Court Opinion

ID: 9386626
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-04-13 14:02:42.661645+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:18:07.775299
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             DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA COURT OF APPEALS

                                   No. 22-FS-569

                   IN RE PETITION OF S.U. & C.U.; C.J., APPELLANTS.

                           Appeal from the Superior Court
                            of the District of Columbia
                             (2021-ADASLD-000167)

                       (Hon. Andrea L. Hertzfeld, Trial Judge)

(Submitted February 7, 2023                                 Decided April 13, 2023)

      S.U. & C.U., pro se.

      C.J., pro se.

      Before DEAHL, HOWARD, and ALIKHAN, Associate Judges.

      ALIKHAN, Associate Judge: Appellants S.U. and C.U. challenge the trial

court’s award of monetary sanctions against them. Because the trial court properly

awarded these sanctions under its inherent powers, and because appellants’

miscellaneous arguments lack merit, we affirm.

              I.       Factual Background and Procedural History

      S.U. (a transgender man) and appellee C.J. (a cisgender woman) were

involved in an interpersonal relationship from 2004 to 2016.           During their
                                            2

relationship, C.J. gave birth to four children: the first she conceived through

intrauterine insemination, and the others through in vitro fertilization. S.U. is listed

as the father on each child’s birth certificate, and C.J. is listed as their mother.

      Following the birth of their youngest, S.U. filed for sole legal custody of all

four children in family court in West Virginia, where they lived. He contended that

he and C.J. had signed agreements dictating that they would share custody of their

first child and that he would have sole custody of the other three. The court found

that S.U. had failed to present convincing evidence that C.J. had actually signed

these agreements, and the court therefore refused to enforce them. After much

litigation—and based on some troubling findings about S.U.’s behavior—the court

granted sole physical custody to C.J. and suspended all visitation by S.U. except for

telephone and Skype contact. 1

      S.U. appealed to the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals, which

affirmed. After several additional appeals by S.U., the West Virginia Supreme Court

of Appeals issued a memorandum decision “stress[ing] two important rulings” that

it had made in its many prior decisions regarding this custody dispute. First, “there

      1
        In one of its orders, the Superior Court noted that the West Virginia trial
court later suspended all contact after S.U. violated that court’s instructions.
Although we do not necessarily call that finding into question, we do not rely on it,
as support for it does not appear in the record on appeal.
                                           3

was never a valid, enforceable gestational surrogacy agreement between [S.U.] and

[C.J.].” Second, C.J. “is the legal mother of all four children.”

      Less than a month after the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals issued

that decision, S.U. and his wife C.U. filed petitions to adopt the three youngest

children in the Superior Court of the District of Columbia. All three sworn, notarized

petitions are functionally identical. In them, S.U. first listed his residential address

as “4035 Grant St NE, Washington, DC 20019,” but crossed that address out and

handwrote above it: “712 H St NE, Suite 1433 Washington, DC 20002.” The

petitions further allege that all three children had been living with S.U. and C.U.

since 2016. At no point do the petitions mention C.J. or the West Virginia litigation.

      Alongside each petition, S.U. filed (1) a gestational surrogate consent form

that C.J. appears to have signed, and (2) a “Natural Parent’s Affidavit Concerning

Parentage.” In the affidavit, S.U. swore that the second biological parent of the three

children was an anonymous donor, and that the resulting embryos were transferred

“into the uterus of a third-party gestational surrogate who gestated [his] children to

birth.” He further swore that “[o]nly [S.U.] and the anonymous donor can be the

biological parents” of the three children. Like the petitions it supported, the affidavit

makes no mention of the fact that the West Virginia courts had adjudicated C.J. to

be the children’s legal mother.
                                           4

      Based on the representations in the petitions and exhibits, the Superior Court

granted all three adoptions. When C.J. learned of the orders, she moved to intervene.

The court held a hearing on the matter, during which C.J. testified that (1) the three

children had been living with her since February 2018; (2) they had not seen S.U.

since August 2018; and (3) none of the children had ever been to the District of

Columbia.

      The court pressed S.U. and C.U. on whether they actually resided in the

District. They admitted that the H Street address listed in their petitions was not a

residential address, but a mail forwarding center. S.U. also acknowledged that the

Grant Street house was only a short-term Airbnb rental—and that the children had

never resided in the District. For her part, C.U. confessed that she had never lived

in the District and intended to file her taxes in West Virginia.

