Opinion ID: 1919200
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Imposition of Sanctions for Defending a Trial Court Order

Text: The district court imposed sanctions on Boca Burger both for its conduct in the trial court and its conduct on appeal. The trial court had not imposed sanctions for such actions, and no authority exists for an appellate court's imposition of sanctions for conduct occurring in the trial court. Where the trial court has failed to make . . . findings [under section 57.105], [the appellate court is] without authority to do so in the first instance on appeal. Kurzweil v. Larkin Hosp. Operating Co., 684 So.2d 901, 903 (Fla. 3d DCA 1996). If the district court was concerned with counsel's conduct in the trial court, the proper procedure would have been to remand for the circuit court to allow the trial court to determine for itself whether to impose sanctions. [4] Regarding sanctions for counsel's conduct on appeal, however, we hold that a district court may, in appropriate circumstances, impose sanctions for counsel's defense of a patently erroneous order. As we explain below, (1) under the new version of section 57.105, Florida Statutes, an appellee as well as an appellant may be subject to sanctions; (2) allowing appellate courts to impose sanctions on appellees for frivolous defense of trial court orders will not chill representation, but instead will emphasize that counsels' obligations as officers of the court override their obligations to zealously represent their clients; and (3) because the district court's opinion addressed almost exclusively counsel's conduct in the trial court, we cannot determine to what extent, if any, the court intended to impose sanctions for conduct that occurred in the appellate court.
The petitioner argues that an appelleewho by definition is defending a trial court's ordercannot be sanctioned for asserting a frivolous defense on appeal. Some Florida courts agree with the petitioner's position. See State Dep't of Highway Safety & Motor Vehicles v. Salter, 710 So.2d 1039, 1041 (Fla. 2d DCA 1998) (holding that because the judgment of a trial court carries a presumption of correctness, defense of that judgment necessarily presents a justiciable issue); Coral Springs Roofing Co. v. Campagna, 528 So.2d 557, 558 (Fla. 4th DCA 1988) (same); McNee v. Biz, 473 So.2d 5, 6 (Fla. 4th DCA 1985) (holding that the appellate court could not award fees under section 57.105 against an appellee that did not cross-appeal the trial court's order because, as a matter of law, the appellee's position had to embody a justiciable issue of law or fact). At least one appellate court, however, has awarded fees to the appellant under section 57.105. See Rapid Credit Corp. v. Sunset Park Centre, Ltd., 566 So.2d 810, 812 n. 2 (Fla. 3d DCA 1990) (noting that the court had found counsel's attempt to defend a default on appeal so frivolous that it had granted appellant fees under section 57.105) (Schwartz, C.J., specially concurring). All these cases were decided under a prior version of section 57.105. In 1999, the Legislature substantially rewrote that statute to significantly broaden the courts' authority to award attorneys' fees under that section. As revised, the statute reads: (1) Upon the court's initiative or on motion of any party, the court shall award a reasonable attorney's fee to be paid to the prevailing party in equal amounts by the losing party and the losing party's attorney on any claim or defense at any time during a civil proceeding or action in which the court finds that the losing party or the losing party's attorney knew or should have known that a claim or defense when initially presented to the court or at any time before trial: (a) Was not supported by the material facts necessary to establish the claim or defense; or (b) Would not be supported by the application of then-existing law to those material facts. However, the losing party's attorney is not personally responsible if he or she has acted in good faith, based on the representations of his or her client as to the existence of those material facts. If the court awards attorney's fees to a claimant pursuant to this subsection, the court shall also award prejudgment interest. (2) Paragraph (1)(b) does not apply if the court determines that the claim or defense was initially presented to the court as a good faith argument for the extension, modification, or reversal of existing law or the establishment of new law, as it applied to the material facts, with a reasonable expectation of success. (3) At any time in any civil proceeding or action in which the moving party proves by a preponderance of the evidence that any action taken by the opposing party, including, but not limited to, the filing of any pleading or part thereof, the assertion of or response to any discovery demand, the assertion of any claim or defense, or the response to any request by any other party, was taken primarily for the purpose of unreasonable delay, the court shall award damages to the moving party for its reasonable expenses incurred in obtaining the order, which may include attorney's fees, and other loss resulting from the improper delay. § 57.105(1)-(3), Fla. Stat. (2000). As the district court noted in this case, 788 So.2d at 1061, the statute no longer applies only to an entire action; it now applies to any claim or defense. The standard for granting fees also has changed. Previously, a movant