Notice: This opinion is subject to formal revision before publication in the Atlantic 

and Maryland Reporters. Users are requested to notify the Clerk of the Court of 

any formal errors so that corrections may be made before the bound volumes go 

to press.

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA COURT OF APPEALS

No. 22-FS-569

IN RE PETITION OF S.U. & C.U.; C.J., APPELLANTS.

Appeal from the Superior Court

of the District of Columbia

(2021-ADASLD-000167)

(Hon. Andrea L. Hertzfeld, Trial Judge)

(Submitted February 7, 2023 Decided April 13, 2023)

S.U. & C.U., pro se.

C.J., pro se. 

Before DEAHL, HOWARD, and ALIKHAN, Associate Judges.

ALIKHAN, Associate Judge: Appellants S.U. and C.U. challenge the trial 

court’s award of monetary sanctions against them. Because the trial court properly 

awarded these sanctions under its inherent powers, and because appellants’

miscellaneous arguments lack merit, we affirm.

I. Factual Background and Procedural History

S.U. (a transgender man) and appellee C.J. (a cisgender woman) were 

involved in an interpersonal relationship from 2004 to 2016. During their 
2

relationship, C.J. gave birth to four children: the first she conceived through 

intrauterine insemination, and the others through in vitro fertilization. S.U. is listed 

as the father on each child’s birth certificate, and C.J. is listed as their mother.

Following the birth of their youngest, S.U. filed for sole legal custody of all 

four children in family court in West Virginia, where they lived. He contended that 

he and C.J. had signed agreements dictating that they would share custody of their 

first child and that he would have sole custody of the other three. The court found 

that S.U. had failed to present convincing evidence that C.J. had actually signed 

these agreements, and the court therefore refused to enforce them. After much 

litigation—and based on some troubling findings about S.U.’s behavior—the court 

granted sole physical custody to C.J. and suspended all visitation by S.U. except for 

telephone and Skype contact.1

S.U. appealed to the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals, which 

affirmed. After several additional appeals by S.U., the West Virginia Supreme Court

of Appeals issued a memorandum decision “stress[ing] two important rulings” that 

it had made in its many prior decisions regarding this custody dispute. First, “there 

 

1 In one of its orders, the Superior Court noted that the West Virginia trial 

court later suspended all contact after S.U. violated that court’s instructions. 

Although we do not necessarily call that finding into question, we do not rely on it, 

as support for it does not appear in the record on appeal.
3

was never a valid, enforceable gestational surrogacy agreement between [S.U.] and 

[C.J.].” Second, C.J. “is the legal mother of all four children.”

Less than a month after the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals issued 

that decision, S.U. and his wife C.U. filed petitions to adopt the three youngest 

children in the Superior Court of the District of Columbia. All three sworn, notarized 

petitions are functionally identical. In them, S.U. first listed his residential address 

as “4035 Grant St NE, Washington, DC 20019,” but crossed that address out and 

handwrote above it: “712 H St NE, Suite 1433 Washington, DC 20002.” The 

petitions further allege that all three children had been living with S.U. and C.U. 

since 2016. At no point do the petitions mention C.J. or the West Virginia litigation. 

Alongside each petition, S.U. filed (1) a gestational surrogate consent form 

that C.J. appears to have signed, and (2) a “Natural Parent’s Affidavit Concerning 

Parentage.” In the affidavit, S.U. swore that the second biological parent of the three 

children was an anonymous donor, and that the resulting embryos were transferred 

“into the uterus of a third-party gestational surrogate who gestated [his] children to 

birth.” He further swore that “[o]nly [S.U.] and the anonymous donor can be the 

biological parents” of the three children. Like the petitions it supported, the affidavit 

makes no mention of the fact that the West Virginia courts had adjudicated C.J. to 

be the children’s legal mother. 
4

Based on the representations in the petitions and exhibits, the Superior Court 

granted all three adoptions. When C.J. learned of the orders, she moved to intervene. 

The court held a hearing on the matter, during which C.J. testified that (1) the three 

children had been living with her since February 2018; (2) they had not seen S.U. 

since August 2018; and (3) none of the children had ever been to the District of 

Columbia.

The court pressed S.U. and C.U. on whether they actually resided in the 

District. They admitted that the H Street address listed in their petitions was not a 

residential address, but a mail forwarding center. S.U. also acknowledged that the 

Grant Street house was only a short-term Airbnb rental—and that the children had 

never resided in the District. For her part, C.U. confessed that she had never lived

in the District and intended to file her taxes in West Virginia.