      The trial court then issued an order vacating all three adoption decrees. It

found that neither S.U. nor C.U. had ever actually resided in the District and

accordingly held that it had lacked jurisdiction to issue the decrees pursuant to D.C.

Code § 16-301(b). S.U. and C.U. appealed that order, and we affirmed. In re

Petition of S.U. & C.U., No. 22-FS-98, Mem. Op. & J. at 2 (D.C. Nov. 15, 2022).

      While that appeal was pending, the trial court held a hearing regarding an oral

motion that C.J. had made for sanctions. C.J. attended the hearing, but S.U. and
                                          5

C.U. did not. C.J. testified about S.U.’s attempts to file fraudulent lawsuits in

multiple jurisdictions, recounting that S.U. had bluntly admitted to her that his

purpose in filing these suits was not only to gain custody of the children, “but also

to harass her and to financially drain her.” The trial court fully credited C.J.’s

testimony.

      The court thereafter granted C.J.’s sanctions motion.        It found that the

petitions were “vexatious, harassing and duplicative[, and] were pursued in bad-

faith.” Specifically, it explained that S.U. and C.U. had “committed a fraud upon

th[e] Court, perjured themselves in sworn documents and in testimony at the January

27, 2022 hearing, and attempted to use this Court’s authority to circumvent the valid,

final order of another court to kidnap [the three youngest children] from their lawful

parent.”

      The court accordingly awarded C.J. $71,631.23, citing its authority to impose

sanctions both under Super. Ct. Dom. Rel. R. 11, as well as its “inherent power.” Of

this amount, $62,534.23 went to fees C.J. incurred from work her attorney, Jeffrey

Strange, had completed on matters for the Superior Court litigation and two directly

related matters in West Virginia: S.U.’s demand that the West Virginia Supreme

Court of Appeals honor the Superior Court’s adoption decrees and S.U.’s emergency

motion in West Virginia to obtain physical custody of the children following the
                                              6

issuance of the decrees. The remaining $9,097 went to “travel, child care, and lost

wages associated with [C.J.’s] travel to and appearances in this District.” S.U. and

C.U. timely appealed the sanctions order. 2

                               II.      Standard of Review

      We review a trial court’s sanctions award imposed under Super. Ct. Dom. Rel.

R. 11—which is functionally identical to Super. Ct. Civ. R. 11—for abuse of

discretion. Bredehoft v. Alexander, 686 A.2d 586, 594 (D.C. 1996). For sanctions

imposed under a court’s inherent powers, we review the trial court’s predicate

finding of bad faith for clear error, and its ultimate award for abuse of discretion.

Ginsberg v. Granados, 963 A.2d 1134, 1137 (D.C. 2009); Breezevale Ltd. v.

Dickinson, 879 A.2d 957, 967 (D.C. 2005).

                                      III.   Discussion

      S.U. and C.U. raise a litany of arguments on appeal. We reject all of them

and affirm the trial court’s grant of sanctions.

                          A.         Propriety of the Sanctions

      S.U. and C.U. first argue that the trial court improperly imposed sanctions

under Super. Ct. Dom. Rel. R. 11 because it failed to expressly consider certain

      2
       The court also imposed a few other non-monetary sanctions, none of which
S.U. and C.U. contest on appeal.
                                           7

factors that we have suggested may be a mandatory part of the Rule 11 analysis. See

Williams v. Bd. of Trs. of Mount Jezreel Baptist Church, 589 A.2d 901, 911-12 (D.C.

1991) (listing four factors the trial court “should” consider). Even assuming that the

court’s analysis would not pass muster under Rule 11’s strictures, the court

nevertheless permissibly used attorney’s fees and costs to calculate a sanction under

its “inherent power to police itself.” Upson v. Wallace, 3 A.3d 1148, 1168 (D.C.

2010) (quoting Chambers v. NASCO, Inc., 501 U.S. 32, 46 (1991)).

