Court Opinion

ID: 9495890
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 16:12:49.384107+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:57:15.303491
License: Public Domain

UNDERHILL, District Judge,
dissenting.
Prior to 1983, the imposition of sanctions under Rule 11 required a finding of subjective bad faith. When amending Rule 11 in 1983, however, the drafters abandoned the subjective bad faith standard and adopted a standard of “reasonableness under the circumstances.” Since adoption of the 1983 amendments, the Supreme Court and every court of appeals has held that district courts should apply an objective reasonableness test when deciding whether Rule 11 has been violated. With today’s decision, the Second Circuit becomes the first and only court to hold that the 1993 amendments to Rule 11 reverted to the pre-1983 subjective bad faith standard for even a subset of Rule 11 sanctions. The majority bases its holding principally on a single sentence from the Advisory Committee notes to the 1993 amendments and on its own policy analysis. In my view, neither basis can support the weight of today’s decision. Accordingly, I respectfully dissent.

*94
The Plain Meaning of Rule 11

Interpretation of Rule 11 begins with its text, because this Court must “interpret Rule 11 according to its plain meaning.” Cooter & Gell v. Hartmarx Corp., 496 U.S. 384, 391, 110 S.Ct. 2447, 110 L.Ed.2d 359 (1990). A plain reading of Rule 11 demonstrates that a single mens rea requirement applies to sanctionable conduct, regardless of whether a court or a party initiates sanctions proceedings and regardless of whether counsel had an opportunity to withdraw the offending submission.
Rule 11 has four subsections. Section (a) establishes the requirement that every paper filed with the court shall be signed. Section (b) contains a statement of the conduct — and the state-of-mind requirement — to which counsel and parties will be held under the rule. By presenting a paper to the court, the lawyer or pro se party certifies “that to the best of the person’s knowledge, information, and belief, formed after an inquiry reasonable under the circumstances” the paper meets the standards set in section (b)(1) through (b)(4). Section (b) creates an objective standard of “reasonableness under the circumstances.” See Business Guides, Inc. v. Chromatic Communications Enters., Inc., 498 U.S. 533, 548-49, 551, 111 S.Ct. 922, 112 L.Ed.2d 1140 (1991). Section (c) governs the sanctions that can be imposed for violation of the standards set forth in section (b). See Fed.R.Civ.P. 11(c) (“If ... the court determines that subdivision (b) has been violated, the court may, subject to the conditions stated below, impose an appropriate sanction upon, the attorneys, law firms, or parties that have violated subdivision (b) or are responsible for the violation”). Finally, section (d) makes Rule 11 inapplicable to discovery.
The fundamental flaw in the majority’s interpretation of Rule 11 is that it seeks to use procedural distinctions drawn in section (c), regarding how sanctions can be imposed with and without a motion, to modify the substantive requirements of section (b), which controls whether a violation of Rule 11 has occurred. Under a plain reading of Rule 11, the procedural distinctions set forth in section (c) have no bearing whatsoever on the state-of-mind requirement of section (b).
The majority does not cite to any language in the rule itself that marks a distinction in the state-of-mind required for imposition of sanctions with and without a motion by counsel, because no such language exists. Instead, the majority holds that the Advisory Committee intended to change the mens rea applicable to a class of Rule 11 sanctions by making a single comment in the lengthy notes to the 1993 amendment. In so doing, the majority establishes a new substantive standard based on what I believe is a misreading of the Advisory Committee’s intent.

