Lable & Co. v. Antoinette Flowers

• Decision Date: 31 May 1995
• Docket Number: 95-LW-2399,94CA005924
• Parties: LABLE & COMPANY, Appellee v. ANTOINETTE FLOWERS, Appellant C.A.
• Court: Ohio Court of Appeals

LABLE & COMPANY, Appellee v. ANTOINETTE FLOWERS, Appellant

No. 94CA005924.

95-LW-2399 (9th)

Court of Appeals of Ohio, Ninth District Lorain

May 31, 1995

APPEAL FROM JUDGMENT ENTERED IN THE ELYRIA MUNICIPAL COURT COUNTY OF LORAIN, OHIO CASE NO. 93CVG1514.

This cause was heard upon the record in the trial court. Each error assigned has been reviewed and the following disposition is made:

OPINION

DICKINSON Judge.

Defendant Antoinette Flowers has appealed from a judgment of the Lorain County Municipal Court that ordered her attorney to pay $3,167.50 as sanctions for frivolous conduct. Plaintiff Lable & Company had sought to have defendant evicted from her apartment for failure to pay rent. Defendant filed a counterclaim, along with several motions and briefs asserting that plaintiff's eviction action was racially motivated. The trial court determined that defendant's conduct was frivolous and ordered her attorney to pay plaintiff's attorney's fees. Defendant has argued that the trial court: (1) incorrectly determined that the claim of racial discrimination in an eviction proceeding was frivolous; (2) incorrectly determined that her actions constituted frivolous conduct; (3) incorrectly determined that she willfully violated Rule 11 of the Ohio Rules of Civil Procedure; (4) incorrectly determined that she abused the judicial process in bad faith; (5) incorrectly calculated the amount of plaintiffs attorney's fees; (6) incorrectly determined that the award of attorney's fees was tied to a ceiling of "reasonable costs"; and (7) incorrectly determined that plaintiff was entitled to payment of its attorney's fees. This Court reverses the judgment of the trial court because it incorrectly determined that defendant's attorney's conduct was frivolous.

I.

Defendant Antoinette Flowers has appealed from a judgment ordering her attorney to pay plaintiff's attorney's fees as a sanction for frivolous conduct relating to her defense of an eviction proceeding and her counterclaim of racial discrimination. On August 25, 1993, plaintiff Lable & Company filed a complaint against defendant in the Lorain County Municipal Court for forcible entry and detainer. Plaintiff averred that defendant had failed to pay her rent pursuant to her lease agreement and, accordingly, demanded restitution of the premises. On September 9, 1993, plaintiff moved for summary judgment on the grounds that there were no genuine issues of material fact and that it was entitled to judgment as a matter of law. In an affidavit in support of plaintiff's motion for summary judgment, the manager of the apartment complex where defendant resided represented that defendant failed to "pay rent in the amount of $98.00 for the month of August 1993." The manager also represented that defendant had been served with a three day notice to vacate the premises to which defendant had not responded.

On September 23, 1993, defendant answered the complaint denying all of plaintiff's substantive allegations. In addition, she asserted a counterclaim against plaintiff, alleging that "[t]he motive for Plaintiff's filing this action in forcible entry and detainer was racial prejudice." Defendant prayed that plaintiff's complaint be dismissed and sought $9,950 in damages. On the same day, defendant replied to plaintiff's motion for summary judgment and argued that summary judgment was inappropriate because there were material issues of fact in dispute. Specifically, defendant argued that a material issue of fact was created by plaintiff's refusal to accept the tender of her rent payment in light of the fact that it had previously accepted late payments. Defendant claimed that she tendered her rental payment, which was due August 1, 1993, on August 7, 1993, but that defendant refused it. She also asserted that plaintiff's actions were racially motivated. She attached an affidavit in support of her opposition to plaintiff's motion for summary judgment, in which she recounted that she had heard a manager of the apartment complex refer to black females as "nigger bitches" and had heard the same manager state that "he was going to 'get rid of' the 'nigger bitches' in buildings 'A' and 'D'."

