FOR PUBLICATION

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

ISLAMIC SHURA COUNCIL OF

SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA; COUNCIL

ON AMERICAN ISLAMIC RELATIONS -

CALIFORNIA; ISLAMIC CENTER OF

SAN GABRIEL VALLEY; ISLAMIC

CENTER OF HAWTHORNE; WEST

COAST ISLAMIC CENTER; HUMAN

ASSISTANCE AND DEVELOPMENT

INTERNATIONAL, INC.; MUZAMMIL

SIDDIQI; SHAKEEL SYED; HUSSAM

AYLOUSH; MOHAMMED ABDUL

ALEEM; RAFE HUSAIN,

Plaintiffs-Appellees,

v.

FEDERAL BUREAU OF

INVESTIGATION; UNITED STATES

DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE,

Defendants-Appellants.

No. 12-55305

D.C. No.

8:07-cv-01088-

CJC-AN

OPINION

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Central District of California

Cormac J. Carney, District Judge, Presiding

Argued and Submitted

June 26, 2013—Seattle, Washington
2 ISLAMIC SHURA COUNCIL OF SO. CAL. V. FBI

Filed July 31, 2013

Before: Mary M. Schroeder, Richard C. Tallman,

and Milan D. Smith, Jr., Circuit Judges.

Per Curiam Opinion

SUMMARY*

Sanctions/Fed. R. Civ. P. 11(c)

The panel reversed the district court’s order granting the

Islamic Shura Council of Southern California’s motion for

sanctions under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 11(c), and

vacated the district court’s order awarding fees.

The panel noted that before Shura Council filed its motion

for sanctions, the FBI had already “corrected” the challenged

pleadings and provided all the additional documents it was

obligated to provide under the Freedom of Information Act

(FOIA) to the district court in an in camera proceeding. 

Shura Council moved for sanctions long after the district

court had ruled on the adequacy of the government’s eventual

compliance with FOIA, and a fortiori after it had ruled the

FBI’s original response had been inadequate and misleading. 

The panel held that the motions for sanctions should not have

been granted because it was made after the “judicial rejection

of the offending contention.” Advisory Committee’s Notes

to the 1993 Amendments to Rule 11. 

* This summary constitutes no part of the opinion of the court. It has

been prepared by court staff for the convenience of the reader.
ISLAMIC SHURA COUNCIL OF SO. CAL. V. FBI 3

COUNSEL

Stuart F. Delery, Acting Assistant Attorney General, Andre

Birotte, Jr., United States Attorney, Beth S. Brinkmann

(argued), Deputy Assistant Attorney General, Michael S.

Raab and Daniel Tenny, Department of Justice, Washington,

D.C., for Defendants-Appellants.

Ahilan T. Arulanantham (argued), ACLU Foundation of

Southern California, Los Angeles, California, for PlaintiffsAppellees.

Clare Pastore, USC Gould School of Law, Los Angeles,

California, for Amici Curiae Professors of Legal Ethics.

OPINION

PER CURIAM:

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (“FBI”) appeals the

district court’s order granting the Islamic Shura Council of

Southern California’s (“Shura Council”) motion for sanctions

under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 11(c). See Islamic

Shura Council of S. Cal. v. FBI, 278 F.R.D. 538, 548 (C.D.

Cal. 2011). The FBI argues that the sanctions order must be

reversed because the FBI could not avail itself of the safe

harbor provision of Rule 11(c)(2). We agree, and

consequently reverse the district court’s award of sanctions.1

1 The factual and procedural history of this case is described in the

district court’s order granting Shura Council’s motion for sanctions. See

Islamic Shura Council, 278 F.R.D. at 539–42; see also Islamic Shura
4 ISLAMIC SHURA COUNCIL OF SO. CAL. V. FBI

“An appellate court should apply an abuse-of-discretion

standard in reviewing all aspects of a district court’s Rule 11

determination.” Cooter & Gell v. Hartmarx Corp., 496 U.S.

384, 405 (1990). “A district court would necessarily abuse its

discretion if it based its ruling on an erroneous view of the

law or on a clearly erroneous assessment of the evidence.” 

Id.

A party may move for Rule 11 sanctions if its adversary

makes a frivolous filing or otherwise makes a contention for

an improper purpose. G.C. & K.B. Investments, Inc. v.

Wilson, 326 F.3d 1096, 1109 (9th Cir. 2003). Such a motion

may not be filed, however, unless there is strict compliance

with Rule 11’s safe harbor provision. See Holgate v.

