Estevez v. Berkeley College
- Cathy Seibel
- 7:18-cv-10350
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 7
In Estevez v. Berkeley College, Judge Seibel declined Rule 11 penalties but ordered counsel to complete extra training after repeated unsupported factual statements.
Plaintiffs’ counsel was not subjected to Rule 11 sanctions but was ordered to complete additional legal-education training and document compliance. The plaintiffs and defendants were affected by the court’s resolution of the sanctions issue, while the order did not alter the prior denial of the defendants’ fee motions.
What happened
Estevez v. Berkeley College concerned statements by Plaintiffs’ counsel about the evidence supporting the plaintiffs’ workplace-retaliation claims. The court identified three statements it viewed as misrepresenting or mischaracterizing the record, including statements about Jimarzarette Estevez’s complaints, Human Resources manager Clarissa Gilliam’s views, and what Gilliam remembered being told.
The court considered whether counsel acted in subjective bad faith, which was required for the court-initiated Rule 11 sanctions proceeding. Counsel acknowledged or revised several statements, but argued that some were fair inferences and that another was an unintentional mistake.
Judge Seibel declined to impose Rule 11 sanctions because the court could not conclude that counsel acted with subjective bad faith. The court nevertheless ordered Plaintiffs’ counsel, under its inherent authority, to complete at least three additional hours of continuing legal education on retaliation law and three additional hours on ethical obligations in legal writing within one year, and to provide compliance documentation by November 30, 2023.
The detailed version
- Estevez v. Berkeley College · No. 7:18-cv-10350
- Cathy Seibel
- Nov. 23, 2022
Background
The order followed the court’s June 6, 2022 decision denying Defendants’ motions for attorney-fee awards under Title VII, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-5(k), 28 U.S.C. § 1927, and the court’s inherent authority. In that earlier decision, the court ordered Plaintiffs’ counsel to explain why Rule 11 sanctions should not be imposed for statements in counsel’s opposition to the fee motion and in support of a cross-motion to stay consideration of the fee issue.
Rule 11 requires an attorney who submits a court filing to certify, among other things, that the filing’s factual assertions have evidentiary support after a reasonable inquiry. Because the court initiated the sanctions issue after counsel had an opportunity to correct or withdraw the challenged filing, the court applied a subjective-bad-faith standard. That standard required a specific factual basis for concluding that counsel knew the challenged positions lacked merit; unsupported or careless statements alone were not enough.
Statements Examined
The court examined three representations by Plaintiffs’ counsel:
- Counsel represented that Estevez had complained to her supervisor, David Bertone, about coworker Daniel Lapan’s comment that there was “too much estrogen” in the office.
- Counsel represented that Gilliam believed all three plaintiffs were engaged in protected activity by complaining about a hostile work environment and objected to their termination for that reason.
- Counsel represented that Gilliam remembered speaking with Estevez and that Estevez had complained about Lapan’s “too much estrogen” comments.
The court noted that the first two statements had been repeated in the briefing on the fee and stay motions even after the court had identified them as unsupported in its summary-judgment decision. Counsel conceded that the record did not refer to the “too much estrogen” comment as the subject of Estevez’s complaints. Counsel instead argued that the reference to Lapan’s “insubordination” fairly implied a complaint about the comment. The court rejected that chain of inferences, noting that Estevez had not testified that she raised the comment despite being asked about the content of her complaints.
The court also rejected counsel’s characterization of Gilliam’s statement that Plaintiffs should not be fired “with everything that’s going on.” The court found no evidence that Gilliam was referring to protected activity or understood the plaintiffs’ complaints as gender-discrimination complaints. Finally, counsel conceded that Gilliam had not said that Estevez told her about the “too much estrogen” comment. The court found it significant that counsel repeated that assertion after the summary-judgment decision had specifically identified its lack of factual support.
Ruling
The court found the challenged representations serious and described counsel’s conduct as egregious. It nevertheless concluded that the conduct did not establish subjective bad faith. Instead, the court stated that the statements appeared to result from a failure of competence, a serious misunderstanding of a lawyer’s ethical obligations, or both.
The court therefore declined to impose Rule 11 sanctions. Separately, relying on its inherent authority, the court ordered Plaintiffs’ counsel to complete, in addition to the continuing-education requirements of the states where she is admitted, at least three extra continuing-legal-education hours on the law governing retaliation cases and at least three extra hours on ethical obligations in legal writing. The additional education was due within one year, and counsel had to provide documentation to the court by November 30, 2023.
Read the full 7-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.