Opinion ID: 784283
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Hawk's Testimony

Text: 21 Let us assume for the moment that Hawk knew nothing at all about the settlement in which he was intervening and in fact thought he was appearing in court on October 4, 1999 to contest a traffic ticket. What would that teach us about Selden and Rosenthal's purpose for seeking intervention? Certainly, we could infer that whatever Selden and Rosenthal's purpose was in seeking intervention, it was their own and was not attributable to Hawk. However, it would be improper to infer from this evidence alone that Selden and Rosenthal's purpose was extortion. Selden and Rosenthal may have been legitimately concerned that the settlement was inadequate and initiated the intervention for that reason. Even if they were not, they may have been motivated to improve the settlement for the class and to thereby recover a fee, which, as discussed supra, is not improper if the objection is non-frivolous. 22 Although it involves an award of attorney's fees rather than Rule 11 sanctions, we find Rothenberg v. Security Mgmt. Co., Inc. to be instructive on this point. See 736 F.2d 1470, 1472 (11th Cir.1984). In Rothenberg, Jack and Shirley Rothenberg had filed individual and derivative actions against Security Management Corporation. When their derivative actions were dismissed, the district court awarded attorney's fees to the defendant finding that the derivative actions were brought in bad faith. On appeal, the Eleventh Circuit considered the two sets of findings on which the district court based its award: 23 In the first set, the [district] court recited those facts which supported dismissal of both Jack's and Shirley's derivative actions: Jack did not own stock in the corporation at the time the derivative suit was filed and Shirley had not read the complaint, had no personal knowledge of the facts surrounding the allegations made in the complaint, and displayed an obvious unwillingness to learn about the suit by not acquiring more than a rudimentary understanding of the case.  (citation omitted) The second set of findings relates to appellants' motive for bringing the suit: the Rothenbergs brought the derivative actions as leverage to enhance their personal claims. 24 Id. (emphasis added). The Eleventh Circuit vacated the district court's award, holding that in determining the propriety of the bad faith fee award, the inquiry should focus primarily on the conduct and motive of a party (the second set of findings) rather than on what it called the validity of the case (the first set of findings). Id. (citations omitted). The Eleventh Circuit, found, in essence, that Shirley's complete lack of familiarity with the details of the suit was of minimal relevance in determining whether she brought the suit for an improper purpose. 25 If it is fruitless for a court to attempt to determine the motive of a named plaintiff based on his or her ignorance of the case, it would be an even greater inferential leap to use the named plaintiff's ignorance to determine the motive of his or her attorney. In fact, the district court implicitly recognized the limited value of determining an attorney's motive on the basis of the breadth of his client's knowledge when it declined to impose sanctions on another intervenor, Mr. Hoy, who saw his own complaint for the first time when he appeared for the hearing on the order to show cause. See App. at 241; cf. App. at 206-08 (class counsel also asserted that Hawk was better prepared in his questions than Hoy and another intervenor who was not sanctioned). We find that, in and of itself, the plaintiff's level of familiarity with the details of his case to be of little relevance in determining the specific purpose of his counsel in initiating such case. 1 It certainly does not show that Selden and Rosenthal were attempting extortion.