Court Opinion

ID: 9448826
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 23:45:30.513711+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:31:33.692704
License: Public Domain

BIGGS, Chief Judge
(dissenting).
I regret that I cannot agree with the majority opinion. I do agree that the issue is whether a United States district court has the power to “fine” or impose a sanction on counsel for a party engaged in private civil litigation because the attorney 1 has not complied with a “standing order” or rule of the court requiring him to file a timely pretrial memorandum. The majority strikes down the fine on the ground that the court has not been given the authority and possesses no inherent power to impose upon counsel what, in the majority’s view, is a penalty for criminal contempt.
*734There were in fact no formal proceedings before the penalty was imposed on the appellant. There was a hearing on a motion by the plaintiff to strike the late pretrial memorandum, and there was discussion of a range of possible sanctions including fines on counsel. The trial judge deemed the striking of the memorandum to be too drastic a penalty and instead imposed upon the tardy attorney the fine appealed from. The distinguished counsel serving as amicus curiae takes the position that the action of the court below was “simply * * * an exercise of disciplinary authority, with no necessary criminal connotation.” I agree with this statement.
The United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania is one of the busiest in the federal system. At the end of the fiscal year 1961, it had pending over 4000 civil cases,2 the type of litigation most difficult to dispose of and more time-consuming than any other. A high degree of cooperation between bench and bar must be secured if calendar control and prompt disposition of these civil cases are to be effected.
That high degree of cooperation has, in general, been attained. The great majority of members of the bar join with the judges in vigorous and sincere efforts to bring the congested dockets up to date. But a few attorneys are habitually dilatory. The often unconscious mental attitude of this small group contributes substantially to calendar congestion. It is the banal but brutal fact that justice delayed is justice denied.
For many centuries it has been the practice to impose the shortcomings of the counsel upon the client. When a required pleading, for example, has not been filed in time or default has been incurred by reason of the failure of counsel to perform his duty, it has been usual to impose costs or some other penalty upon the party and not on his counsel.3 This seems as unrealistic as imposing a penalty on a passenger because the railroad train on which he rides is late because of the dereliction of the operating crew.
Here we are concerned specifically with procedures relating to the pretrial conference. I think the great value of such conferences in aiding the speedy disposition of civil cases cannot be seriously questioned. As was said in Link v. Wabash R.R. Co., 291 F.2d 542, 547 (7 Cir. 1961), aff’d, 370 U.S. 626, 82 S.Ct. 1386, 8 L.Ed.2d 734 (1962) :
“Pre-trial procedure has become an integrated part of the judicial process on the trial level. Courts must be free to use it and to control and enforce its operation. Otherwise, the orderly administration of justice will be removed from the trial court and placed in the hands of counsel. We do not believe such a course is within the contemplation of the law.”
In Link the action was dismissed because of the failure of the plaintiff’s counsel to attend a pretrial conference. The sanction — a most severe one — was visited on the party-plaintiff rather than on his counsel. See also Payne v. S.S. Nabob, 302 F.2d 803 (3 Cir. 1962).
To the end that pretrial might be carried on effectively in the court below, the first of the “standing orders”, that of October 23, 1958, set out in the majority opinion, was adopted. As I understand it, the majority does not doubt, nor the appellant question, the power of the district court to make such an order. In Padovani v. Bruchhausen, 293 F.2d 546, 548 (2 Cir. 1961), Judge Clark points out that the purpose of Rule 16 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure is to enable the court to call a conference to 'prepare for trial — that is, the pretrial conference. Rule 83 authorizes the district courts to *735make rules governing their practice “not inconsistent” with the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. Certainly the first standing order recited in the majority opinion is consistent with Rule 16. It is not, in my opinion, an effective disposition of the contention of amicus to hold that the standing order is not the equivalent of a rule of court. This argument is based on an unappealing technicality.