      Pursuant to that power, a “court may . . . award a sanction . . . to a prevailing

party if the opposing party ‘acted in bad faith, vexatiously, wantonly, or for

oppressive reasons.’” Id. (quoting Alyeska Pipeline Serv. Co. v. Wilderness Soc’y,

421 U.S. 240, 258-59 (1975)). Unlike with Rule 11, a finding of bad faith is all that

is required for a court to impose sanctions under its inherent powers. In re Jumper,

909 A.2d 173, 176 (D.C. 2006).

      Trial courts enjoy “considerable latitude” in deciding the type of sanctions to

impose under their inherent powers. See Breezevale, 879 A.2d at 967. Where a

party has initiated an entire lawsuit in bad faith, the court may award all legal

expenses incurred by the defendant. Synanon Found., Inc. v. Bernstein, 517 A.2d

28, 38 (D.C. 1986). But courts are not limited to awards of attorney’s fees and costs;

their ability to craft sanctions encompasses a significantly broader array of solutions.
                                           8

See Breezevale, 879 A.2d at 967 (affirming dismissal of entire suit); Auerbach v.

Frank, 685 A.2d 404, 409 (D.C. 1996) (suggesting that imposing an injunction

prohibiting a party from filing a simultaneous lawsuit in another jurisdiction would

be permissible as long as the party bore “a very heavy burden of justification”).

Where a court imposes sanctions under both Rule 11 and its inherent powers—but

lacks a sufficient basis to do so under Rule 11—we may nonetheless find the error

harmless if we determine that the inherent sanctions award was not infected by the

error, as we conclude is the case here. Jemison v. Nat’l Baptist Convention, USA,

Inc., 720 A.2d 275, 287 (D.C. 1998); see Ginsberg, 963 A.2d at 1137 (bad faith

finding reviewed for clear error); Synanon Found., Inc., 517 A.2d at 38 (sanctions

reviewed for abuse of discretion).

      A review of the trial court’s order makes clear that the court issued its awards

under both Super. Ct. Dom. Rel. R. 11 and its inherent powers. Drawing from the

inherent powers standard, the court noted that it “ha[d] inherent authority to award

sanctions in appropriate circumstances for intentional abuse of the litigation

process,” authority that “is supplemented by Rule 11.” The court went on to explain

that “the exercise of [its inherent] authority must be based upon a finding that a party

has acted in bad faith, vexatiously, wantonly, or for oppressive reasons”—the very

findings it expressly made later in its order. From this language, we surmise a clear

intent by the trial court to impose sanctions under its inherent powers, and the
                                           9

requisite finding that S.U. and C.U. had initiated these adoption matters in bad faith

is well-supported by the facts recounted above. Whether the trial court satisfied the

standard for Rule 11 sanctions therefore is of no matter.

                      B.     Amount and Form of the Award

      The court awarded C.J. a total of $71,631.23, some of which was

compensation for the work Mr. Strange had undertaken in the instant case and in two

directly related matters in West Virginia, and the rest of which went to reimbursing

C.J. for personal costs associated with the litigation, including travel, childcare, and

lost wages. Both the amount and form of that award were proper.

      As to the amount, these expenses are well supported by the exhibits that C.J.

submitted. One of them specifically set forth her personal costs, separated by type

of expense (i.e., travel expenses, babysitting fees, and missed work). The other

organized the amounts her attorney billed, separated by project. And two affidavits

submitted by Mr. Strange explained his and his staff’s hourly rates. We are thus

satisfied that the record supports the amount of sanctions awarded. See 1230-1250

Twenty-Third St. Condo. Unit Owners Ass’n, v. Bolandz, 978 A.2d 1188, 1193 (D.C.

2009) (affirming award where the party “outlined the fees by the stages in the

proceeding . . . and included references to the corresponding invoices”).
                                         10

      As to form, given the trial court’s wide discretion to craft a sanction to punish

bad-faith litigators and deter improper future conduct, Synanon Found., Inc., 517

A.2d at 37, we see no issue with ordering S.U. and C.U. to pay all of the costs C.J.

expended in defending against this matter, including personal costs and payments

made to her attorney, see id. at 38 (noting that “where a suit has been filed in bad

faith, the court has discretion to award the entire legal expenses incurred by the

defendant”). The court here acted well within its discretion in awarding C.J. these

sanctions under its inherent powers. 3

      S.U. and C.U. argue that an award of attorney’s fees was improper because

C.J. appeared pro se in this case and was thus technically unrepresented by an

attorney. Mr. Strange, whom she had employed to represent her in the many West

Virginia actions, ghostwrote some documents for her, which C.J. then filed in

Superior Court—and it is the cost of those ghostwritten documents that form a large

      3
         Given this holding, we need not address S.U. and C.U.’s argument that these
proceedings should have been governed by the Superior Court’s Adoption Rules,
not its Domestic Relations Rules.
                                          11

part of the sanctions award. 4 S.U. and C.U. suggest that an award of “attorney’s

fees” for this work was improper, as C.J. was never actually represented by an

attorney in Superior Court.