The trial court then issued an order vacating all three adoption decrees. It 

found that neither S.U. nor C.U. had ever actually resided in the District and 

accordingly held that it had lacked jurisdiction to issue the decrees pursuant to D.C. 

Code § 16-301(b). S.U. and C.U. appealed that order, and we affirmed. In re 

Petition of S.U. & C.U., No. 22-FS-98, Mem. Op. & J. at 2 (D.C. Nov. 15, 2022).

While that appeal was pending, the trial court held a hearing regarding an oral 

motion that C.J. had made for sanctions. C.J. attended the hearing, but S.U. and 
5

C.U. did not. C.J. testified about S.U.’s attempts to file fraudulent lawsuits in 

multiple jurisdictions, recounting that S.U. had bluntly admitted to her that his 

purpose in filing these suits was not only to gain custody of the children, “but also 

to harass her and to financially drain her.” The trial court fully credited C.J.’s

testimony. 

The court thereafter granted C.J.’s sanctions motion. It found that the 

petitions were “vexatious, harassing and duplicative[, and] were pursued in badfaith.” Specifically, it explained that S.U. and C.U. had “committed a fraud upon 

th[e] Court, perjured themselves in sworn documents and in testimony at the January 

27, 2022 hearing, and attempted to use this Court’s authority to circumvent the valid, 

final order of another court to kidnap [the three youngest children] from their lawful 

parent.” 

The court accordingly awarded C.J. $71,631.23, citing its authority to impose 

sanctions both under Super. Ct. Dom. Rel. R. 11, as well as its “inherent power.” Of 

this amount, $62,534.23 went to fees C.J. incurred from work her attorney, Jeffrey 

Strange, had completed on matters for the Superior Court litigation and two directly 

related matters in West Virginia: S.U.’s demand that the West Virginia Supreme 

Court of Appeals honor the Superior Court’s adoption decrees and S.U.’s emergency 

motion in West Virginia to obtain physical custody of the children following the 
6

issuance of the decrees. The remaining $9,097 went to “travel, child care, and lost 

wages associated with [C.J.’s] travel to and appearances in this District.” S.U. and 

C.U. timely appealed the sanctions order.2

II. Standard of Review

We review a trial court’s sanctions award imposed under Super. Ct. Dom. Rel. 

R. 11—which is functionally identical to Super. Ct. Civ. R. 11—for abuse of 

discretion. Bredehoft v. Alexander, 686 A.2d 586, 594 (D.C. 1996). For sanctions 

imposed under a court’s inherent powers, we review the trial court’s predicate 

finding of bad faith for clear error, and its ultimate award for abuse of discretion.

Ginsberg v. Granados, 963 A.2d 1134, 1137 (D.C. 2009); Breezevale Ltd. v. 

Dickinson, 879 A.2d 957, 967 (D.C. 2005).

III. Discussion

S.U. and C.U. raise a litany of arguments on appeal. We reject all of them 

and affirm the trial court’s grant of sanctions.

A. Propriety of the Sanctions

S.U. and C.U. first argue that the trial court improperly imposed sanctions 

under Super. Ct. Dom. Rel. R. 11 because it failed to expressly consider certain 

 

2 The court also imposed a few other non-monetary sanctions, none of which 

S.U. and C.U. contest on appeal.
7

factors that we have suggested may be a mandatory part of the Rule 11 analysis. See 

Williams v. Bd. of Trs. of Mount Jezreel Baptist Church, 589 A.2d 901, 911-12 (D.C. 

1991) (listing four factors the trial court “should” consider). Even assuming that the 

court’s analysis would not pass muster under Rule 11’s strictures, the court 

nevertheless permissibly used attorney’s fees and costs to calculate a sanction under 

its “inherent power to police itself.” Upson v. Wallace, 3 A.3d 1148, 1168 (D.C. 

2010) (quoting Chambers v. NASCO, Inc., 501 U.S. 32, 46 (1991)).