The Advisory Committee’s Intent

The majority bases its holding on a single sentence from the lengthy Advisory Committee notes to the 1993 amendment to Rule 11. That sentence (hereinafter the “Show Cause Sentence”) reads: “Since show cause orders will ordinarily be issued only in situations that are akin to a contempt of court, the rule does not provide a ‘safe harbor’ to a litigant for withdrawing a claim, defense, etc., after a show cause order has been issued on the court’s own initiative.” (Emphasis supplied.) In the majority’s view, that sentence requires courts to apply the mens rea applicable to contempt proceedings to court-initiated Rule 11 proceedings if there is no opportunity to withdraw the offending submission.
In my view, the Show Cause Sentence reflects the Advisory Committee’s empirical observation about the frequency with which show cause orders “will ... be is*95sued.” That is, courts will initiate Rule 11 sanctions proceedings only when conduct is so egregious that it is akin — i.e., similar in kind — to conduct punishable by contempt. The observation in the Show Cause Sentence was based upon the voluminous empirical evidence available to and relied upon by the Advisory Committee when drafting the 1993 amendments.1 In other words, the Show Cause Sentence is predictive, not restrictive; the reference to contempt describes the seriousness of the conduct likely to prompt a court to issue a show cause order initiating sanctions proceeding, not the mens rea necessary before sua sponte sanctions can permissibly be imposed. See Proposed Amendments to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure: Hearing before the Subcommittee on Courts and Administrative Practice of the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary, 103rd Cong. 9 (July 28, 1993) (hereinafter “Courts and Administrative Practice Sub-comm. Hearing ”) (Prepared Statement of Judge Sam C. Pointer, Jr. to Senate Judiciary Committee: “It should be noted that the ‘safe harbor’ applies only to party-initiated motions; these provisions will not prevent court-initiated sanctions, which would be appropriately invoked by the more egregious violations that burden or offend the court.”); id. at 47 (Testimony of Judge Sam C. Pointer, Jr. to Senate Judiciary Committee: “There is no safe harbor in terms of a court-initiated sanction, and in that situation if it appears that somebody is simply filing and making broad, unsubstantiated allegations without any investigation that they could have made, then it seems to me that rule 11 would properly be invoked by the court.”).
It bears saying that no court interpreting the 1993 version of Rule 11 has held that a finding of subjective bad faith is required before imposing Rule 11 sanctions under any procedural circumstances. As the majority opinion acknowledges, the decision in Hadges v. Yonkers Racing Corp., 48 F.3d 1320 (2d Cir.1995), mentioned the Show Cause Sentence only in dicta: “In this case, the [district] court indicated that it was imposing sanctions in response to [defendant’s] request and did not state that it was imposing sanctions on Hadges sua sponte.” Id. at 1329.
The majority correctly notes that the Fourth and Ninth Circuits have cited the Show Cause Sentence, but those courts have not held that the pre-1983 subjective *96bad faith standard governs any subset of court-initiated Rule 11 sanctions decisions. Hunter v. Earthgrains Co. Bakery, 281 F.3d 144, 151 (4th Cir.2002) (In the absence of the safe harbor, “a court is obligated to use extra care in imposing sanctions.”); United National Ins. Co. v. R & D Latex Corp., 242 F.3d 1102, 1115 (9th Cir.2001) (Rule 11(b)(2) standard “is applied with particular stringency where, as here, the sanctions are imposed on the court’s own motion.”); Barber v. Miller, 146 F.3d 707, 711 (9th Cir.1998) (“[T]he fact that a district court has exercised its discretion to award sanctions on motion of a party does not necessarily mean that the court would exercise its discretion to impose sanctions on its own motion for the same conduct.”).
In Hunter, the procedural context was in all relevant respects the same as that presented here. In both cases the district courts issued show cause orders as part of their rulings on summary judgment, and in both cases counsel had no opportunity to withdraw the offending submission. Indeed, the district court in Hunter issued its sua sponte sanctions order more than two years after granting summary judgment. Hunter, 281 F.3d at 149. Still, the Fourth Circuit, which cited and relied upon the Show Cause Sentence, did not hold that a subjective bad faith standard was required for the issuance of court-initiated Rule 11 sanctions under those circumstances.
Both leading commentators of federal court practice recognize that courts should apply an objective reasonableness standard whenever imposing Rule 11 sanctions. See 2 James Wm. Moore, et al., Moore’s Federal Practice § 11.11[3] (3d ed. 2000) (“The courts have interpreted Rule 11 as establishing an objective standard of conduct for litigants and attorneys.”); id. § 11.11[4] (“A violation of Rule 11 does not require subjective bad faith.”); id. § ll[2][a] (“Counsel may not avoid sanctions under the ‘guise of pure heart and empty head.’”); Charles Alan Wright & Arthur R. Miller, Federal Practice & Procedure: Civil 2d § 1335 (2d ed. 1990 & Supp.2002) (The 1983 version of Rule 11 “had been interpreted to require a showing of subjective bad faith by the signing attorney as an essential element of a violation. Since this proved to be a virtually unattainable standard, the rule was amended to employ a more objective standard.”) (“The 1993 Amendment eliminates any possibility of reading the language in Rule 11 as establishing a subjective standard .... ”). These treatises offer no support for the majority’s holding in this case.
In my view, both the remainder of the paragraph in which the Show Cause Sentence appears and the Advisory Committee notes as a whole also demonstrate that the Show Cause Sentence should not be read to change the substantive standard governing any Rule 11 proceeding.

