Opinion ID: 527112
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Motion for Reconsideration or a Stay of the Sanctions

Text: 27 The Townsends' attorney ran afoul of the district court a second time, this time for $500, when he filed a motion to reconsider the $3000 sanction or, in the alternative, to stay its imposition pending appeal. In imposing the second sanction, the district court noted that, under an obvious and well known principle of law, it no longer had jurisdiction over its original sanctions order, which had already been appealed by the attorney. The new sanction the court imposed was directed at the request for a stay as well, for the court concluded that the attorney had failed to comply with the requirement of Fed.R.Civ.P. 62(d) that a supersedeas bond be procured in order to obtain a stay pending appeal. 10 In examining the request for reconsideration of the sanctions and the waiver of the bond requirement, for the reasons explained supra at p. 793, we start from the premise that, if the position of the Townsends' attorney in either respect was not frivolous, the second sanction order must be vacated. 28 We turn first to the attorney's request that the sanction order be stayed. While Rule 62(d) generally requires the posting of a bond in order to obtain a stay of a money judgment (or the payment of money sanctions) pending appeal, courts have deviated from the terms of Rule 62 when the equities so required. See, e.g., Intern. Telemeter v. Hamlin Intern. Corp., 754 F.2d 1492, 1495 (9th Cir.1985) ([a]lthough Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 62 provides that a supersedeas bond may be used to stay execution of a judgment pending appeal, the court has discretion to allow other forms of judgment guarantee) (citing Poplar Grove Planting and Refining Co. v. Bache Halsey Stuart, Inc., 600 F.2d 1189, 1191 (5th Cir.1979)). See also Federal Prescription Service, Inc. v. American Pharmaceutical Ass'n, 636 F.2d 755, 759-61 (D.C.Cir.1980) (Rule 62 in no way necessarily implies that filing a bond is the only way to obtain a stay) (emphasis in original); 7 Moore, Federal Practice (2d Ed.1987) p 62.06 at 62-33. 29 While the most common justification for allowing alternatives to a supersedeas bond is the financial hardship that the bond may impose on appellants, see Poplar Grove Planting, 600 F.2d at 1191, the district court has broad discretionary power to waive the bond requirement if it sees fit. The appellant is himself an officer of the court and a failure to comply with a court-ordered sanction could subject him to a variety of collateral sanctions (including professional suspension and disbarment) not generally operative against others. Under these circumstances, a court could well conclude that the supersedeas bond, essentially a judgment insurance policy, is unnecessary. We need not so hold here, nor need we examine the question further; our current concern is only whether, by failing to post a bond and asking instead that the court grant a stay, the Townsends' attorney engaged in sanctionable conduct. Given his unique status as an officer of the court and the fact that courts have in the past allowed alternatives to the procedure described in Rule 62(d), we cannot say that the attorney's attempt to have the court exercise its discretionary power and issue a stay was frivolous within the meaning of Rule 11. 30 The Plan's attorneys, again apparently realizing a problem with the district court's order, argue that discussion of the exceptions to Rule 62(d) represents an impermissible post hoc rationalization of the sanctionable conduct of the Townsends' attorney. We disagree. The purpose of Rule 11 is to ensure that attorneys do not bring motions which are wholly lacking in factual and/or legal foundation. The motion we consider here, inasmuch as it requested a discretionary stay from the district judge, sought a remedy approved in this and other circuits. Thus, no matter what the Townsends' attorney may himself have considered the law to be, his motion was not objectively unreasonable. The imposition of sanctions under Rule 11 was therefore unwarranted. Hudson, 836 F.2d at 1159 (conduct that is of objective reasonableness under the circumstances does not violate Rule 11). 11