Court Opinion

ID: 9499147
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 17:38:54.809106+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:59:18.520250
License: Public Domain

ALICE M. BATCHELDER, Circuit Judge.
I concur in the court’s opinion. I write separately because although my point of disagreement does not affect the outcome of this case, I disagree with the majority’s interpretation of ABA Rule of Procedure 13(d). Both the plain language and the structure of the rule make plain that the ABA could not sanction Cooley unless Cooley was not in compliance with the ABA Standards at the time of the show cause hearing. At the time of the hearing, the rule, by its plain language, instructed the Committee to determine “whether the law school is in compliance with the Standards ....” ABA R. PROC. 13(d) (emphasis added). If so, Rule 13(e) directed the Committee to “conclude the matter by adopting the appropriate resolution .... ” If not, Rule 13(d) required the Committee to “direct the law school to take remedial action” or “impose sanctions.” The ABA’s use of “is” in the flush language of Rule 13(d) required it to make a present-tense determination of compliance. Therefore, the latter courses of action were permitted only if the Committee found that the school was not in compliance at the time of the hearing. In my view any other interpretation of the rule turns grammar on its head.
That the rule required a determination of compliance at the time of the hearing is evident not only from its plain language, but also from its structure. The subsections of Rule 13(d) that penalize persistent noncompliance were available only upon an initial finding of current noncompliance as required by the flush language of the rule. Furthermore, Rule 14, which described the Council’s consideration of sanctions at the time of Cooley’s hearing, clearly contemplated that sanctions would apply only to schools that were not currently in compliance. Rule 14(a) provided that the Council “may direct the law school to take remedial action or subject it to sanctions ... regardless of whether the school has presented a reliable plan for bringing the school into compliance .... ” Rule 14(c) next provided that, if the Council imposed sanctions on a school that had no remedial plan, the “Committee shall monitor the steps taken by the school to come into *717compliance.” By its plain language, then, the rules contemplated sanctions for only two types of schools: those that were not in compliance but had a remedial plan, and those that were not in compliance and had no such plan. If, as Cooley alleges, it was in compliance at the time of the hearing, it fell into neither category and sanctions were inappropriate.
Finally, Rule 14’s focus on compliance makes clear that the ABA intended sanctions to be remedial, not punitive, in nature. Accordingly, Rule 14’s final section provided that “[a]t any time that the school presents information on which the Committee concludes that the school is in full compliance with the Standards, the Committee shall recommend to the Council that the school be taken off probation.” ABA R. PROC. 14(d). When read in light of Rule 14, the already clear instructions of Rule 13 become inescapable. Under Rule 13(d), the Council was not permitted to sanction Cooley unless Cooley was not in compliance with ABA standards at the time of the show cause hearing.