Pursuant to that power, a “court may . . . award a sanction . . . to a prevailing 

party if the opposing party ‘acted in bad faith, vexatiously, wantonly, or for 

oppressive reasons.’” Id. (quoting Alyeska Pipeline Serv. Co. v. Wilderness Soc’y, 

421 U.S. 240, 258-59 (1975)). Unlike with Rule 11, a finding of bad faith is all that 

is required for a court to impose sanctions under its inherent powers. In re Jumper, 

909 A.2d 173, 176 (D.C. 2006).

Trial courts enjoy “considerable latitude” in deciding the type of sanctions to 

impose under their inherent powers. See Breezevale, 879 A.2d at 967. Where a 

party has initiated an entire lawsuit in bad faith, the court may award all legal 

expenses incurred by the defendant. Synanon Found., Inc. v. Bernstein, 517 A.2d

28, 38 (D.C. 1986). But courts are not limited to awards of attorney’s fees and costs; 

their ability to craft sanctions encompasses a significantly broader array of solutions. 
8

See Breezevale, 879 A.2d at 967 (affirming dismissal of entire suit); Auerbach v. 

Frank, 685 A.2d 404, 409 (D.C. 1996) (suggesting that imposing an injunction 

prohibiting a party from filing a simultaneous lawsuit in another jurisdiction would 

be permissible as long as the party bore “a very heavy burden of justification”). 

Where a court imposes sanctions under both Rule 11 and its inherent powers—but 

lacks a sufficient basis to do so under Rule 11—we may nonetheless find the error 

harmless if we determine that the inherent sanctions award was not infected by the 

error, as we conclude is the case here. Jemison v. Nat’l Baptist Convention, USA, 

Inc., 720 A.2d 275, 287 (D.C. 1998); see Ginsberg, 963 A.2d at 1137 (bad faith 

finding reviewed for clear error); Synanon Found., Inc., 517 A.2d at 38 (sanctions 

reviewed for abuse of discretion).

A review of the trial court’s order makes clear that the court issued its awards 

under both Super. Ct. Dom. Rel. R. 11 and its inherent powers. Drawing from the 

inherent powers standard, the court noted that it “ha[d] inherent authority to award 

sanctions in appropriate circumstances for intentional abuse of the litigation 

process,” authority that “is supplemented by Rule 11.” The court went on to explain 

that “the exercise of [its inherent] authority must be based upon a finding that a party 

has acted in bad faith, vexatiously, wantonly, or for oppressive reasons”—the very 

findings it expressly made later in its order. From this language, we surmise a clear 

intent by the trial court to impose sanctions under its inherent powers, and the 
9

requisite finding that S.U. and C.U. had initiated these adoption matters in bad faith 

is well-supported by the facts recounted above. Whether the trial court satisfied the 

standard for Rule 11 sanctions therefore is of no matter.

B. Amount and Form of the Award

The court awarded C.J. a total of $71,631.23, some of which was 

compensation for the work Mr. Strange had undertaken in the instant case and in two 

directly related matters in West Virginia, and the rest of which went to reimbursing 

C.J. for personal costs associated with the litigation, including travel, childcare, and 

lost wages. Both the amount and form of that award were proper. 

As to the amount, these expenses are well supported by the exhibits that C.J. 

submitted. One of them specifically set forth her personal costs, separated by type 

of expense (i.e., travel expenses, babysitting fees, and missed work). The other 

organized the amounts her attorney billed, separated by project. And two affidavits 

submitted by Mr. Strange explained his and his staff’s hourly rates. We are thus 

satisfied that the record supports the amount of sanctions awarded. See 1230-1250 

Twenty-Third St. Condo. Unit Owners Ass’n, v. Bolandz, 978 A.2d 1188, 1193 (D.C. 

2009) (affirming award where the party “outlined the fees by the stages in the 

proceeding . . . and included references to the corresponding invoices”).
10

As to form, given the trial court’s wide discretion to craft a sanction to punish 

bad-faith litigators and deter improper future conduct, Synanon Found., Inc., 517 

A.2d at 37, we see no issue with ordering S.U. and C.U. to pay all of the costs C.J. 

expended in defending against this matter, including personal costs and payments 

made to her attorney, see id. at 38 (noting that “where a suit has been filed in bad 

faith, the court has discretion to award the entire legal expenses incurred by the 

defendant”). The court here acted well within its discretion in awarding C.J. these 

sanctions under its inherent powers.3

S.U. and C.U. argue that an award of attorney’s fees was improper because 

C.J. appeared pro se in this case and was thus technically unrepresented by an 

attorney. Mr. Strange, whom she had employed to represent her in the many West 

Virginia actions, ghostwrote some documents for her, which C.J. then filed in 

Superior Court—and it is the cost of those ghostwritten documents that form a large 

 

3 Given this holding, we need not address S.U. and C.U.’s argument that these 

proceedings should have been governed by the Superior Court’s Adoption Rules, 

not its Domestic Relations Rules.
11

part of the sanctions award.4

 S.U. and C.U. suggest that an award of “attorney’s 

fees” for this work was improper, as C.J. was never actually represented by an 

attorney in Superior Court.