The Pertinent Paragraph

The paragraph in which the Show Cause Sentence appears begins as follows: “The power of the court to act on its own initiative is retained, but with the condition that this be done through a show cause order.” (Emphasis supplied.) Had the Advisory Committee intended to make a dramatic break with the state-of-mind requirement followed by the Supreme Court, see Business Guides, 498 U.S. at 551, 111 S.Ct. 922, and every one of the courts of appeals at the time of the 1993 amendments,2 the Advisory Committee surely would have *97added the condition that the court must make a finding of subjective bad faith.3 That same paragraph of the Advisory Committee notes did establish a procedural difference between motion-initiated and court-initiated sanctions and did impose restrictions on late-imposed sua sponte sanctions, but not the substantive differences identified by the majority. The Advisory Committee stated: “The revision provides that a monetary sanction imposed after a court-initiated show cause order be limited to a penalty payable to the court and that it be imposed only if the show cause order is issued before any voluntary dismissal or an agreement of the parties to settle the claims made by or against the litigant.” This change, set forth expressly in the text of the revised rule, see Fed. R.Civ.P. 11(c)(2), responded to criticism of the 1983 version of Rule ll.4
Adoption of the safe harbor provisions affected the number of Rule 11 motions courts would have to decide; it did not affect the standards for finding a violation of Rule 11. If, as the majority holds, the Advisory Committee had meant to require subjective bad faith for court-initiated sanctions when counsel could not withdraw a submission under the safe harbor provision, section (b) of the rule would have said so. Instead, the limitations on court-initiated sanctions in the amended rule were expressly limited to the type of penalty that could be imposed and the timing of the sanctions order.
The reasons for these changes are apparent from the drafting history of Rule 11. In Cooter & Gell, the Supreme Court had rejected the argument that a district court lost jurisdiction to impose Rule 11 *98sanctions upon the voluntary dismissal of a case under Rule 41. 496 U.S. at 398, 110 S.Ct. 2447 (“We conclude that petitioner’s voluntary dismissal did not divest the District Court of jurisdiction to consider respondent’s Rule 11 motion.”). That holding was criticized as discouraging voluntary dismissals because the act of voluntary dismissal itself might be seen as an admission that an action was frivolous.5 Apparently the Advisory Committee heard no similar criticism of the objective standard for establishing a Rule 11 violation in situations involving any subset of court-initiated sanctions,6 so it is difficult to imagine that the amended rule or the Show Cause Sentence reflect a response by the Advisory Committee to the problem that the majority in this case now perceives.7
Finally, although Rule 11 provides no safe harbor when a court issues a show cause order, the Advisory Committee did provide guidance that undercuts the majority’s holding in this case. The last sentence of the paragraph of the Advisory Committee notes containing the Show Cause Sentence states that, although withdrawal of an offending submission would not entitle counsel to a safe harbor, “[s]uch corrective action, however, should be taken into account in deciding what — if any— sanction to impose if, after consideration of the litigant’s response, the court concludes that a violation has occurred.” The Advisory Committee gave no indication that the court should both consider any corrective action when choosing a sanction and also hold the conduct to the higher subjective bad faith standard when deciding whether a violation occurred.

