Opinion ID: 6930059
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: ' Knipe v. Skinner

Text: In Knipe v. Skinner, 146 F.R.D. at 60-61, the district court concluded that Smith violated Rule 11 by filing a complaint that to the best of Smith’s “knowledge, information, and belief formed after reasonable inquiry” was not “warranted by existing law or a good faith argument for the extension, modification, or reversal of existing law;” Fed. R.Civ.P. 11. An attorney’s good faith belief in his or her argument must be supported by an objectively reasonable inquiry into its viability. As we stated in Eastway Const. Corp. v. City of New York, 762 F.2d 243, 253 (2d Cir.1985), “Rule 11 explicitly and unambiguously imposes an affirmative duty on each attorney to conduct a reasonable inquiry into the viability of a pleading before it is signed. Simply put, subjective good faith ... provides [no] safe harbor.” See also Mareno v. Rowe, 910 F.2d 1043, 1047 (2d Cir.1990), cert. denied, 498 U.S. 1028, 111 S.Ct. 681, 112 L.Ed.2d 673 (1991). We conclude that after an objectively reasonable investigation, no good, faith argument was advanced in support of the claims asserted in plaintiffs’ complaint. In Knipe v. Skinner, plaintiffs sued for damages, directly under the Constitution, see Bivens, 403. U.S. at 389, 91 S.Ct. at 2001, thirty-one government officials who perform discretionary functions. However, as the Supreme Court held in Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800, 818, 102 S.Ct. 2727, 2738, 73 L.Ed.2d 396 (1982), “government officials performing discretionary functions generally are shielded from liability for civil damages insofar as their conduct does not violate clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known.” Thus, plaintiffs could not have hoped to prevail in the Bivens action unless appellees’ alleged conduct was clearly viola-tive of plaintiffs’ constitutional rights at the time of appellees’ actions. A reasonable investigation of the law at the pertinent time would have revealed that appellees’ alleged conduct did not violate any clearly established constitutional rights of the plaintiffs. Plaintiffs’ complaint repeatedly alleged that FAA officials lack authority to commence certificate actions against alleged FAR violators, rather than impose civil money penalties. However, that supposed lack of authority was then, and is now, anything but clearly established. See Section 609 of the FA Act, 49 U.S.C. § 1429 (1988). Moreover, at the time of the actions alleged in the complaint, Go Leasing v. National Transp. Safety Bd., 800 F.2d 1514 (9th Cir.1986), in which Smith was counsel, had directly held that FAA officials had the requisite authority. In light of Go Leasing’s affirmance of the validity of the FAA enforcement procedures challenged by plaintiffs, Smith cannot credibly argue that appellees could reasonably have known in 1988 that their conduct violated clearly established constitutional rights. See Harlow, 457 U.S. at 818, 102 S.Ct. at 2738. Moreover, before the present action was brought, three other circuits had followed Go Leasing in cases in which Smith was again counsel. See Rochna v. National Transp. Safety Bd., 929 F.2d 18 (1st Cir.), cert. denied, — U.S. -, 112 S.Ct. 305, 116 L.Ed.2d 248 (1991); Tearney v. National Transp. Safety Bd., 868 F.2d 1451 (5th Cir.), cert. denied, 493 U.S. 937, 110 S.Ct. 333, 107 L.Ed.2d 322 (1989); Komjathy v. National Transp. Safety Bd., 832 F.2d 1294 (D.C.Cir.1987), ce rt. denied 486 U.S. 1057 (1988). As Smith himself conceded in his brief, “anyone reading [Rochna, Tearney, Komjathy, and Go Leasing ] would come away with the belief that the FAA without question has authority to suspend a license for a violation.” Indeed, Smith has offered no argument as to why the law of qualified immunity is not fully dispositive of such a Bivens action or why that law as expressed in Harlow should be extended, modified, or reversed. Smith was therefore properly sanctioned for bringing the Bivens action. We emphasize that sanctions are not warranted merely because Smith raised legal theories in this circuit that have been rejected in several other circuits. So .long as counsel is candid about a legal theory’s prior lack of success, honestly seeks to have existing law altered, and has not brought the action for an improper purpose, Rule 11 as it existed prior to the 1993 amendment is satisfied. Smith argues that Rochna, Teamey, Kom-jathy, and Go Leasing do not dispose of all of the claims that plaintiffs asserted, and therefore, he should not be sanctioned. It is true that some of plaintiffs’ arguments were not raised in the other cases in which Smith was counsel. However, these causes of action also lacked a good faith basis in existing law. A number of the plaintiffs’ claims pose novel attacks on the validity of the FA Act and its enforcement mechanisms. For example, plaintiffs assert that implementation of the FA Act and accompanying regulations denied them their statutory and constitutional rights to a jury trial and deprived plaintiff Valentine of due process. Again, however, because Smith fails to demonstrate in any way that appellees could reasonably have been aware that their adherence to FAA procedures was clearly unconstitutional, sanctions were properly imposed with respect to these claims. The remaining claims allege improper delegation of authority, violation of the FA Act by failing to cooperate with Mall employees during inspection, violation of FAA policy by appointing an improper team leader to head the Mall inspection, and blacklisting of Valentine and Ford. These allegations also provide grounds for sanctions, because Smith offers no authority demonstrating that appel-lees’ alleged conduct would violate any clearly established constitutional right. A reasonable investigation would thus have revealed that the complaint was untenable under the existing law of qualified immunity. Because Smith makes no argument for the extension, modification, or reversal of that body of law, the district court’s ruling that he violated Rule 11 was not an abuse of discretion.