That argument fails in the context of this case—where the court awarded 

sanctions based on its inherent powers—because it makes no difference whether 

these expenses are properly categorized as attorney’s fees versus any other kind of 

cost. While proper categorization would likely matter in the context of a fee-shifting 

statute expressly cabined to “attorney’s fees,” that is not the case here. Cf. Upson, 3 

A.3d at 1165-68 (holding that an attorney who represents himself is not entitled to 

“attorney’s fees” under Rule 11); In re Estate of Mason, 732 A.2d 253, 254 (D.C. 

1999) (per curiam) (affirming the trial court’s exercise of discretion in refusing to 

 

4 While we are using the term “ghostwriting,” the D.C. Bar refers to the 

situation of “a lawyer who drafts a complaint or an appellate brief for a client to file 

pro se” as an example of an “unbundled service arrangement[].” D.C. Bar, Ethics 

Op. 330 (2005). The D.C. Bar has opined that this practice is permitted under the 

D.C. Rules of Professional Conduct and that the rules “do not articulate any 

requirement that attorneys must identify themselves to the court if they provide 

assistance to a pro se litigant in the preparation of documents to be filed in court.” 

Id.; see ABA Comm. on Ethics & Pro. Resp., Formal Op. 07-446 (2007) (opining

that lawyers may provide assistance to pro se parties without disclosing the nature 

or extent of their assistance); Ira P. Robbins, Ghostwriting: Filling in the Gaps of 

Pro Se Prisoners’ Access to the Courts, 23 Geo. J. Legal Ethics 271, 286-89 (2010) 

(noting that as of 2010, approximately half of the states that had considered the 

practice had explicitly permitted ghostwriting of legal pleadings); Jona 

Goldschmidt, In Defense of Ghostwriting, 29 Fordham Urb. L.J. 1145, 1146-47 

(2002) (outlining policy advantages of permitting ghostwriting).
12

award attorney’s fees incurred before the attorney was admitted to the Superior 

Court pro hac vice).5

 A court’s inherent powers give it broad authority to craft 

sanctions that it deems will punish and deter bad-faith litigation. See Breezevale, 

879 A.2d at 967, 970; Synanon Found., Inc., 517 A.2d at 38. That certainly includes 

the authority to award all costs the prevailing party expended as a result of such 

litigation, regardless of whether those fees were attorney’s fees qua attorney’s fees. 

Stated simply, Mr. Strange’s fees were indisputably a part of C.J.’s litigation 

expenses, so the court could properly order their reimbursement as a sanction under 

its inherent powers.

S.U. and C.U. also assert that Mr. Strange’s ghostwriting constituted the 

unauthorized practice of law, but that too fails. First, they do not explain how that 

would provide a basis to deny C.J. reimbursement for expenses incurred in litigating 

this suit. Second, and in any event, even if we assumed that Mr. Strange’s 

ghostwriting did qualify as practicing law “[i]n the District of Columbia” pursuant 

to D.C. App. R. 49(b)(3) and D.C. App. R 49(b)(3) cmt., an attorney like 

Mr. Strange who is not admitted in the District is still permitted to “provide legal 

 

5 To be clear, we are not addressing the merits of this argument—whether 

fee-shifting statutes limited to “attorney’s fees” permit an award of fees for 

ghostwritten work—one way or another. We simply emphasize that it has no 

application where a court has granted sanctions under its inherent powers, which 

authorize much broader forms of relief than just attorney’s fees.
13

services on a temporary basis . . . if the services . . . are in or reasonably related to a 

pending or potential proceeding before a court or other tribunal in another 

jurisdiction in which the person is admitted.” D.C. App. R. 49(c)(13)(A). We thus 

see no barrier to the services Mr. Strange rendered here.

C. Remaining Arguments

S.U. and C.U. raise a host of additional arguments that warrant only brief 

attention. First, they claim that “[t]he sanctions imposed are unconstitutional 

because they penalize [them] for exercising [their] Fourteenth Amendment rights of 

due process, equal protection, and rights surrounding the parent-child relationship.”6

 

This is simply inaccurate. The trial court awarded sanctions based upon its 

well-supported finding that S.U. and C.U. initiated this suit in bad faith, and we have 

held that “there is no right to access the courts to conduct vexatious litigation.” In 

re Sibley, 990 A.2d 483, 491 (D.C. 2010).