      That argument fails in the context of this case—where the court awarded

sanctions based on its inherent powers—because it makes no difference whether

these expenses are properly categorized as attorney’s fees versus any other kind of

cost. While proper categorization would likely matter in the context of a fee-shifting

statute expressly cabined to “attorney’s fees,” that is not the case here. Cf. Upson, 3

A.3d at 1165-68 (holding that an attorney who represents himself is not entitled to

“attorney’s fees” under Rule 11); In re Estate of Mason, 732 A.2d 253, 254 (D.C.

1999) (per curiam) (affirming the trial court’s exercise of discretion in refusing to

      4
         While we are using the term “ghostwriting,” the D.C. Bar refers to the
situation of “a lawyer who drafts a complaint or an appellate brief for a client to file
pro se” as an example of an “unbundled service arrangement[].” D.C. Bar, Ethics
Op. 330 (2005). The D.C. Bar has opined that this practice is permitted under the
D.C. Rules of Professional Conduct and that the rules “do not articulate any
requirement that attorneys must identify themselves to the court if they provide
assistance to a pro se litigant in the preparation of documents to be filed in court.”
Id.; see ABA Comm. on Ethics & Pro. Resp., Formal Op. 07-446 (2007) (opining
that lawyers may provide assistance to pro se parties without disclosing the nature
or extent of their assistance); Ira P. Robbins, Ghostwriting: Filling in the Gaps of
Pro Se Prisoners’ Access to the Courts, 23 Geo. J. Legal Ethics 271, 286-89 (2010)
(noting that as of 2010, approximately half of the states that had considered the
practice had explicitly permitted ghostwriting of legal pleadings); Jona
Goldschmidt, In Defense of Ghostwriting, 29 Fordham Urb. L.J. 1145, 1146-47
(2002) (outlining policy advantages of permitting ghostwriting).
                                         12

award attorney’s fees incurred before the attorney was admitted to the Superior

Court pro hac vice). 5 A court’s inherent powers give it broad authority to craft

sanctions that it deems will punish and deter bad-faith litigation. See Breezevale,

879 A.2d at 967, 970; Synanon Found., Inc., 517 A.2d at 38. That certainly includes

the authority to award all costs the prevailing party expended as a result of such

litigation, regardless of whether those fees were attorney’s fees qua attorney’s fees.

Stated simply, Mr. Strange’s fees were indisputably a part of C.J.’s litigation

expenses, so the court could properly order their reimbursement as a sanction under

its inherent powers.

      S.U. and C.U. also assert that Mr. Strange’s ghostwriting constituted the

unauthorized practice of law, but that too fails. First, they do not explain how that

would provide a basis to deny C.J. reimbursement for expenses incurred in litigating

this suit.   Second, and in any event, even if we assumed that Mr. Strange’s

ghostwriting did qualify as practicing law “[i]n the District of Columbia” pursuant

to D.C. App. R. 49(b)(3) and D.C. App. R 49(b)(3) cmt., an attorney like

Mr. Strange who is not admitted in the District is still permitted to “provide legal

       5
         To be clear, we are not addressing the merits of this argument—whether
fee-shifting statutes limited to “attorney’s fees” permit an award of fees for
ghostwritten work—one way or another. We simply emphasize that it has no
application where a court has granted sanctions under its inherent powers, which
authorize much broader forms of relief than just attorney’s fees.
                                            13

services on a temporary basis . . . if the services . . . are in or reasonably related to a

pending or potential proceeding before a court or other tribunal in another

jurisdiction in which the person is admitted.” D.C. App. R. 49(c)(13)(A). We thus

see no barrier to the services Mr. Strange rendered here.

                            C.     Remaining Arguments

       S.U. and C.U. raise a host of additional arguments that warrant only brief

attention.   First, they claim that “[t]he sanctions imposed are unconstitutional

because they penalize [them] for exercising [their] Fourteenth Amendment rights of

due process, equal protection, and rights surrounding the parent-child relationship.” 6

This is simply inaccurate.       The trial court awarded sanctions based upon its

well-supported finding that S.U. and C.U. initiated this suit in bad faith, and we have

held that “there is no right to access the courts to conduct vexatious litigation.” In

re Sibley, 990 A.2d 483, 491 (D.C. 2010).

