Court Opinion

ID: 9687718
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 16:43:16.812817+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:07:35.340634
License: Public Domain

SIMONETT, Justice
(concurring specially)-
After 4 years of pretrial discovery and maneuvering, the trial eventually narrowed down to a claim for, at most, $96,000 (the amount by which plaintiffs claimed the stock sale price was inadequate). After 9 days of trial, the court found in favor of the defendants. In “winning” the lawsuit, defendants expended $352,097.26 in attorney fees and costs. For defendant George Uselman, a 71-year-old retiree, the litigation was especially disastrous, seriously depleting his retirement assets.
Among the factors prominent in prolonging this litigation were, first, this was a family fight with the usual doggedness and paranoia, and, second, plaintiffs wanted substantial punitive damages.1 My concern with the case is not so much with the adequacy of the prefiling investigation but with what happened thereafter. Once the suit was filed it took on a life of its own, producing over 400 exhibits, some 18 depositions, and shifting theories of recovery under a complaint amended twice. Plaintiffs’ counsel persisted in pursuing numerous peripheral claims after they were revealed to be of no merit, and discovery was carried to the point of diminishing returns. This is particularly true with respect to claims against George and Jerry Uselman.
If plaintiffs’ counsel had received timely and fair warning of the possible imposition of sanctions, I might have been inclined to defer to the trial judge’s discretion in imposing monetary sanctions here, but in a much lesser amount than was done. But because such warning was not given, I agree with the majority’s outright reversal of any monetary sanction.
The larger question presented by this case is how our litigation system can resolve disputes on a rational cost-benefit basis. Put another way, can civil litigation survive without some kind of sensible cost containment? In my view, Rule 11 is not much help. While the rule is intended to deter litigation abuse, it often itself contributes to that abuse and serves to chill aggressive, imaginative advocacy. See, e.g., M.L. Nellan, The Impact of Federal Rule 11 on Lawyers and Judges in the Northern District of California, 74 Judicature 147 (1990).
If there is to be effective litigation cost containment, we will have to look elsewhere. To a large extent, it seems to me, the adversarial system must look to the self-restraint of counsel. This seems appropriate. Then, if the litigation model of dispute resolution becomes outmoded because of its costliness, the bar will have no one to blame but itself.
One gets the impression in this case that if plaintiffs’ attorney had associated with experienced trial counsel, some needed focus and realism might have been injected into this litigation and it would not be here now.

. The trial court had denied defendants’ pretrial motions to eliminate the punitive damages claim on a wait-and-see basis; when the waiting was over, no evidence justifying punitive damages had been produced.