If S.U. and C.U. are claiming that they were denied procedural due process,

that gets them no further. As long as a party is placed on sufficient notice that it may 

be subject to sanctions, the court may decide sanctions based only on the parties’ 

briefings. Breezevale, 879 A.2d at 964-65. After the court placed S.U. and C.U. on 

 

6 The Fourteenth Amendment is not applicable in the District of Columbia, 

but due process and equal protection claims are cognizable under the Fifth 

Amendment. Bolling v. Sharpe, 347 U.S. 497, 500 (1954).
14

notice in its order vacating the adoption petitions that it was considering issuing 

sanctions against them, S.U. and C.U. filed two briefs contesting sanctions. That 

alone is sufficient process.7

 Id. What is more, S.U. and C.U. failed to attend the 

sanctions hearing (even though S.U. indicated that he would be available on the date 

it was scheduled) and they have not provided any excuse for their absence. Chavis 

v. Garrett, 419 F. Supp. 3d 24, 38 (D.D.C. 2019) (rejecting the plaintiff’s due process 

claim because “[a]t no point d[id] she allege that she availed herself of relevant 

procedures available to her under District of Columbia law”).

Second, S.U. and C.U. argue that the sanctions imposed by the court “give[] 

the appearance of vindictiveness.” A thorough review of the record has unearthed 

nothing to suggest that the trial court harbored an impermissible bias against S.U. or 

C.U., as opposed to a desire to deter frivolous filings and fraud on the court.

Third, S.U. and C.U. contend that “[t]he entirety of [their] actions was 

permitted by D.C. Code § 16-301 et. seq.; D.C. Code § 16-401 et. seq.; 42 U.S. Code 

§ 1983; and[] w[as] in-line [sic] with the Fourteenth Amendment.” For the reasons 

stated above, neither the Constitution nor Section 1983 protects bad-faith, fraudulent 

 

7 To the extent that S.U. and C.U. suggest in their brief that they were never 

given a copy of C.J.’s updated fee exhibits—on which the trial court based its final 

award—that is belied by the record. In their second sanctions brief, they recite fee 

amounts that only appear in the updated exhibits.
15

litigation. Neither does our adoption statute (Section 16-301 et seq.), nor our 

collaborative reproduction statute (Section 16-401 et seq.). If S.U. and C.U. are 

trying to reargue, as they did in West Virginia, that C.J.’s name should not have been 

placed on the children’s birth certificates, we must reject that argument because the 

issue was resolved in a final judgment in West Virginia, and we give that decision 

full faith and credit. See Nader v. Serody, 43 A.3d 327, 336 (D.C. 2012).

Fourth, S.U. and C.U. contest the trial court’s finding that S.U. was not a legal 

resident of the District. But we already affirmed that finding in S.U. and C.U.’s prior 

appeal. In re Petition of S.U. & C.U., Mem. Op. & J. at 2.

Fifth and finally, S.U. and C.U. argue that res judicata bars some or all of the 

fees that C.J. sought. They claim that she already requested compensation for the 

same fees in a West Virginia federal court, and that that court elected not to award 

fees for that work. This is simply based on a false factual premise. Neither the 

magistrate judge nor the district judge in the case S.U. and C.U. cite considered 

whether C.J. would be entitled to attorney’s fees. Omnibus R. & R., [C.J.] v. S.U., 

No. 1:22-cv-3 (N.D.W.V. Mar. 18, 2022); Order, [C.J.] v. S.U., No. 1:22-cv-3 

(N.D.W.V. Sept. 30, 2022). In fact, C.J. never even sought attorney’s fees in that 

matter. Docket, No. 1:22-cv-3 (N.D.W.V.); C.J. Mot. to Dismiss, No. 1:22-cv-3 

(N.D.W.V. Feb. 11, 2022). So the issue plainly did not receive the decision on the 
16

merits that is required to apply claim or issue preclusion. Modiri v. 1342 Rest. Grp., 

904 A.2d 391, 394 (D.C. 2006); Smith v. Greenway Apartments LP, 150 A.3d 1265, 

1272 (D.C. 2016). 

IV. Conclusion

For the foregoing reasons, the judgment of the Superior Court is affirmed.

So ordered.