*99
The Advisory Committee Notes as a Whole

Read in their entirety, the Advisory Committee notes to the 1993 amendment do not support the majority’s holding. The notes begin with a statement of the purpose of the 1993 amendment: “to remedy problems that have arisen in the interpretation and application of the 1983 revision of the rule.” The second sentence refers to “empirical examination of experience under the 1983 rule” and cites four reports by bar and judicial organizations and three “book-length analyses of the case law.” The studies cited by the Advisory Committee show that courts initiated Rule 11 sanctions very rarely8 — presumably, about as often as they imposed sanctions for contempt of court.
In the notes to subsections (b) and (c), the Advisory Committee wrote that the revised language of subsection (b)(2) “establishes an objective standard, intended to eliminate any ‘empty-head pure-heart’ justification for patently frivolous arguments.” Although this comment specifically applies to subsection (b)(2), there is nothing in the notes that suggests an empty-head-but-pure-heart justification is otherwise permitted under the 1993 amendments, whether following a motion or a court-initiated proceeding, and whether or not counsel had an opportunity to withdraw the submission. To the contrary, the Advisory Committee explained that “[w]hether a violation has occurred and what sanctions, if any, to impose for a violation are matters committed to the discretion of the trial court .... ” The standard announced by the majority will now restrict the discretion of the trial court, will inhibit the court’s ability to police Rule 11 violations, and will encourage counsel to be less than complete in their investigation of the factual basis underlying submissions to the court so that they can benefit from an empty-head-but-pure-heart defense — all in contravention of the guidance offered by the Advisory Committee in the notes to the 1993 amendment.
In addition, the 1993 amendments must be read in the context of the then existing rule. Cf. Cooter & Gell, 496 U.S. at 392, 110 S.Ct. 2447 (“An interpretation of the current Rule 11 must be guided, in part, by an understanding of the deficiencies in the [previous] version of Rule 11 that led to its revision.”). In 1983, the drafters of Rule 11 abandoned the subjective bad faith standard that formerly governed Rule 11 sanctions. The Advisory Committee notes to the 1983 amendment to Rule 11 explain that the “standard is one of reasonableness under the circumstances. This standard is more stringent than the original good-faith formula and thus it is expected that a greater range of circumstances will trigger its violation.” (Citations omitted.) And later: “The references in the former text to wilfulness as a prerequisite to disciplinary action has been deleted.”
There are no similar statements in the 1993 Advisory Committee notes explaining a return to a bad faith standard in whole or in part. Moreover, the Advisory Committee notes to the 1983 amendment indicate that the 1983 amendment made “explicit” the power of the court to act sua sponte, “in order to overcome the traditional reluctance of courts to intervene unless requested by one of the parties. The detection and punishment of a violation of the signing requirement, encouraged by the amended rule, is part of the court’s responsibility for securing the system’s effective operation.” As noted above, this power was “retained” following the 1993 amendments; by implication, the “responsibility” noted by the Committee in 1983 *100was retained after 1993 as well. Both that power and the ability of the court to exercise that responsibility will be severely restricted by the majority’s decision in this appeal.
Finally, the majority assumes that the Advisory Committee sought to protect lawyers from the imposition of sanctions when it drafted the safe harbor provisions of Rule 11. The evidence shows, rather, that the Advisory Committee sought to protect the courts from the burden of deciding numerous, often unnecessary, Rule 11 motions. Judge Sam C. Pointer, Chairman of the Advisory Committee, wrote a letter in May 1992 describing the work and conclusions of the Advisory Committee. In that letter, Judge Pointer never mentions the need to amend Rule 11, by incorporating safe harbor provisions or otherwise, to protect lawyers from sanctions,9 yet he repeatedly mentions the manner in which the proposed amendments will reduce the number or frequency of Rule 11 motions.10 As Judge Pointer noted, “[t]hese changes, coupled with the opportunity to correct allegations under the ‘safe harbor’ provisions, should eliminate the need for court consideration of Rule 11 motions directed at insignificant aspects of a complaint or answer.” Pointer Letter, 146 F.R.D. at 524. The decision not to apply the safe harbor provisions of the amended rule to court-initiated sanctions proceedings reflects the obvious fact that courts do not need to be protected from matters that they raise on their own, only from unnecessary Rule 11 motions filed by counsel. This again suggests that the Show Cause Sentence represents an empirical statement; because judges will typically issue show cause orders only in the most serious situations11 — those “akin to *101contempt” — providing a safe harbor procedure does not advance the goal of saving the courts from unnecessary Rule 11 burdens.

Policy Considerations

The majority also asserts that changing the mens rea standard for a class of court-initiated Rule 11 sanctions is supported by policy considerations. Whether or not that is so, the Advisory Committee never considered, much less adopted, the majority’s policy analysis. None of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure has been subjected to greater debate, study or analysis than Rule 11. The rule thus reflects the considered judgment of the Advisory Committee and its efforts to balance competing interests, concerns and suggestions.
This panel should not substitute its judgment for that of the Advisory Committee.12 As the Supreme Court has cautioned, “this Court is not acting on a clean slate; our task is not to decide what the rule should be, but rather to determine what it is.... Even if we were convinced that a subjective bad faith standard would more effectively promote the goals of Rule 11, we would not be free to implement this standard outside of the rulemaking process. ‘Our task is to apply the text, not to improve upon it.’ ” Business Guides, 498 U.S. at 548-49, 111 S.Ct. 922 (quoting Pavelic & LeFlore v. Marvel Entertainment Group, 493 U.S. 120, 126, 110 S.Ct. 456, 107 L.Ed.2d 438 (1989)). Because the Advisory Committee never considered whether to revert to the pre-1983 subjective bad faith standard for any Rule 11 sanctions, this Court should not reimpose such a standard even for a subset of Rule 11 proceedings.

