Attorney May Appeal; Attorney Loses Appeal
The ABA Journal has the story of an opinion of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit holding that a sanctioned attorney may appeal a finding of misconduct even if the fine has been paid.
The attorney lost on the merits.
The case involves an assistant state’s attorney in Illinois who asserted that no requested documents existed in civil litigation. Problem was that there were plenty such documents.
The court
because a finding of attorney misconduct in a sanctions order can seriously impair an attorney’s professional standing, reputation, and earning possibilities, such an order can’t be brushed off as easily as a gnat. It is not just a slap on the wrist, or an angry remark by a judge in the course of a trial or other hearing. It is a judicial order, in this case issued by a respected and experienced federal judge (really two respected and experienced federal judges, as the money sanction imposed by Judge Bucklo, together with her critical comments supportive of Judge Grady’s, amplified the gravity of Judge Grady’s order)…
It’s true that although Judge Grady expressed strong criticism of lawyer McClellan, the only sanctions order that he had decided to issue (though it was not quantified until the order issued by his successor, Judge Bucklo) was an order to pay, which when he issued it would have been expected to impose at least part of the expense on McClellan. We can imagine an argument that as in Bolte all we have here is a critical comment by the judge, and that a mere comment can’t be the subject of an appeal. It would indeed be odd to think that any time a judge criticized a lawyer, whether in open court or in a written order, the lawyer could treat the criticism as an appealable ruling. But there is a difference between a critical comment unjoined to a sanctions order and a critical comment that appears in and offers justification for a formal such order. The accusation of misconduct by McClellan is not an add-on to the order issued by Judge Grady but the justification for it. One of the sanctions that this court occasionally imposes, usually after a rule to show cause has been issued, is a formal censure or reprimand of a lawyer. Such a sanction, if imposed on an Illinois lawyer, must be reported to the Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Commission (or its equivalent in other states), and can result in the suspension of the lawyer’s law license, or worse…
The significance of the order, as far as McClellan is concerned, is not the price tag but the sharp criticisms of her in the order, and those criticisms were apt and accurate. The plaintiffs had been strung along by McClellan and others at the State’s Attorney’s Office for more than a year, having been incorrectly informed that the Office had not retained the plaintiffs’ criminal case files. McClellan had repeatedly denied that the files existed, without knowing whether they did or did not exist and without conducting a reasonable inquiry into the matter. She had even threatened the plaintiffs’ counsel that she would seek sanctions against him if he continued to request the documents in the face of her denial of their existence. She also tried to prevent him from searching for the files himself. And when the files were finally located she delayed turning them over by advancing a meritless claim of privilege. It took multiple court orders and more than a year of effort for the plaintiffs to obtain all the docu-ments to which they were entitled. The district court did not abuse its discretion in sanctioning her.
(Mike Frisch)