had to show a complete absence of a justiciable issue of either law or fact raised by the losing party. § 57.105, Fla. Stat. (Supp.1978). Under the revised version, however, a movant need only show that the party and counsel knew or should have known that any claim or defense asserted was (a) not supported by the facts or (b) not supported by an application of then-existing law. § 57.105, Fla. Stat. (2000). The amendments therefore greatly expand the statute's potential use. We hold that an appellee is not shielded as a matter of law from the imposition of sanctions in an appropriate case. We acknowledge that an appellee, by definition, is defending an order of the trial court. Appellate courts, therefore, should impose sanctions against an appellee only in rare circumstances. Moreover, because a district court of appeal is, in the vast majority of cases, the court of last resort, it should exercise great restraint in imposing appellate sanctions. We also warn, however, that an appellee cannot hide behind the presumption of correctness of an order that the appellee itself procured by misrepresenting the law or the facts. The presumption of correctness is necessarily based on another presumption: that the appellee correctly informed the trial court of the facts and applicable law. Busy judges managing overloaded motion calendars often depend on the attorneys appearing before them to provide them with accurate information about the issues involved, the facts relevant to those issues, and the law applicable to those facts. When it becomes apparent that counsel misrepresented this information, counsel cannot later hide behind the presumption of correctness to avoid sanctions. Appellate courts, too, must manage heavy caseloads. They depend on counsel to accurately state both the facts and the applicable law. Therefore, regardless of trial counsel's conduct or representations, appellate counsel (who often is separate from trial counsel) has an independent ethical obligation to present both the facts and the applicable law accurately and forthrightly. This will sometimes require appellate counsel to concede error where, although trial counsel obtained a favorable result, either the facts were not as represented to the trial court or the law is clearly contrary to the appellee's position and no good-faith basis exists to argue that it should be changed.
Petitioner warns that adopting a rule allowing sanctions against appellees will require the extreme, indeed unprofessional, act of `throwing in the towel' when there is any chance that an order may be reversed on appeal. This argument overlooks counsel's professional responsibilities as officers of the court. We do not hold that appellate counsel should concede error in all or even many cases. And whether counsel should concede error does not depend on the statistical chances for reversal. In (we hope) rare cases, however, the trial court, whether because of its own misconceptions or counsel's misrepresentations, may incorrectly assume the relevant facts or apply the wrong law. In such circumstances, appellate counsel has a duty to recognize and apprise the appellate court of that fact. Contrary to petitioner's arguments, allowing sanctions against appellees or their counsel for defending indefensible orders requires the quintessentially professional act of admitting defeat when there is no chance of victory, or when victory will have been obtained at the price of integrity and truth. While counsel does have an obligation to be faithful to [his] [client's] lawful objectives, that obligation cannot be used to justify unprofessional conduct by elevating the perceived duty to zealously represent over all other duties. Lingle v. Dion, 776 So.2d 1073, 1078 (Fla. 4th DCA 2001) (alterations in original) (quoting Visoly v. Sec. Pac. Credit Corp., 768 So.2d 482, 492 (Fla. 3d DCA 2000)). Section 57.105, as well as the Florida Bar rules of professional conduct and even the oath of admission to the Florida Bar, all warnif any warning were neededthat counsel must be governed by considerations other than mere zealous advocacy for the client. See § 57.105, Fla. Stat. (2002) (allowing a court to sanction the losing party and the losing party's attorney if the court finds the losing party's attorney knew or should have known that a claim or defense was not supported by the application of then-existing law); R. Regulating Fla. Bar 4-3.3(a)(1) (A lawyer shall not knowingly make a false statement of material fact or law to a tribunal.); Oath of Admission, Fla. Bar J., Sept. 2004, at 2 (I will employ for the purposes of maintaining the causes confided to me such means only as are consistent with truth and honor, and will never seek to mislead the judge or jury by any artifice or false statement of fact or law.). Rule 4-3.3(a)(3) of the Rules Regulating the Florida Bar specifically prohibits an attorney from knowingly fail[ing] to disclose to the tribunal legal authority in the controlling jurisdiction known to the lawyer to be directly adverse to the position of the client and not disclosed by opposing counsel. Therefore, contrary to the petitioner's assertions, the rules already require counsel to concede error on appeal when appropriate. This is not a new concept. Appellees regularly concede error. Cases in which the State has conceded error on appeal are legion. [5] Confessions of error in civil cases also occur frequently. [6] The sheer number of such cases