The Sanctions Decision

Judge Martin sanctioned Pennie & Ed-monds for “making false statements of fact [on the basis of] an affidavit that any reasonable lawyer would recognize as perjury,” Patsy’s Brand, Inc. v. I.O.B. Realty, Inc., 2002 WL 59434, at *6 (S.D.N.Y. Jan. 16, 2002), which is conduct akin to contempt in its egregiousness. The District Court found that “all of the facts available to Pennie & Edmonds should have convinced a lawyer of even modest intelligence that there was no reasonable basis on which they could rely on Mr. Brija’s statements,” id. at *8, which were the only support for certain statements in papers Pennie & Edmonds filed in opposition to the motion for summary judgment.
The majority is not entirely correct when it suggests that Judge Martin ordered Pennie & Edmonds to show cause why it should not be sanctioned under Rule 11 for “permitting Brija to submit a false affidavit.” Judge Martin ordered Mr. Brija to show cause why he should not be held in contempt of court for “his repeated false statements under oath,” Patsy’s Brand Inc. v. I.O.B. Realty, Inc., 2001 WL 170672, at *14 (S.D.N.Y. Feb.21, 2001), but also focused on Pennie & Ed-monds’ false representations in papers the firm submitted to the court. Specifically, after requiring I.O.B. and Mr. Brija to show cause why they should not be sanctioned, Judge Martin set out a separate paragraph in the order to show cause concerning Pennie & Edmonds:
*102Rule 11 also imposes an obligation on counsel to make a reasonable inquiry to determine the accuracy of assertions made in motion papers. Here, as noted above, I.O.B.’s counsel asserted that I.O.B. had never claimed that it had used only one label from 1993 until the commencement of this action, and asserted that the label affixed as Exhibit I to Mr. Brija’s affidavit of September 15, 2000, was created in 1993 or 1994. Given the fact that the former assertion was directly contrary to the facts of record, and that the latter assertion was patently false, ... I.O.B.’s counsel shall show cause ... why it should not be sanctioned under Rule 11 and 28 U.S.C. § 1927.

Id.

Pennie & Edmonds has not challenged any of the findings of fact made by the District Court when ruling on the sanctions issue. Thus, this Court must accept that the representations made by the firm were false and that it was objectively unreasonable for Pennie & Edmonds to rely on the Brija affidavit when making representations to the court. As Judge Martin observed, “In assessing Pennie & Ed-monds’ conduct, it is important to note that this is not a case where the client was telling a story for the first time and counsel had only vague suspicions that the chent’s assertions were not true. By the time Pennie & Edmonds took on the representation of I.O.B., a highly detailed affidavit of Mr. Brija had been conclusively proven to be false in very material respects, and had been disavowed by predecessor counsel who then withdrew from representing I.O.B.” Patsy’s Brand, 2002 WL 59434, at *7. The District Court also found that the investigation undertaken by Pennie & Edmonds revealed information that a reasonable lawyer would have interpreted as clearly undercutting its Ghent’s statements. Against this background, Pennie & Edmonds’ acceptance of its client’s false statements was objectively unreasonable.
On the undisputed findings of fact in this case, I conclude that Pennie & Edmonds violated Rule 11. Judge Martin followed the procedures mandated by Rule 11, imposed a reasonable, non-monetary sanction, as permitted by the rule, and correctly applied the objective reasonableness test. Accordingly, I would affirm.

Conclusion

The majority opinion holds that courts must apply, in a subset of Rule 11 proceedings, a state-of-mind requirement that the Advisory Committee, the Supreme Court and Congress abandoned in 1983. In my view, the majority’s interpretation is not supported by the text, Advisory Committee notes, drafting history or purpose of Rule 11. I therefore respectfully dissent.

