Court Opinion

ID: 9482664
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 08:56:56.741079+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:49:07.642082
License: Public Domain

ORDER OF COURT ON PETITION FOR REHEARING
March 16, 1992.
The petition for rehearing en banc filed by defendant-appellant City of Lebanon is, under this court’s internal operating procedures, considered both by the panel and by the full court. Panel rehearing is hereby denied for the following reasons.
Appellant’s petition seeks to review that portion of the panel opinion wherein the court refused to review an order for sanctions levied against the City’s counsel because only the City, not its counsel, had filed a notice of appeal. See DCPB, Inc. v. City of Lebanon, 957 F.2d 913, 918-19 (1st Cir.1992). Refined to bare essence, the petition makes essentially five points. None have merit. We respond to each point briefly.
1. The City says that Marshak v. Tonetti, 813 F.2d 13, 21-22 (1st Cir.1987) (per curiam), relied on in the panel opinion, was effectively overruled in Cruz v. Savage, 896 F.2d 626 (1st Cir.1990). We disagree. Cruz did not cite to Marshak or mention the question of the appellants’ standing to contest the sanction there at issue. Thus, *920Cruz appears to be nothing more than an instance in which, because the substantive merits of an issue were so apparent — indeed, the Cruz court called the sanctions appeal “frivolous,” id. at 635 — there was no need to discuss the question of appellate jurisdiction. See, e.g., Norton v. Mathews, 427 U.S. 524, 532, 96 S.Ct. 2771, 2775, 49 L.Ed.2d 672 (1976) (where substantive merits underlying a jurisdictional issue can easily be resolved to the benefit of the party in whose favor the jurisdictional issue would operate, the jurisdictional inquiry may be avoided); Secretary of the Navy v. Avrech, 418 U.S. 676, 677-78, 94 S.Ct. 3039, 3040, 41 L.Ed.2d 1033 (1974) (per curiam) (similar). Marshak is still binding precedent in this circuit.
2. The City says that Marshak was wrongly decided. We disagree. The post-Marshak cases from other courts, cited by the City, do not offer a convincing reason to believe that the Marshak panel reached an erroneous result. Moreover, as pointed out by the panel, DCPB, Inc., 957 F.2d at 919, Marshak’s reasoning has been followed in other circuits.
3. The City says that Marshak involved a Fed.R.Civ.P. 11 sanction, whereas the case at bar involved a sanction levied under 28 U.S.C. § 1927. That is so. But, for purposes of standing and appellate jurisdiction, that is a distinction without a difference.
4. The City also says it would be unfair, in light of Cruz, for us to toe the line drawn in Marshak. But, we are dealing here with a matter of appellate jurisdiction, see Torres v. Oakland Scavenger Co., 487 U.S. 312, 108 S.Ct. 2405, 101 L.Ed.2d 285 (1988), not a matter of equitable discretion. Hence, “we lack power to entertain the appeal of any ... would-be appellants not specified in a timeous notice of appeal.” Rosario-Torres v. Hernandez-Colon, 889 F.2d 314, 317 (1st Cir.1989) (en banc).
5. The City’s final argument is that “the Court of Appeals never determined whether the City of Lebanon would pay the sanctions.” This is simply untrue. As noted in the panel opinion, the City’s appellate counsel was specifically asked to specify any financial interest that the City might have in the sanction, and was unable to identify any such interest. DCPB, Inc., 957 F.2d at 919. The petition for rehearing is equally silent on this subject. We are satisfied that the City had a fair opportunity to show some “pecuniary or ... other sufficient interest in the award to confer standing to appeal,” Marshak, 813 F.2d at 21, and failed to do so. The book must, therefore, be closed.
To the extent the rehearing petition contains other arguments, not subsumed in the foregoing, they are bootless. Panel rehearing is denied.