Dealing now with the second standing order of the court below, that of February 8, 1960, under which the sanction on counsel was imposed, that also has the validity of a rule of court made pursuant to Rule 83. It is a reasonable exercise of the authority given district courts by the Supreme Court in accordance with that Court’s rule-making power under the Act of June 19, 1934, 48 Stat. 1064, 28 U.S.C. § 2072. True, the impact of the sanction is shifted from the party to his attorney but it seems to me to be the better rather than the worse for this reason. The argument of the majority that the power of the district court to make the standing order should not have been exercised because the result would be a lack of uniformity throughout the districts overlooks the fact that there is no pressing need for uniformity in respect to pretrial conferences. Some courts are not troubled with congested dockets; others are. Indeed, if uniformity were a goal in itself Rule 83 would serve no purpose at all. The Rule serves to reserve to the respective district courts a large degree of local judicial autonomy in rule-making and provides for wide variations in administrative practices among them. It is clear to me that the standing orders of the district court do not conflict but rather are in harmony with the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.4
Assume, however, that a United States District Court gains no authority under the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure to establish the standing order of February 8, 1960, under which the penalty was imposed upon the tardy counsel. I conclude nevertheless that the district court possesses the inherent power to make both standing orders, the last as well as the first. The conception of a court helpless to control its calendar is a hopeless one.
The power of a court to discipline members of its own bar can scarcely be doubted seriously. An attorney is under no obligation to seek admission to the bar of a United States district court. He is at liberty to abstain from membership in that or any other bar. But when he does apply and is admitted he secures certain privileges and also assumes definite obligations.
The power of a court to impose appropriate and reasonable sanctions upon those admitted to its bar is a familiar phenomenon and lies within the inherent power of any court of record. Typical of that power is the authority of a court to grant a new trial of its own motion, to dismiss a complaint for want of prosecution5 or in order to effect the ends of justice,6 to invoke the aid of an auditor,7 *736to call for a pretrial conference,8 to protect a litigant against costs created by his counsel,9 and to make rules,10 in addition to the power to discipline members of the bar.11
When we look at the disciplinary problem presented by the appellant, we perceive at once the reason — indeed, the necessity — for a standing order of the sort here under discussion authorizing the imposition of a penalty upon him. The facts are not in dispute. The case appeared on the civil pretrial list published in the autumn of 1959. The plaintiff filed his pretrial memorandum on December 12, 1959. The pretrial memorandum of the defendant, represented by this appellant, was due under the standing order12 first quoted in the majority opinion on January 11, 1960. The appellant had received a letter from the plaintiff dated December 9, 1959, accompanying the latter’s pretrial memorandum and had received a letter accompanying the third-party defendant’s pretrial memorandum on January 11, 1960. Approximately two weeks prior to November 23, 1960, the appellant received the usual formal notice, sent by the clerk of the court, that the pretrial conference would be held on November 23, 1960. The appellant disregarded all these warning notices “through inadvertence”. The defendant’s pretrial memorandum, finally prepared by the appellant and filed about ten months late, was received by the trial judge the night before the pretrial conference. The trial of the case was delayed approximately three weeks and might have been delayed longer had not the trial judge proceeded vigorously and promptly despite the appellant’s tardiness. See 191 F.Supp. 763 (1961).
The appellant, for obvious reasons, desires to give the proceedings a criminal cast. He asserts that the appeal has been taken pursuant to the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure and uses the word “sentencing” to characterize the order appealed from. But how the appellant chooses to describe his appeal is, in my opinion, not important; the notice of appeal should be viewed, I think, as sufficiently broad to authorize this appeal whether it is civil or criminal. What is important, however, is that these proceedings are of a different nature from those for criminal contempt. The power to discipline springs from a different source than does the power to punish for criminal contempt. See 18 U.S.C. § 401. The appellant’s dereliction did not amount to contempt. The trial judge treated the failure to file the pretrial memorandum— annoying as it was and, if repeated frequently, destructive of the judicial process — as a peccadillo rather than a sin. There is no suggestion of wilfullness, a necessary element of contempt,13 on the part of the appellant. And since, for these reasons, I do not view this as a contempt proceeding, the recent ruling of the Supreme Court in In re McConnell, 370 U.S. 230, 82 S.Ct. 1288, 8 L.Ed.2d 434, construing 18 U.S.C. § 401, has no application here.14
*737In conclusion, I point out that the delays of the offending counsel were freely admitted by him. The two standing orders of the district court gave him ample notice and permit the raising of no valid issue as to due process.
I would affirm the order of the court below.