. The empirical sources cited in the second sentence of the Advisory Committee notes to the 1993 amendment include the survey conducted by the Federal Courts Committee of the New York State Bar Association, which noted that court-initiated Rule 11 sanctions "are relatively infrequent: 81% of those who had ordered sanctions sua sponte had done so less than five times in the past three years, 14% had done so six to ten times, and only one judicial respondent had done so 11 or more times in the past three years.” New York State Bar Committee on Federal Courts, Sanctions and Attorneys' Fees 22 (1987). The other sources cited by the Advisory Committee similarly reflect infrequent imposition of court-initiated sanctions. See American Judicature Society, Report of the Third Circuit Task Force on Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 11 57 (S. Burbank ed., 1989) ("In our sanction survey, trial judges imposed sanctions sua sponte in 6.6% of the cases T. Willging, The Rule 11 Sanctioning Process 76 (Federal Judicial Center 1988) (Eighteen percent of survey responses involved sua sponte sanctions); E. Wiggins, T. Willging, and D. Stienstra, Report on Rule 11 § IB, table 5, at 5 (Federal Judicial Center 1991) (In five districts surveyed, sua sponte orders ranged from 2% to 7% of all Rule 11 motions/orders.); id. § 2A at 12 (“Very few of these orders were issued sua sponte.... Sixty-nine percent of the judges said they had issued no sua sponte orders in the last twelve months.... Sixteen percent estimated that they had issued one sua sponte order, and 6% estimated that they had issued two such orders. Few judges issued more than two sua sponte orders.”).

. "The Second Circuit was the first court of appeals to clearly embrace an objective standard. ... By the end of 1986, all of the circuits had embraced an objective test.” New York State Bar Committee on Federal Courts, supra, at 13 (cited in Advisory Committee *97notes to 1993 amendment to Rule 11); see abo Georgene M. Vairo, Rule 11 Sanctions: Case Law Perspectives and Preventive Measures § 5.02[b] at p. 5-7, 5-9 (2d ed.1995) (same) (earlier edition cited in Advisory Committee note to 1993 amendment to Rule 11); American Judicature Society, Report of the Third Circuit Task Force, supra, at 14 ("courts now generally agree that good faith is no longer a defense to Rule 11 sanctions”) (cited in Advisory Committee notes to 1993 amendment to Rule 11); Jerold S. Solovy, et al., Sanctions in Federal Litigation 2-7 (1991) ("[E]very court of appeals that has considered the question has held that attorney conduct under the new Rule 11 is judged by an objective standard of reasonableness. ”).

. I have found no commentator who suggests that the 1993 amendment imposed a heightened state-of-mind limitation on court-initiated sanctions under any circumstances. The 1993 amendment imposed "three limitations on sua sponte power — -that the court must act through an order to show cause, that no monetary sanction is awardable unless the show cause order issued before the claims at issue were settled, and that any monetary sanction must be paid to the court ...Gregory P. Joseph, Sanctions: The Federal Law of Litigation Abuse 32 (3d ed.2000). "The principal purpose of erecting these three limitations on sua sponte power was to reduce impediments to settlement.” Id. at 318 (citations omitted).

. See Advisory Committee on Civil Rules, Interim Report on Rule 11 (April 9, 1991) ("Interim Report”) (reprinted as Appendix I to Vairo, Rule 11 Sanctions, supra). In its Interim Report, the Advisory Committee reported on the results of its July 1990 call for written comments on Rule 11, the empirical studies conducted by the Federal Judicial Center and submitted in early 1991, and a public hearing held in February 1991. The Interim Report notes that "[sjeveral commentators did note, however, that settlements can be undermined by the imposition — or possibility of imposition — of sua sponte sanctions,” id. at 1-15, and that "special consideration should, perhaps, be given to the potential for unfairness caused by a court's sua sponte imposition of monetary sanctions after settlement of a case,” id. at 1-20. Apparently the Advisory Committee heard no similar concern about judges issuing Rule 11 sanctions using the same standards for motions and show cause proceedings, even if there is not opportunity to withdraw a submission, for there is no indication that the Advisory Committee ever considered the issue.

. As one commentator put it, under the 1983 version of Rule 11:
Once a sanctions issue had been flagged, the judge was not merely empowered by the Rule to enter an award sua sponte, but was affirmatively required to impose a sanction if he or she concluded that a violation had occurred. Even the attempt to withdraw or settle a claim was viewed as evidence of culpability on the party of the alleged offender.
Joseph, Sanctions, supra, at 21 (citation omitted).

