Opinion ID: 2259440
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Jemison's Involvement

Text: Dr. Jemison claims that because he was not a party to the underlying lawsuit, the court had no jurisdiction to assess attorneys' fees and punitive damages against him. The complaint names only a singular defendant, National Baptist Convention, USA, Inc., listing President, T.J. Jemison, Sr. in lower-case letters as the person to be served with process. Similarly, the TRO application requests enjoining the National Baptist Convention, USA, Inc. and does not mention Jemison. Dr. Jemison, however, does not offer any legal support for the proposition that the court has no jurisdiction to sanction a non-party, and we conclude, in the particular circumstances of this case, that the court had the power to do so. The trial court's authority to sanction Dr. Jemison was based on his involvement in the fraudulent scheme and the filing of the suit that arose from it, even though he was technically not a party. Jemison arranged for the filing of a collusive lawsuit and was actively involved in the submission of forged documents to the court. The evidence showed that Jemison wired legal fees directly to Mr. Mundy, knowing that Mundy was filing the suit. Jemison also forwarded to Mundy a letter to himself from Dr. Allen, referring to complaints about election irregularities, in order to bolster the TRO application. This letter was written by Dr. Allen at the request of Dr. Jemison and simply acknowledged complaints that Jemison himself had made. Probably the most egregious of Jemison's activities was the fabrication of an exchange of letters between himself and Nixon, which he hoped would lend credence to the suggestion of massive irregularities so as to require court intervention. The letter bearing Nixon's signature was never seen by Nixon; it had been forged by Jemison and Fleming. The letter signed by Jemison was carefully tailored to respond to the fabricated letter which purportedly came from Nixon. Both letters were then sent to Mr. Mundy, along with the letter from Dr. Allen. Jemison contends (without citing a single case) that because he was not a named party to the litigation, the trial court had no power to impose sanctions on him for his involvement in the fraudulent activities which culminated in the filing of a collusive lawsuit. But whether he was or was not a party is not the real issue. Rather, as appellees point out, the issue is whether the trial court had personal jurisdiction over Dr. Jemison which would enable the court to impose sanctions on him for his wrongful conduct. [5] We note, first of all, that Jemison never raised his not a party claim in the trial court until long after the sanctions order was entered. It first surfaced in his motion for reconsideration (which we shall address in part V of this opinion), filed more than eight months after issuance of the order. It is settled law that a lack of personal jurisdiction can be waived, and we conclude that Jemison waived it in this case by failing to raise it at any time before filing the motion for reconsideration. We agree with appellees that one cannot, after receiving an unfavorable ruling from the trial judge, concoct objections for use on appeal. Copeland v. Marshall, 205 U.S.App.D.C. 390, 415, 641 F.2d 880, 905 (1980) (en banc). But even assuming, for the sake of argument, that the claim was adequately preserved by its inclusion in the motion for reconsideration, we would have to reject it. The Supreme Court has stated that if in the informed discretion of the court, neither the statute nor the rules are up to the task, the court may safely rely on its inherent power to sanction those who engage in bad faith conduct in the course of litigation. Chambers v. NASCO, Inc., 501 U.S. 32, 50, 111 S.Ct. 2123, 115 L.Ed.2d 27 (1991). Although in Chambers the sanctioned person was an actual party to the case, a recent case in the Ninth Circuit used similar reasoning to affirm the imposition of attorneys' fees against a non-party, in circumstances comparable to what we have here. Corder v. Howard Johnson & Co., 53 F.3d 225 (9th Cir.1994), involved a dispute over the management of a private pension plan; the suit alleged a breach of fiduciary duty by the plan's investment advisor. After ruling on the merits of the underlying claim, the trial court awarded attorneys' fees against Gary Baugh, the president of the company that had established the plan. Even though he was not a party to the litigation in his individual capacity, [6] the court found that Mr. Baugh had induced the Beneficiaries to sue [the investment advisor] and was motivated to do so to spread the loss resulting from the Beneficiaries' action against him. Id. at 232. Expressly rejecting Baugh's claim that the trial court had erred in assessing attorneys' fees against him because he was not a party, the court held that even in the absence of statutory authority, a court may impose attorney's fees against a non-party as an exercise of the court's inherent power to impose sanctions to curb abusive litigation practices. Id. (citations omitted). Similarly, in Lockary v. Kayfetz, 974 F.2d 1166 (9th Cir.1992), cert. denied, 508 U.S. 931, 113 S.Ct. 2397, 124 L.Ed.2d 298 (1993), the same court affirmed the imposition of sanctions on a non-party corporation (PLF) which had contacted and organized the plaintiffs and paid for the litigation ... [and had] sometimes... held itself out as the representative of the plaintiffs, sometimes as the employer of the plaintiffs' lawyers, and always as the entity directing the litigation and calling the shots. Id. at 1168. After the case was resolved against the plaintiffs, the trial court imposed sanctions on PLF, the entity which had controlled the litigation ... and was, in the court's view, responsible for the substantial abuse of the court system. Id. at 1169. Relying heavily on Chambers v. NASCO, Inc., supra , the Court of Appeals upheld this ruling as a proper exercise of the trial court's inherent powers to sanction PLF as the responsible entity. Id. at 1170. We agree with the reasoning of the Ninth Circuit in these two cases and adopt it here. We hold that the trial court had the inherent power to sanction Dr. Jemison, given the clear proof of his flagrant abuse of the judicial process. Like Mr. Baugh in the Corder case and PLF in the Lockary case, Dr. Jemison was deeply involved in the fraudulent scheme from the very beginning. He took an active part in the planning of the litigation and in the preparation of the false documents on which the TRO request was based. The evidence clearly showed that Jemison, along with Fleming and Nixon, was at the very heart of the fraud. We reject his argument that the evidence was insufficient to support the court's imposition of sanctions.