Weng v. Kung Fu Little Steamed Buns Ramen, Inc.
- Loretta Preska
- 1:17-cv-00273
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 3
In Weng v. Kung Fu Little Steamed Buns Ramen, Judge Preska denied defendants’ Rule 11 sanctions motion for procedural noncompliance and insufficient support.
The four Moving Defendants—Kung Fu Little Steamed Buns Ramen, Inc., Kung Fu Delicacy, Inc., Kung Fu Kitchen, Inc., and Zhe “Peter” Song—did not obtain the requested dismissal, sanctions, attorney’s fees, or costs. The plaintiffs’ claims were not dismissed by this order.
What happened
In Weng v. Kung Fu Little Steamed Buns Ramen, four defendants asked the court to impose penalties under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 11, dismiss the case, and award their attorney’s fees and costs. The plaintiffs opposed the request.
The defendants filed their sanctions motion without first giving the plaintiffs’ lawyers the required 21-day period to withdraw or correct the challenged claims. They argued that the court should excuse that period because of the case’s circumstances.
Judge Preska denied the motion. She ruled that the filing violated Rule 11’s required waiting period and that, even on the merits, the defendants had not shown the serious misconduct needed for dismissal or explained why lesser penalties would not work.
The detailed version
- Weng v. Kung Fu Little Steamed Buns Ramen, Inc. · No. 1:17-cv-00273
- Loretta Preska
- Mar. 6, 2021
Background
Defendants Kung Fu Little Steamed Buns Ramen, Inc., Kung Fu Delicacy, Inc., Kung Fu Kitchen, Inc., and Zhe “Peter” Song—the “Moving Defendants”—filed a motion for sanctions under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 11. They sought, among other relief, dismissal of the entire case and an award of their attorney’s fees and costs. The plaintiffs opposed the motion.
Rule 11’s 21-Day Requirement
Rule 11 requires a sanctions motion to be filed separately and generally prohibits filing or presenting it to the court if the challenged paper or claim is withdrawn or corrected within 21 days after service. This period is commonly called the safe-harbor period.
The court found that the Moving Defendants served their motion on the plaintiffs’ counsel at about the same time they filed it publicly with the court. The defendants asked the court to dispense with or shorten the 21-day period because of the circumstances of the case. Judge Preska ruled that any request to shorten the period had to be made before filing the motion publicly. Because the defendants indisputably failed to comply with the 21-day requirement, the motion was procedurally deficient and had to be denied.
Merits of the Sanctions Request
The court also considered whether the requested sanctions would be justified even if the filing defect were disregarded. Rule 11 sanctions must be limited to what is needed to deter repetition of the conduct. Dismissal is the harshest available sanction and should be used only in extreme situations, after a showing that lesser sanctions would be ineffective and that the conduct involved willfulness, bad faith, or reasonably serious fault.
Judge Preska found that the Moving Defendants had not made that showing. They had not considered lesser sanctions or explained why lesser sanctions would be ineffective. The court also concluded that the plaintiffs’ counsel’s conduct, although perhaps not best practice, did not amount to bad faith.
Related Factual Dispute
The defendants relied on a September 2020 letter in which plaintiffs’ counsel said he had spoken with his clients about settlement. They argued that this statement could not be true because plaintiff Guangli Zheng had died in 2019. The court explained that saying counsel had conferred with “clients” did not necessarily mean that counsel had spoken with every plaintiff. The court also found the defendants’ suggestion that counsel knew of Zheng’s death to be speculative because they offered no proof that Wen Zhang had told counsel about his father’s death.
Disposition
Judge Preska denied the Moving Defendants’ motion for Rule 11 sanctions, docket number 91, and directed the Clerk of Court to close the open motion.
Read the full 3-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.