Baldwin, 425 F.3d 671, 678 (9th Cir. 2005) (holding that we

“enforce [Rule 11’s] safe harbor provision strictly”); see also

Ridder v. City of Springfield, 109 F.3d 288, 296 (6th Cir.

1997) (noting that “Rule 11 cases emerging in the wake of the

1993 amendments [to Rule 11] have found [compliance with]

the ‘safe harbor’ provision to be an absolute requirement.”). 

That provision provides that anymotion for sanctions must be

served on the offending party at least 21 days before the

motion is filed with the court. Fed. R. Civ. P. 11(c)(2). The

safe harbor provision further dictates that the motion may not

be filed if the offending party timely “withdraw[s] or

appropriatelycorrect[s]” the challenged contention during the

safe harbor period. Id. The purpose of the safe harbor

provision is to give the offending party an opportunity to

correct or withdraw its problematic pleading, and “thereby

escape sanctions.” Barber v. Miller, 146 F.3d 707, 710 (9th

Cir. 1998) (emphasis in original).

Council of S. Cal. v. FBI (“Islamic Shura Council II”), 635 F.3d 1160,

1162–63 (9th Cir. 2011).
ISLAMIC SHURA COUNCIL OF SO. CAL. V. FBI 5

Rule 11 is intended to deter baseless filings in district

court and imposes a duty of “reasonable inquiry” so that

anything filed with the court is “well grounded in fact, legally

tenable, and not interposed for any improper purpose.” 

Cooter & Gell, 496 U.S. at 393 (internal quotation marks

omitted). Therefore, fee sanctions compensate a party for the

costs of enforcing the rule when the party taking the

challenged position has refused to withdraw or correct it. 

Fed. R. Civ. P. 11(c)(2). Motions for Rule 11 attorney’s fees

cannot be granted after the district court has decided the

merits of the underlying dispute giving rise to the

questionable filing. This is because once the court has

decided the underlying dispute, the motion for fees cannot

serve Rule 11’s purpose of judicial economy. See Advisory

Committee’s Notes to the 1993 Amendments to Rule 11

(noting that a party may not move for Rule 11 sanctions after

“judicial rejection of the offending contention”).

Shura Council argues that its motion complied with the

safe harbor provision of Rule 11. Shura Council notes that it

served its motion for sanctions on the FBI 25 days before it

filed the motion with the district court. Shura Council further

notes that the FBI did not withdraw or correct its challenged

pleadings during this 25-day period. What Shura Council

fails to observe, however, is that the FBI had already

“corrected” the challenged pleadings and provided all the

information it was obligated to provide to the district court

before Shura Council filed its motion for sanctions. The FBI

informed the court of the existence of additional documents

previously in an in camera proceeding. Islamic Shura

Council, 278 F.R.D. at 541. The district court ruled that the

FBI should have told the court about these documents at the

pleading stage of the litigation, when the FBI responded to

Shura Council’s 2007 FOIA complaint with redacted
6 ISLAMIC SHURA COUNCIL OF SO. CAL. V. FBI

documents the FBI claimed were “outside the scope” of

Shura Council’s request. Islamic Shura Council of S. Cal. v.

FBI, 779 F. Supp. 2d 1114, 1125 (C.D. Cal. 2011); see also

Islamic Shura Council II, 635 F.3d at 1166.

No party now disputes, however, that the FBI provided

the district court with a complete and accurate account of the

facts of this case during the in camera sessions. The district

court concluded that, in light of the FBI’s in camera

submissions, Shura Council was “not entitled to any further

information regarding the Government’s previous searches

for documents, and that the Government need not conduct

any additional searches for responsive documents.” Islamic

Shura Council, 278 F.R.D. at 542. Shura Council has not

appealed that determination.

Shura Council moved for sanctions long after the district

court had ruled on the adequacy of the government’s eventual

compliance with FOIA, and a fortiori after it had ruled the

FBI’s original response had been inadequate and misleading. 

See Islamic Shura Council II, 635 F.3d at 1163. We

recognize that because of the in camera nature of the

proceedings, Shura Council could not have moved for

sanctions before the inadequacy of the FBI’s original

response was made known to the court. Nevertheless, the

motion for sanctions was made after “judicial rejection of the

offending contention.” Advisory Committee’s Notes to the

1993 Amendments to Rule 11. The motion for sanctions

should not have been granted.

The order granting the motion for sanctions is

REVERSED and the order awarding fees VACATED.

Each party shall bear its own costs.