The trial court conducted a hearing on plaintiff's motion for summary judgment on December 14, 1993. On February 15, 1994, the trial court determined that there were no genuine issues of fact and that plaintiff was entitled to judgment as a matter of law:

Defendant, in her memorandum filed December 27, 1993, indicates that the Plaintiff refused to accept the Defendant's rent and that said refusal was racially motivated. Further, the Defendant relates that the Plaintiff made it a practice to accept late rental payments. However, the record indicates that Defendant, on March 10, 1993, executed a supplemental agreement whereby Defendant was placed on notice that late rent payments would not be accepted. Defendant attempted to pay the August rent on the seventh day, which date exceeds the 5 day grace period set forth in paragraph five of the lease between the parties.

The Court finds that the only material issue existing between the parties is whether the rent has been paid for August, 1993. Pursuant to the hearing had on December 14, 1993, the Court finds that the rent has not been paid to date, and further finds that the Plaintiff is not required to accept rent payments after Notice of Termination and Plaintiff will not be required to do so in this case. * * *(fn1)

Defendant dismissed her counterclaim after the trial court granted summary judgment in plaintiff's favor. On March 24, 1994, plaintiff moved for sanctions pursuant to Rule 11 of the Ohio Rules of Civil Procedure and Section 2323.51 of the Ohio Revised Code. Plaintiff asserted that several of the pleadings, motions, and briefs filed by defendant were: (1) served merely to harass or maliciously injure plaintiff; (2) not warranted under existing law and could not be supported by a good faith argument for an extension, modification, or reversal of existing law; (3) contained scandalous matter; or (4) were interposed for delay. Specifically, plaintiff complained of defendant's memorandum in opposition to its motion for summary judgment, her motion to strike its accounting of rent owed, her motion to consolidate her case with several eviction proceedings pending against other residents of her apartment complex, her motion to stay the proceedings, and her motion to compel discovery.

The trial court conducted a hearing on the issue and, on July 1, 1994, ordered defendant's attorney to pay $3,167.50 as attorney's fees. The trial court determined that plaintiff incurred $3,467.50 in attorney's fees, "all in response to the blizzard of motions and pleadings filed by" defendant. It subtracted $300 from that amount for the "reasonable cost" of prosecuting an eviction proceeding. On August 29, 1994, the trial court issued findings of fact in support of its award of sanctions:

This is an action for restitution of certain leased premises, said action based on Defendant's nonpayment of rent. During the course of proceedings, Defendant, through her counsel claimed that the eviction was based on racial bias on the part of the Plaintiffs as set forth in Defendant's First Counterclaim and in an affidavit executed by the Defendant on September 4, 1993. What in the Court's opinion should have been a simple, noncomplex nonpayment of rent forcible detainer action, turned out to be a cause celebre on the part of the Defendant, who filed a multiplicity and flurry of pleadings.

Among the pleadings filed by the Defendant was a motion to consolidate the instant complaint with three other pending evictions. In the Court's opinion, the other three cases had nothing in common with the instant matter and hence the motion was denied. Simply put, the Defendant painted all the cases with a wide brush alleging discrimination as the basis for the evictions, and therefore all the complaints should be consolidated.

In the interest of judicial economy, the Court would have been eager to consolidate all four cases, but could not, there being no commonality in the issues, nor with respect to the Defendants.

* * * It was clear to the Court that the complaint was a simple nonpayment of rent case and, therefore, the only issue was the nonpayment of rent.

The court concluded that defendant's "pleadings were not filed in good faith, were not intended to develop a defense to a nonpayment of rent complaint, were frivolous in nature, and thus sanctions [were] ordered * * *." Defendant timely appealed to this Court.

II.

Defendant has essentially made two arguments regarding the trial court's award of sanctions. She has argued that the trial court incorrectly determined that her attorney's conduct was frivolous and incorrectly calculated the amount of sanctions it awarded plaintiff. Inasmuch as all her assignments of error are interrelated with these two arguments, they will be discussed together.

A.

Defendant has argued that the trial court incorrectly determined that her attorney's conduct was frivolous. As noted previously, the trial court determined that defendant's "pleadings were not filed in good faith, were not intended to develop a defense to a nonpayment of rent complaint, [and] were frivolous in nature." The trial court, however, failed to articulate the authority under which it ordered defendant's attorney to pay the sanctions. This Court has held that there are at least three possible rationales for awarding attorney's fees for frivolous conduct: (1) a court's "inherent power to do all things necessary to the administration of justice and to protect their own powers and processes"; (2) Rule II of the Ohio Rules of Civil Procedure; and (3) Section 2323.51 of the Ohio Revised...