Justia Legal Ethics Opinion Summaries

The Mississippi Commission on Judicial Performance (Commission) filed a Formal Complaint charging Youth Court Judge Leigh Ann Darby with violating various Canons of the Mississippi Code of Judicial Conduct and with "willful misconduct in office" and "conduct prejudicial to the administration of justice which brings the judicial office into disrepute[.]" Judge Darby held a mother in contempt of court for disobeying her verbal orders pertaining to the house arrest of the mother's fifteen-year-old daughter. The mother brought her complaint against the judge when "she wrongly imposed sanctions against [her] for contempt of court without first affording her the due process rights required in a criminal contempt matter." The judge and the Commission jointly proposed a recommendation that the judge be publicly reprimanded and fined. Upon review, the Supreme Court affirmed the Commission's recommendation, and ordered the judge be publicly reprimanded, fined $500 and assessed costs. View "Mississippi Comm'n on Judicial Perm. v. Darby" on Justia Law

Taxpayers appealed the district court's denial of their Rule 60(b) motion to vacate a 1967 tax judgment against them. Taxpayers argued that the government committed fraud on the court during their 1967 suppression hearing and their subsequent appeal to this court. Taxpayers also argued that the judgment should be vacated under United States v. Throckmorton because taxpayers' business associate who sometimes served as their attorney, gave information to the government. The court concluded that, although the evidence uncovered by taxpayers showed some misconduct on the part of the government, it was insufficient to demonstrate fraud on the court. The court also held that because taxpayers have not shown that the business associate was their attorney rather than their business associate at the time he informed on taxpayers, the court rejected taxpayers' Throckmorton claim.

Appellants, a group of heirs who were entitled to receive the net proceeds of a judicial sale of four tracts of land, sued Appellees, a former master commissioner of the circuit court, a circuit court judge, and the administrative office of the courts, pursuant to the Kentucky Board of Claims Act, after the former master commissioner failed to disburse the proceeds of the sale. The Board of Claims (Board) entered a final order dismissing Appellants' claims for lack of jurisdiction. The circuit court and court of appeals affirmed. At issue on appeal was whether a claim involving judicial officers or court employes may proceed at the Board. The Supreme Court reversed, holding that the judge's continued use of the master commissioner, without reappointment, to perform significant functions in actions in the circuit court without a bond and without surety approved by the judge as statutorily mandated, was grounds for a claim in the Board of Claims based upon alleged negligence in the performance of a ministerial duty by an officer of the state. Remanded to the Board for a determination of whether Appellants suffered damages as a proximate cause of the alleged negligence.

The United States appealed an award of attorney's fees and costs under the Hyde Amendment, Pub. L. No. 105-119, section 617, 111 Stat. 2440, 2519, and two attorneys, Sean Cronin and Andrea Hoffman, appeal public reprimands entered against them based on their work as Assistant United States Attorneys in an underlying criminal action marked by hard adversarial tactics. The court held that the district court abused its discretion when it imposed sanctions against the United States for a prosecution that was objectively reasonable, and the district court violated the constitutional right to due process of the two lead prosecutors, when it denied them notice of any charges of misconduct and an opportunity to be heard. Therefore, the court vacated the award of attorney's fees and costs against the United States and the public reprimand of Cronin and Hoffman, but the court denied the request of Cronin and Hoffman that the court reassign the case to a different district judge at this stage.

Plaintiff was a secretary of G. Thomas Porteous, Jr. during his service as a district judge until Porteous was impeached and the Judicial Council of the Fifth Circuit suspended Porteous's authority to employ staff, which resulted in plaintiff's termination. Plaintiff sued the Judicial Council and fifteen of its members seeking declaratory relief, reinstatement to her position, monetary relief, and attorney's fees and costs. Plaintiff subsequently appealed the district court's order insofar as it dismissed her claims against the members of the Judicial Council. The court held that plaintiff lacked prudential standing to bring her constitutional challenge to the Judicial Council's action. The court rejected plaintiff's claim that the ultra vires exception applied to sovereign immunity where her claims for injunctive relief were moot in light of Porteous's removal from office; claims for back pay and retirement credits were barred by sovereign immunity; and plaintiff lacked the necessary injury-in-fact to pursue declaratory relief. The court also held that even if plaintiff had standing to seek declaratory relief, she had not pleaded a sufficient claim of ultra vires action by the Judicial Council to overcome the jurisdictional bar of sovereign immunity. Accordingly, the judgment was affirmed.

