Court Opinion

ID: 9476483
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 05:57:03.658342+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:45:20.637883
License: Public Domain

CUDAHY, Circuit Judge,
concurring in part and dissenting in part:
I have no problem with the merits but take a different tack on sanctions. I agree that an appeal may be frivolous even if the underlying suit is not. Here the lawsuit is thin and the appeal perhaps even thinner. In this matter, however, another district court in the same district reached the opposite result on a complaint brought by another of the 24 dismissed garbagemen on the same facts and with the same allegation. Reed v. City of Chicago, No. 84 C 9345 (N.D.ILL. Mar. 21, 1985) (Parsons, J.) [Available on WESTLAW, DCT database]. That circumstance makes it extremely difficult for me to agree that the appeal before us is sanctionably frivolous. There may be a thin line between appellate incompetency and appellate frivolity, but I cannot persuade myself that the defects here, whatever they may be, fall on the side of frivolity.
I, therefore, with the utmost respect, must dissent as to sanctions.