United States District Court

for the

Southern District of Florida

Uniq Branch Office Mexico, S.A. de 

C.V., and Jacobo Helfon Daniel, 

Plaintiffs,

v.

Steel Media Group, LLC, and 

others, Defendants.

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Civil Action No. 22-23876-Civ-Scola

Order on Motion for Rule 11 Sanctions

This matter is before the Court on Defendant Gisela Coloma’s motion for 

Rule 11 sanctions against Plaintiffs Uniq Branch Office Mexico, S.A. de C.V., 

Jacobo Helfon Daniel, and their counsel. (ECF No. 166.) The Plaintiffs have 

responded (ECF No. 173), and Coloma filed a reply (ECF No. 176). For the 

reasons set forth below, the Court denies the motion. (Mot., ECF No. 166.)

Rule 11 sanctions are appropriate “(1) when a party files a pleading that 

has no reasonable factual basis; (2) when the party files a pleading that is 

based on a legal theory that has no reasonable chance of success and that 

cannot be advanced as a reasonable argument to change existing law; and (3) 

when the party files a pleading in bad faith for an improper purpose.” Jones v. 

Int’l Riding Helmets, Ltd., 49 F.3d 692, 694 (11th Cir. 1995). “Rule 11 is 

intended to deter claims with no factual or legal basis at all; creative claims, 

coupled even with ambiguous or inconsequential facts, may merit dismissal, 

but not punishment.” Davis v. Carl, 906 F.2d 533, 538 (11th Cir. 1990) 

(emphasis added). Sanctions cannot be imposed where the evidence supporting 

a plaintiff’s claim “is reasonable, but simply weak or self-serving.” Thompson v. 

RelationServe Media, Inc., 610 F.3d 628, 665 (11th Cir. 2010) (quotations and 

emphasis omitted); see also Lawson v. Sec’y, Dep’t of Corr., 563 F. App’x 678, 

681 (11th Cir. 2014) (“The fact that [a plaintiff] has provided some evidence [of 

his factual contentions] is sufficient to establish that Rule 11 sanctions are 

inappropriate.”). Rule 11 “is an extraordinary remedy, one to be exercised with 

extreme caution.” Operating Eng’rs Pension Trust v. A-C Co., 859 F.2d 1336, 

1345 (9th Cir. 1988).

Coloma argues that “Plaintiffs, as well as their counsel, should be

sanctioned for their harassing, frivolous, and unsupportable litigation against 

Defendant Coloma” because the unjust enrichment claim against Coloma has 

no basis in fact or law. (Mot. at 1, 9.) In fact, Coloma’s motion for sanctions 

Case 1:22-cv-23876-RNS Document 181 Entered on FLSD Docket 04/05/2024 Page 1 of 3
appears closer to harassing, frivolous, and unsupportable behavior. She 

spends the bulk of the motion arguing that the Plaintiffs’ substantive 

allegations lack support, but “Rule 11 should not be used to raise issues as to 

the legal sufficiency of a claim or defense that more appropriately can be 

disposed of by a motion to dismiss, a motion for judgment on the pleadings, a 

motion for summary judgment, or a trial on the merits.” In re New Motor 

Vehicles Canadian Export Antitrust Litigation, 244 F.R.D. 70, 74 (D. Me. 2007) 

(denying Rule 11 motion without prejudice to its renewal “if and when 

[Defendant] obtains summary judgment”) (cleaned up); see Safe-Strap Co., Inc. 

v. Koala Corp., 270 F. Supp. 2d 407, 417-21 (S.D.N.Y. 2003) (discussing that 

Rule 11 sanctions are not a substitute for motions for summary judgment).

Coloma’s motion for sanctions was filed before the Court ruled on her motion 

for summary judgment (which it has subsequently denied), requiring the 

Plaintiffs and the Court to needlessly expend resources to address the same or 

similar arguments made in the summary judgment motion. The only other 

argument that Coloma makes is that the Plaintiffs continue to litigate in order 

to bankrupt Coloma. (Mot. at 7, 9-10.) But the mere cost of defending against 

non-frivolous litigation does not justify the imposition of Rule 11 sanctions. See 

Baker Botts L.L.P. v. ASARCO LLC, 576 U.S. 121, 126 (2015) (“Civil litigation in 

the federal courts is often an expensive affair, and each party, win or lose, 

generally bears many of its own litigation expenses . . . .”).

Finally, the Court need not consider a motion for sanctions midway 

through litigation. The Rules Advisory Committee “anticipated that in the case 

of pleadings the sanctions issue under Rule 11 normally will be determined at 

the end of the litigation . . . .” Fed. R. Civ. P. 11 (Advisory Committee Notes, 

1983 Amendment); see also Bigford v. BESM, Inc., No. 12-61215-CIV, 2012 WL 

12886184, at *1–2 (S.D. Fla. Oct. 12, 2012) (Seltzer, Mag. J.) (citing 

Lichtenstein v. Consolidated Serv. Group, Inc., 173 F.3d 17, 23 (1st Cir. 1999) 

(emphasizing that “[c]ourts should, and often do, defer consideration of certain 

kinds of sanctions motions until the end of [the litigation] to gain a full sense of 

the case and to avoid unnecessary delay of disposition of the case on the 

merits. This is a sensible practice where [as here] the thrust of the sanctions 

motion is that institution of the case itself was improper”)). Here, Coloma 

objects to the Plaintiffs’ filing and continuing to pursue the claims against 

Coloma, and requests fees and costs for the entirety of litigation. Even if the 

motion was meritorious, the Court would not need to consider the issue 

contemporaneously with a motion for summary judgment. 

The Court therefore denies Defendant Coloma’s motion for Rule 11 

sanctions. (ECF No. 166.)

Case 1:22-cv-23876-RNS Document 181 Entered on FLSD Docket 04/05/2024 Page 2 of 3
Done and ordered at Miami, Florida on April 5, 2024.

________________________________

Robert N. Scola, Jr.

United States District Judge

Case 1:22-cv-23876-RNS Document 181 Entered on FLSD Docket 04/05/2024 Page 3 of 3