Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca10-90-06134/USCOURTS-ca10-90-06134-0/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 190
Nature of Suit: Other Contract Actions
Cause of Action: 

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UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS 

TEN'l'H CIRCUIT 

ROYALTY PETROLEUM COMPANY, 

Plaintiff-Appellee, 

FILED 

United States Court of Appeals 

Tenth ci!"euit 

DEC 1 9 1990 

ROBERT L. HOECKER 

Clerk 

No. 90-6134 

v. 

ARKLA, INC., a Delaware 

corporation, 

(W.D. Oklahoma) 

(D.C. No. CIV-89-495-P) 

Defendant-Appellant. 

ORDER AND JUDGMENT* 

Before ANDERSON, BALDOCK, and EBEL, Circuit Judges. 

After examining the briefs and appellate record, this panel 

has determined unanimously that oral argument would not materially 

assist the determination of this appeal. See Fed. R. App. P. 

34(a); 10th Cir. R. 34.1.9. The cause is therefore ordered 

submitted without oral argument. 

Amy Baird, attorney for Arkla, Inc. appeals from a district 

court order awarding sanctions against her for withholding certain 

information in the course of litigation between her client and 

Royal Petroleum Company. We affirm. 

* This order and judgment has no precedential value and shall 

not be cited, or used by any court within the Tenth Circuit, 

except for purposes of establishing the doctrines of the law of 

the case, res judicata, or collateral estoppel. 10th Cir. R. 

36.3. 

Appellate Case: 90-6134 Document: 010110097277 Date Filed: 12/19/1990 Page: 1 
Royalty Petroleum Company brought an action against Arkla, 

Inc. for failure to comply with the terms of a Settlement Agreement requiring Arkla to transport Royalty's gas and to install 

certain taps and meters on its pipeline. Pursuant to the court's 

scheduling order, all discovery in the case was to be completed by 

November 1, 1989. 

In April of 1989, Royalty served Arkla with its First Set of 

Interrogatories and Request for Production of Documents, seeking 

among other things information relating to all discussions of tap 

and meter installation that occurred after the date of the Settlement Agreement. In June, Arkla responded to the interrogatories 

but did not refer to any relevant conversations involving Kay 

Medlin, Arkla's counsel. 

On January 24, 1990, the day before trial was scheduled to 

begin, Arkla served Royalty with unsigned Supplemental Responses 

to Plaintiff's Interrogatories, stating that Kay Medlin had 

discussed the taps and meters during the pertinent time period 

with Royalty's counsel, Thomas Goresen. That this •discussion had 

occurred apparently come to light some weeks earlier when Medlin 

located certain documents that refreshed her recollection. 

On January 25th, Royalty filed a Motion for Default Judgment 

or, in the alternative, for an Order Excluding Certain Evidence 

relating to the alleged conversation between Medlin and Goresen, 

on the grounds that the newly-received information was previously 

undisclosed and prejudicial. Royalty also sought sanctions 

against Arkla. After requiring Arkla to submit a proffer of 

Madlin's testimony, the court denied the Motion for Default 

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• 

Judgment and reserved the issue of preclusionary sanctions arising 

out of Arkla's supplemental responses. 

On January 29th, the court granted exclusion of the part of 

Medlin's testimony that it deemed to be new information and 

directed Amy Baird, counsel for Arkla, to show cause why sanctions 

should not be levied against her for the filing of the Supplemental Responses to Plaintiff's Interrogatories. On March 1st, 

well after a final judgment had been entered, the court sanctioned 

Amy Baird by awarding attorney fees and expenses against her in 

the amount of $3145.00. She now appeals. 

Baird asserts that the district court erred by incorrectly 

applying Federal Rules of Civil Procedure 26(g) and 16(f) and by 

relying on mistakes of fact in reaching its decision. 

At the outset, Baird argues that it is improper as a matter 

of law to impose monetary sanctions under Rule 26 when a pleading 

is not signed. We agree. The language of the rule is plain. "If 

a request, response, or objection is not signed, it shall be 

stricken unless it is signed promptly after the omission is called 

to the attention of the party making the request, response, or 

objection .... " Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(g). In the instant case, the 

Supplemental Responses were neither initially nor subsequently 

signed and were thus appropriately stricken. Baird argues, 

however, that the court not only relied on Rule 26(g) to strike 

the Supplemental Responses but also as the source of authority for 

imposing monetary sanctions on her. 

