Opinion ID: 529755
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Sanctions in the Form of Attorneys' Fees

Text: 21 Appellees also argue that the district court was justified in awarding attorneys' fees to them. Local Rule 27.1 permits sanctions in the form of attorneys' fees as well as fines payable to the Court. However, a careful analysis of the bases for current decisional law dictates the admittedly incongruous result that, when the sanctions are imposed pursuant to a local rule, there is an even higher threshold for awarding attorneys fees than for leveling direct fines against members of the bar. Consequently, we hold that Local Rule 27.1 is valid but only in so much as it permits taxing fees for bad faith actions or willful disobedience of court orders or rules. 22 The Supreme Court has set down specific guidelines for awarding attorneys' fees. In Alyeska Pipeline Service Co. v. Wilderness Society, 421 U.S. 240, 95 S.Ct. 1612, 44 L.Ed.2d 141 (1975), the Supreme Court affirmed the American Rule that absent express statutory authority, bad faith or willful disobedience of a court order, each party should bear the cost of its own attorneys' fees. Congress has not extended any roving authority to the Judiciary to allow counsel fees as costs or otherwise whenever the courts might deem them warranted. Id. at 260, 95 S.Ct. at 1623. Under the Supreme Court's interpretation of the 1853 Fees Act and subsequent statutes, it is clear that Congress meant to impose rigid controls on cost-shifting in federal courts. Crawford Fitting Co. v. J.T. Gibbons, Inc., 482 U.S. 437, 444, 107 S.Ct. 2494, 2498, 96 L.Ed.2d 385 (1987). The general rule derived from Alyeska Pipeline and its progeny is that the federal courts cannot, absent specific statutory authority or one of the three enumerated exceptions listed by the Supreme Court, 25 alter the uniform system of cost-bearing created by Congress, Tiedel v. Northwestern Michigan College, 865 F.2d 88, 93-94 (6th Cir.1988), or shift attorneys' fees merely because a party has lost a case or offended some legal norm. Where Congress has deemed it permissible for federal courts to award actual attorneys' fees, it has said so ... Absent such explicit authorization, federal courts may exercise their inherent powers to tax attorneys' fees only in the narrowly defined circumstances. Id. at 93 (citing Roadway Express, 447 U.S. at 765, 100 S.Ct. at 2463; Ray A. Scharer & Co. v. Plabell Rubber Prod., Inc., 858 F.2d 317, 320 (6th Cir.1988)). 23 Here, the district court's authority to impose sanctions under Local Rule 27.1 is premised not on a specific and explicit statutory right to impose fees but on a general delegation of rulemaking authority. Such a claim of delegation does not fulfill the specific congressional authorization requirements laid out in Alyeska Pipeline or overcome the general presumption against awarding attorneys' fees. Alyeska Pipeline, 421 U.S. at 269, 95 S.Ct. at 1627. If we were to uphold the award of attorneys' fees on the basis of so tenuous an authorization, we would be reinstating the roving commission explicitly banned in Alyeska Pipeline. 26 24 We recognize that the Central District is perfectly entitled to promulgate a rule permitting the taxation of attorneys' fees. Although Congress has never expressly delegated any general authority (compare Rule 11) to the courts to impose sanctions in the form of fee awards, district courts still possess the inherent power 27 to do so in the case of bad faith litigation or willful disobedience of court rules or orders. We hold simply that in the absence of an explicit Congressional authorization, 28 the factual prerequisites of bad faith misconduct or willful disobedience laid out in Alyeska must be met. 25