Plaintiff filed a federal civil rights action against the county, alleging violation of her constitutional rights to free speech and equal protection. Plaintiff alleged that the county harassed her in retaliation of her complaints about the county's failure to enforce building and safety codes against her Malibu neighbors. At issue was whether the district court properly denied plaintiff an award of attorney's fees for her spouse's legal services. The court held that plaintiff, who was represented by her attorney-spouse in a successful civil rights action, could be awarded "a reasonable attorney's fee as part of the costs" under 42 U.S.C. 1988. Accordingly, the court vacated the portion of the district court's fee order denying plaintiff an award of attorney's fees for her spouse's services and remanded for further proceedings.

After prevailing in a suit for social security disability benefits, plaintiff asked for attorney's fees of $25,200 under the Equal Access to Justice Act, 28 U.S.C. 2412(d)(2)(A). The district judge awarded $6,625, cutting the hours from 112 or 116 to 53, adopting objections made by Social Security Administration lawyer, and the hourly rate from $225 to the rate specified in the statute $ 125. The Seventh Circuit reversed and remanded, noting that the Social Security Act provides for awarding a "reasonable fee" for representation in the administrative proceeding and in a successful appeal, 42 U.S.C. 406(a)(1), but the EJA does not provide for "market rate" and creates a presumptive ceiling of $125. The district court did not consider the special circumstances and factors that may be considered under the Act.

Appellant Bon Secours-St. Francis Xavier Hospital (the Hospital) was a defendant at trial in the underlying civil case.  On the morning of the trial, Appellants removed the case to federal court for the second time on the same grounds as the initial removal.  The federal district court judge again remanded the case to state court.  The state trial judge, imposed severe sanctions against the Appellants for the delay created by the second removal.  Appellants argued on appeal to the Supreme Court that they should not have been sanctioned for the second removal because it was done in good faith. The Supreme Court agreed with both [the trial judge's] version of the facts and his conclusion that the second removal was not based on good grounds and was interposed solely for delay: "[w]hile Rule 11 is evaluated by a subjective standard, the rule still may be violated with a filing that is so patently without merit that no reasonable attorney could have a good faith belief in its propriety.  We find such is the case here." The Court affirmed the lower court's imposition of sanctions.

Plaintiff suffered a stroke and claimed that the VA hospital failed to properly diagnose and take appropriate measures. He and his wife sued under the Federal Tort Claims Act, 28 U.S.C. 1346(b), 2671-80, and also sued their attorney for malpractice. The district court ruled in favor of the government and the attorney. The Sixth Circuit dismissed an appeal as forfeited because plaintiff had supplied only a transcript of the testimony of the government's expert witness Fed. R. App. P. 10(b)(3) and had failed to supplement. The district court properly refused to sanction plaintiff's attorney for ex parte communication with treating physicians. The court also properly credited the government expert and held that the hospital's actions were not the proximate cause of the stroke.

Plaintiff filed several suits against healthcare groups on behalf of the United States, claiming violation of the Medicare Secondary Payer Act, 42 U.S.C. 1395y(b). No court has ever found that the MSP is a qui tam statute, permitting private attorneys general to sue on behalf of the United States. The Sixth Circuit found plaintiff was on notice of the frivolous nature of his filings from their inception in the Tennessee district courts and remanded for a show-cause hearing on why sanctions should not issue. The district court awarded sanctions to two defendants in amounts of $131,158.50 and $145,431.19. The Sixth Circuit affirmed, but denied an award for the appeal.