before proceeding to the voting booth. The Election Committee was to distribute the identification cards on the basis of delegate registrations.

A problem arose in the initial distribution of cards to the Alabama delegation, which was the largest of the state delegations. There were 1127 Alabama registrants entitled to vote, but only 511 cards were ready for distribution. After those 511 cards were distributed, the delegates who did not receive cards went to the Election Committee, which then directed that cards be distributed to all of the Alabama delegates who requested them, including Dr. Nixon. The voting proceeded without further incident, and the votes were tabulated by independent, professional election officials. Dr. Lyons was declared the winner of the election by a margin of more than 500 votes, and later he addressed the convention as its president. While the convention remained in session, no one complained that he or she had been denied the right to vote.

Although Dr. Lyons and the new board had assumed office upon election, Jemison asked Lyons for a month to complete some "paperwork" before turning over the organization's books and records. Lyons was thus separated from control of NBC's administrative offices and financial resources. Jemison, Nixon, and Fleming used this additional time to implement a scheme to prevent Lyons from serving as president.

Upon returning to Alabama, Nixon told Jemison that he was dissatisfied with the election. At Jemison's urging, Nixon called a special meeting of the Executive Board of the Alabama State Convention to obtain approval to file suit in the Convention's name contesting the election. Dr. Nixon presented to the Board a memorandum prepared by Jemison's attorney, Jo Fleming, which would serve as the foundation for the lawsuit. Ms. Fleming claimed to have reviewed the election records and determined that 616 delegates from Alabama had been denied their right to vote. A resolution was passed approving the suit.

Ms. Fleming then began making arrangements for the filing of the suit by Dr. Nixon, in which Dr. Jemison would purport to be the defendant and Fleming would be his counsel. Fleming called Demetrius Newton, an attorney who had previously represented the Alabama State Convention, to discuss where the suit should be brought. Some time later, Ms. Fleming called Newton again to say that the suit would be filed in the District of Columbia and that Dr. Nixon had retained R. Kenneth Mundy, a prominent Washington attorney (now deceased), to represent him.

Before any litigation was begun, Fleming and Mundy communicated extensively with each other by phone and facsimile machine. Ms. Fleming reviewed preliminary drafts of the complaint and the TRO application several days before they were filed. The twofold purpose of the TRO application was to persuade the court that there were serious problems with the election results and to obtain an order declaring Dr. Lyons not yet in office. The trial court later found that it was the defendants' and plaintiffs' "mutual objective to convince the court to defer ruling and to send the case to the Election Committee for resolution of the alleged election irregularities."

Fleming and Jemison, with the assistance of Nixon, began assembling documents to support their claims that more than 600 Alabama delegates had been denied the right to vote, that Lyons had not yet been officially installed as president, and that it was widely recognized that there were serious questions about the conduct of the election. To that end they prepared two letters, ostensibly signed by Nixon and Jemison and addressed to each other, which would be filed with the TRO application. Nixon's letter, dated September 27, 1994, stated that 600 Alabama delegates had been denied the right to vote. Jemison's letter in response, dated September 28, asserted that there were widely recognized problems with the election and that other prominent members of the convention supported his view. It was later established that Nixon's supposed letter was forged by Fleming and Jemison in Nixon's name, that Nixon never signed it, and that Jemison's purported "response" was written in an effort to create the basis for a TRO.

Appellants then initiated a campaign to persuade Rev. Allen, the chairman of the Election Committee, that there was a serious controversy over the election and that the Committee should take action to resolve this dispute. Rev. Boise Kimber, Dr. Richardson's campaign manager, told Allen about purported complaints and tried to persuade Allen to intervene. When Jemison also urged Allen to set aside the election, Allen yielded to the pressure. At Jemison's request, Allen wrote Jemison a letter acknowledging complaints about election irregularities and stating that his Committee would address them. In fact, the only people from whom Allen had heard any references to complaints were Jemison and Kimber. This letter, along with the fabricated Nixon-Jemison exchange of correspondence, was faxed to Mr. Mundy to be filed with the TRO application.

The complaint and the TRO application requested that the installation of the new officers be enjoined, leaving Jemison in power. NBC's constitution provided that the newly elected board would assume responsibility upon the recess or adjournment of the convention. However, the copy of the constitution that was attached to the TRO application was photocopied in such a way that the relevant passages of Article VI, § 1, referring to the duties of the newly elected board, were omitted. This copy of the constitution was among those documents provided to Mr. Mundy, Nixon's counsel, by Ms. Fleming.

To support their allegation that hundreds of Alabama delegates had been denied the vote, appellants presented more than forty "affidavits of disenfranchisement." All of these affidavits were false, and all but a few had been forged in the names of various Alabama citizens who never knew that their names were being used in this way. The affidavits were prepared, in part, with the aid of Rev. Tommy Lee Lewis, who had been appointed by Dr. Nixon to...