demonstrates that not only do the rules require counsel to concede error in appropriate cases; counsel can and do adhere to these rules in practice. Lawyers recognize every day when the defense of a trial court's order is untenable. The petitioner's protestations that such concessions would be throwing in the towel reflect an attitude that Chief Judge Schwartz has lamented: Too many members of the Bar practice with complete ignorance of or disdain for the basic principle that a lawyer's duty to his calling and to the administration of justice far outweighsand must outweigheven his obligation to his client, and, surely what we suspect really motivates many such inappropriate actions, his interest in his personal aggrandizement. Rapid Credit Corp., 566 So.2d at 812 n. 1 (Schwartz, C.J., specially concurring). Finally, the district court's opinion aptly responds to the petitioner's proposition that conceding error on appeal is unprofessional: The heart of all legal ethics is in the lawyer's duty of candor to a tribunal. It is an exacting duty with an imposing burden. Unlike many provisions of the disciplinary rules, which rely on the court or an opposing lawyer for their invocation, the duty of candor depends on self-regulation; every lawyer must spontaneously disclose contrary authority to a tribunal. It is counter-intuitive, cutting against the lawyer's principal role as an advocate. It also operates most inconvenientlythat is, when victory seems within grasp. But it is precisely because of these things that the duty is so necessary. Although we have an adversary system of justice, it is one founded on the rule of law. Simply because our system is adversarial does not make it unconcerned with outcomes. Might does not make right, at least in the courtroom. We do not accept the notion that outcomes should depend on who is the most powerful, most eloquent, best dressed, most devious and most persistent with the last wordor, for that matter, who is able to misdirect a judge. American civil justice is so designed that established rules of law will be applied and enforced to insure that justice be rightly done. Such a system is surely defective, however, if it is acceptable for lawyers to suggest a trial judge into applying a rule or a discretion that they knowor should knowis contrary to existing law. Even if it hurts the strategy and tactics of a party's counsel, even if it prepares the way for an adverse ruling, even though the adversary has himself failed to cite the correct law, the lawyer is required to disclose law favoring his adversary when the court is obviously under an erroneous impression as to the law's requirements. Forum, 788 So.2d at 1062 (footnote omitted).
We now examine counsel's actions in this case. A lower court's decision to impose sanctions is reviewed under an abuse of discretion standard. See Harless v. Kuhn, 403 So.2d 423, 425 (Fla.1981) (noting that [i]n the absence of an abuse of discretion the sanctions imposed by [a] judge should stand). As explained above, an appellate court only has authority to impose sanctions under section 57.105 for conduct occurring in the appellate court. Conversely, the trial court should determine any sanctions for conduct occurring in that court. Therefore, we quash that part of the district court's decision that imposes sanctions for conduct that occurred in the trial court. The district court is free to remand the issue of trial court sanctions to the circuit court for consideration. We are perplexed by the dissent's accusation that we have overlooked or failed to consider the trial transcript record as it relates to this issue. Dissenting op. at 27. We have, of course, thoroughly examined that record. But our disposition of this issue quashing the district court's order insofar as it imposes sanctions for counsel's trial court conductrenders moot any discussion of counsel's conduct in that court. The dissent may well be correct that such sanctions would be inappropriate. As we have explained, however, that determination must first be made by the trial court. [7] We must now determine whether the district court abused its discretion in imposing sanctions for conduct that occurred on appeal. We have encountered difficulty in doing so, however. The vast majority of the district court's opinion discusses counsel's representations in the trial court, not on appeal; it appears that the district court imposed sanctions primarily for conduct that occurred in the trial court. Therefore, we cannot determine whether the district court intended to impose sanctions for any conduct that occurred on appeal. We therefore remand to the district court for it to reconsider its order imposing sanctions, addressing only conduct on appeal. In so doing, we neither approve nor disapprove the imposition of sanctions. The dissent protests that the district court should not be allowed to impose sanctions for the conduct on appeal, because it was incorrect on multiple important legal issues it has addressed. Dissenting op. at 29. But whether the district court may impose sanctions depends not on its decision, which we have before us and have reviewed, but rather on counsel's conduct. The dissent suggests that counsel did have a good-faith basis for each representation it made on appeal. We have not asserted otherwise. Our remand to the district court merely recognizes that the issue should be decided by the court before which relevant conduct occurred.