Sidag Aktiengesellschaft v. Smoked Foods Products Co., Inc.
| Decision Date | 12 August 1992 |
| Docket Number | No. 91-1135,91-1135 |
| Citation | 969 F.2d 1562 |
| Parties | SIDAG AKTIENGESELLSCHAFT and Sicilia Di R. Biebow & Company, Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. SMOKED FOODS PRODUCTS COMPANY, INC. and Marcus Cox, Defendants, Ronald C. Cox and Sales, U.S.A., Inc., Defendants-Appellants. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit |
L. Dan Tucker, Charles W. Gaines, Hubbard, Thurman, Tucker & Harris, Dallas, Tex., for defendants-appellants.
Roger C. Clapp, Florence, Miss., Jane Sanders Lewis, Mark C. Baker, John Roach, T. Jackson Lyons, Jackson, Miss., for plaintiffs-appellees.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi.
Before POLITZ, Chief Judge, and REYNALDO G. GARZA and WIENER, Circuit Judges.
The merits of the controversy between the parties to this case was terminated years ago by a final, non-appealable executory judgment. But the case has refused to die, remaining among the "un-dead" of this Circuit through multiple appeals involving not the merits but attorneys' fees, costs and sanctions. 1 Today we do all within our power to drive the stake of finality through its heart.
Even though among counsel the smoldering coals of dislike and resentment may well have been fanned from time to time by their several clients, we suspect that the attorneys themselves have long since replaced the original parties as the real adversaries here. 2 This kind of unproductive and costly bickering among lawyers--whose only legitimate role is to resolve objectively and civilly those controversies that the parties have proved unable to resolve on their own--justifiably subjects the legal profession as well as the civil justice system to public distrust, derision and criticism. But when counsel proceed to dump their own interpersonal squabbles in the lap of the court to referee, the judiciary is wont to add its criticism to that of the public.
This latest episode in the subject case--and, we insist, the final one--comprises the motion of L. Dan Tucker, Esq., asking that we sanction Roger C. Clapp, Esq. (now Chancellor Clapp) for including false and defamatory statements about Tucker in pleadings filed herein by Clapp. And, albeit grudgingly and in words of minimization, Clapp has conceded to excesses and mischaracterizations in at least some of the language used to describe Tucker's professional practices and performance.
Finding those facts that are uncontroverted to be sanctionable but seeing no proof of actual damage to Tucker's professional reputation as a result of Clapp's conduct, we impose nominal sanctions for the unprofessional and potentially...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
Judwin Properties, Inc. v. U.S. Fire Ins. Co.
...but the attorneys for both parties are advised to heed this Court's recent advise as set forth in Sidag Aktiengesellschaft v. Smoked Foods Products, 969 F.2d 1562 (5th Cir.1992). B. The Summary Judgment Judwin urges this Court to reverse the summary judgment in favor of USF for two reasons.......