. A review of each of the sources listed by the Advisory Committee in the second sentence of the Advisory Committee notes does not reveal a discussion of the need for a return to a bad faith standard when the safe harbor is not available. In addition, a May 1992 letter from Hon. Sam C. Pointer, Chairman of the Advisory Committee, summarizes the "extensive comment from the bench, bar, and public” concerning the proposed amendments adopted in 1993. See Letter from Hon. Sam C. Pointer, Chairman, Advisory Committee on Civil Rules, to Hon. Robert E. Keeton, Chairman, Standing Committee on Rules of Practice and Procedure (May 1, 1992), reprinted in 146 F.R.D. 519, 522 (1993) (hereinafter the "Pointer Letter"). Judge Pointer outlined "the principal criticisms and suggestions” that the Advisory Committee received following a solicitation of public comments and a series of public meetings. Id. at 523-25. Of the twelve principal concerns Judge Pointer identified, only one dealt with court-initiated sanctions. That concern was entitled: "Court-initiated sanctions after case dismissed.” Id. at 525. The discussion of that concern did not suggest that the Advisory Committee had received any comment concerning the appropriate mens rea standard for court-initiated sanctions under any procedural posture. Id.

.It would be far different and far preferable to subject court-initiated sanctions orders to a somewhat heightened abuse of discretion review on appeal than to change the mens rea standard that the district courts are obligated to apply when deciding whether to impose sanctions in the first place. Indeed, this Court has already tightened its review of sanctions orders. "In a series of decisions issued in 2000, the Second Circuit has made it clear that the abuse-of-discretion standard in sanctions cases is not the 'light appellate touch’ it is in other contexts.” Joseph, Sanctions, supra, at 27 (Supp.2002) (citation omitted).

. See note 1, supra.

. One arguable exception appears in the sentence immediately following the quotation from Judge Pointer’s letter included in the majority's opinion, in which Judge Pointer noted that a "litigant” would not be subject to a monetary sanction on the court’s own motion after voluntary dismissal. That portion of the letter reads:
The Advisory Committee continues to believe that court-initiated show cause orders — -which typically relate to matters that are akin to contempt of court — are properly treated somewhat differently from party-initiated motions. The published draft does, however, contain provisions in subdivision (c)(2)(B) protecting a litigant from monetary sanctions imposed under a show cause order not issued until after the claims made by or against it have been voluntarily dismissed or settled.
Pointer Letter, 146 F.R.D. at 525 (emphasis supplied).

. Among Judge Pointer's statements were the following: "[A]lthough the great majority of Rule 11 motions have not been granted, the time spent by litigants and the courts in dealing with such motions has not been insignificant." Pointer Letter, 146 F.R.D. at 523. The 1993 amendments were drafted "to deter presentation and maintenance of frivolous positions, while also reducing the frequency of Rule 11 motions.” Id. "It is correct that, given the safe harbor’ provisions and those affecting the type of sanction to be imposed, the amendment should reduce the number of Rule 11 motions and the severity of some sanctions.” Id. "The Advisory Committee agrees with the premise that cost-shifting has created the incentive for many unnecessary Rule 11 motions Id. at 524. "[T]he published draft provides the court with discretion to award fees to the prevailing party: this is needed to discourage non-meritorious Rule 11 motions ....” Id.
See also Courts and Administrative Practice Subcomm. Hearing, supra, at 38 ("Senator Heflin. 'On rule 11, what are the major problems that motivated the changes?' Judge Pointer. 'Too many rule 11 motions ....' ”).

.As Judge Pointer put it, sua sponte sanctions will “typically relate to matters that are akin to contempt of court.” Pointer Letter, supra, 146 F.R.D. at 525 (emphasis supplied). Unlike counsel, who may have strategic reasons to bring unnecessary Rule 11 motions, district judges have no incentive to raise potential Rule 11 violations, except in the most egregious cases.

. Unlike the Advisory Committee, which solicited public comment and held public meetings at which it heard principally from the critics of the 1983 version of Rule 11, this panel has heard only one side of the story. Because the sanctions at issue were imposed without motion, there is no appellee in this appeal and thus no appellee's brief. Courts should exercise special caution when deciding important issues without the benefit of the full airing of the issues that results from the adversary process.