The court's memorandum opinion of March 1, 1990, addresses 

Rule 26(g) at length, including some speculative discussion about 

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Appellate Case: 90-6134 Document: 010110097277 Date Filed: 12/19/1990 Page: 3 
what might have occurred had the pleading in question been signed. 

In that case, surmised the court, it would have found that Baird's 

Supplemental Responses were "interposed for (an) improper 

purpose," thus justifying the imposition of sanctions pursuant to 

the plain language of Rule 26. The district court's discussion of 

"improper purposes" within the meaning of Rule 26 is extensive, 

carrying over into other segments of the opinion and confusing the 

basis for sanctions. Because the pleading was never signed, 

further analysis of the appropriateness of the sanctions awarded 

against Baird must be made absent reliance on Rule 26(g)'s 

"improper purpose" language. 

Baird turns next to Rule 16(f) of the Federal Rules of Civil 

Procedure. In pertinent part, Rule 16(f) provides: "If a party 

or party's attorney fails to obey a scheduling or pretrial 

order ••• or if a party or party's attorney fails to participate 

in good faith, the judge, upon motion or the judge's own initiative, may make such orders with regard thereto as are just. 

Quite simply, Baird asserts that Rule 16(f) sanctions were 

II . . . 

improper because the district court's scheduling order was never 

violated. Baird argues that both parties had a continuing obligation to supplement discovery and that the Supplemental Responses 

fell squarely within this continuing obligation, regardless of the 

specifics of the court's scheduling order. 

In reviewing a decision for sanctions levied pursuant to 

Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 16(f), our standard of review is 

whether the district court abused its discretion in imposing the 

sanctions. Nat'l. Hockey League v. Metro. Hockey Club, Inc., 427 

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Appellate Case: 90-6134 Document: 010110097277 Date Filed: 12/19/1990 Page: 4 
U.S. 639, 642 (1976); M.E.N. Co. v. Control Fluidics, Inc., 834 

F.2d 869, 872 (10th Cir. 1987). The parameters of this discretion 

are "very broad" in light of the underlying purposes of ·the rule, 

to enhance docket management and avoid unnecessary burdens on the 

court or on the parties to the litigation. In re Sanction of 

Baker, 744 F.2d 1438, 1440-41 (10th Cir. 1984) (en bane), cert. 

denied, 471 U.S. 1014 (1985). 

In this case, the court found that the filing of the Supplemental Responses on the eve of trial and two months after the 

discovery cut-off date not only technically violated the court's 

scheduling order but, perhaps even more importantly, vitiated its 

underlying intent of expeditious and fair trial management. In 

addition, Baird failed to establish that she had acted in good 

faith by withholding until the eleventh hour information she had 

discovered several weeks earlier. In setting forth on the record 

its justification for imposing sanctions, the court properly 

examined the degree of prejudice Royalty would suffer, the amount 

of interference with the judicial process that had occurred, and 

the degree of culpability attributable to Baird. Ocelot Oil Corp. 

v. Sparrow Indus., 847 F.2d 1458, 1465 (10th Cir. 1988). The 

district court then concluded that the violations of Rule 16(f) 

warranted the imposition of sanctions. Under an abuse of discretion standard, we cannot disagree. 1 

1 Our decision is neither based on nor controlled by G.J.B. & 

Assocs. v. Singleton, 913 F.2d 824 (10th Cir. 1990). Because 

further argument distinguishing this case would be of no help, 

appellant's motion for leave to supplement its brief on this point 

is denied. 

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• 

Baird finally argues that the district court based its order 

on factual errors, and that the order, therefore, must be vacated. 

This court will reverse a district court only when the findings of 

fact on which the decision rests are "clearly erroneous." United 

States v. U.S. Gypsum Co., 333 U.S. 364, 394-95 (1948); Fed. R. 

Civ. P. 52(a). We cannot reverse the district court simply 

because, had we been the triers of fact, we might have decided the 

case differently. Anderson v. Bessemer City, 470 U.S. 564, 573 

(1884). In this case, we are not left with a "definite and firm 

conviction" that an error has been made. 

The decision of the district court is accordingly AFFIRMED. 

ENTERED FOR THE COURT 

Stephen H. Anderson 

Circuit Judge 

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