       If S.U. and C.U. are claiming that they were denied procedural due process,

that gets them no further. As long as a party is placed on sufficient notice that it may

be subject to sanctions, the court may decide sanctions based only on the parties’

briefings. Breezevale, 879 A.2d at 964-65. After the court placed S.U. and C.U. on

       The Fourteenth Amendment is not applicable in the District of Columbia,
       6

but due process and equal protection claims are cognizable under the Fifth
Amendment. Bolling v. Sharpe, 347 U.S. 497, 500 (1954).
                                          14

notice in its order vacating the adoption petitions that it was considering issuing

sanctions against them, S.U. and C.U. filed two briefs contesting sanctions. That

alone is sufficient process. 7 Id. What is more, S.U. and C.U. failed to attend the

sanctions hearing (even though S.U. indicated that he would be available on the date

it was scheduled) and they have not provided any excuse for their absence. Chavis

v. Garrett, 419 F. Supp. 3d 24, 38 (D.D.C. 2019) (rejecting the plaintiff’s due process

claim because “[a]t no point d[id] she allege that she availed herself of relevant

procedures available to her under District of Columbia law”).

      Second, S.U. and C.U. argue that the sanctions imposed by the court “give[]

the appearance of vindictiveness.” A thorough review of the record has unearthed

nothing to suggest that the trial court harbored an impermissible bias against S.U. or

C.U., as opposed to a desire to deter frivolous filings and fraud on the court.

      Third, S.U. and C.U. contend that “[t]he entirety of [their] actions was

permitted by D.C. Code § 16-301 et. seq.; D.C. Code § 16-401 et. seq.; 42 U.S. Code

§ 1983; and[] w[as] in-line [sic] with the Fourteenth Amendment.” For the reasons

stated above, neither the Constitution nor Section 1983 protects bad-faith, fraudulent

      7
        To the extent that S.U. and C.U. suggest in their brief that they were never
given a copy of C.J.’s updated fee exhibits—on which the trial court based its final
award—that is belied by the record. In their second sanctions brief, they recite fee
amounts that only appear in the updated exhibits.
                                          15

litigation. Neither does our adoption statute (Section 16-301 et seq.), nor our

collaborative reproduction statute (Section 16-401 et seq.). If S.U. and C.U. are

trying to reargue, as they did in West Virginia, that C.J.’s name should not have been

placed on the children’s birth certificates, we must reject that argument because the

issue was resolved in a final judgment in West Virginia, and we give that decision

full faith and credit. See Nader v. Serody, 43 A.3d 327, 336 (D.C. 2012).

      Fourth, S.U. and C.U. contest the trial court’s finding that S.U. was not a legal

resident of the District. But we already affirmed that finding in S.U. and C.U.’s prior

appeal. In re Petition of S.U. & C.U., Mem. Op. & J. at 2.

      Fifth and finally, S.U. and C.U. argue that res judicata bars some or all of the

fees that C.J. sought. They claim that she already requested compensation for the

same fees in a West Virginia federal court, and that that court elected not to award

fees for that work. This is simply based on a false factual premise. Neither the

magistrate judge nor the district judge in the case S.U. and C.U. cite considered

whether C.J. would be entitled to attorney’s fees. Omnibus R. & R., [C.J.] v. S.U.,

No. 1:22-cv-3 (N.D.W.V. Mar. 18, 2022); Order, [C.J.] v. S.U., No. 1:22-cv-3

(N.D.W.V. Sept. 30, 2022). In fact, C.J. never even sought attorney’s fees in that

matter. Docket, No. 1:22-cv-3 (N.D.W.V.); C.J. Mot. to Dismiss, No. 1:22-cv-3

(N.D.W.V. Feb. 11, 2022). So the issue plainly did not receive the decision on the
                                         16

merits that is required to apply claim or issue preclusion. Modiri v. 1342 Rest. Grp.,

904 A.2d 391, 394 (D.C. 2006); Smith v. Greenway Apartments LP, 150 A.3d 1265,

1272 (D.C. 2016).

                                 IV.    Conclusion

      For the foregoing reasons, the judgment of the Superior Court is affirmed.

                                                     So ordered.