. In the notice of appeal, opposite “Name and address of Appellant,” lias been set out not only the name of Timothy J. Mahoney, Esq., the member of the bar of the court below who failed to comply with the standing order in question, but also the other partners of Messrs. Krusen, Evans and Shaw. The “Statement of Judgment” appealed from is “The Order of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania (Francis L. Van Dusen, Judge) entered February 23, 1961, sentencing the Appellant Mahoney or possibly all of the partners trading as Krusen, Evans & Shaw as more fully set out in the said Order of February 23, 1961.” The form of the appeal is mentioned at a later point in this opinion. For the purposes of this opinion, Timothy J. Mahoney will be treated as the appellant.

. See Table C 1, Annual Report of the Director of the Administrative Office of the United States Courts, 1961.

. Congress has broken through this band of illogic by enacting 28 U.S.C. § 1927, which provides, as the majority points out, that “any attorney * * * in any court of the United States * * * who so multiplies the proceedings in any case as to increase costs unreasonably and vexatiously may be required by the court to satisfy personally such excess costs.”

. The appellant places great emphasis on Miner v. Atlass, 363 U.S. 641, 648, 80 S.Ct. 1300, 4 L.Ed.2d 1462 (1960), but I cannot perceive in that decision support for his contention that the standing order is invalid as being inconsistent with the Federal Buies of Civil Procedure. The failure of the Federal Buies to provide for the details of pretrial procedure affords no basis under the Miner case for the assertion that the field is preempted. Mr. Justice Harlan, speaking for the Court in Miner, seems to concede that the failure of the Supreme Court to include discovery depositions in the admiralty rules did not disclose the intention per se to foreclose the district courts from adopting appropriate local rules under the admiralty equivalent of Buie 83 of the Federal Buies of Civil Procedure. In addition, the Court disclaimed all intention of deciding that, whenever the rules dealt with part but not all of a subject, the practices not provided for may not be dealt with by local rules. The Supreme Court stated: “We deal here only with the procedure before us, and our decision is based on its particular nature and history.” 363 U.S. at 649, 80 S.Ct. 1305.

. Hicks v. Bekins Moving & Storage Co., 115 F.2d 406 (9 Cir. 1940).

. United States v. Apex Distributing Co.. 270 F.2d 747 (9 Cir. 1959).

. Ex parte Peterson, 253 U.S. 300, 314, 40 S.Ct. 543, 64 L.Ed. 919 (1920).

. Fanciullo v. B. G. & S. Theatre Corp., 297 Mass. 44, 8 N.E.2d 174 (1937).

. Toledo Metal Wheel Co. v. Foyer Bros. & Co., 223 F. 350 (6 Cir. 1915).

. State ex rel. Hawke v. LeBlond, 108 Ohio St. 126, 140 N.E. 510 (1923).

. In re Schlesinger Appeal, 404 Pa. 584, 629, 172 A.2d 835, 856 (1861), cases cited in dissenting opinion.

. It is interesting to note that the appellant in his main brief in this court refers to the standing order providing the terms and conditions for pretrial conferences, that of October 23, 1958, as a “rule”.

. See e. g., United States ex rel. Porter v. Kroger Grocery & Baking Co., 163 F.2d 168 (7 Cir. 1947); Uhler v. Superior Court, 117 Cal.App.2d 147, 255 P.2d 29, 256 P.2d 90 (1953); Lamm v. Lamm, 229 N.C. 248, 49 S.E.2d 403 (1948) ; Raszler v. Raszler, 80 N.W.2d 535 (N.D.1956) ; State v. Yates, 208 Or. 491, 302 P.2d 719 (1956) ; Long v. McMillan, 226 S.C. 598, 86 S.E.2d 477 (1955). See also Dangel, Contempt § 171. And Bouvier’s Law Dictionary (Rawle’s 3rd rev.) states that “contempt'’ is “a wilfull disregard or disobedience of a public authority.”

. The writer of this opinion was at first somewhat troubled by the use of the phrase “and none other” in Section 401, Title 18 U.S.C., since it seems to prohibit any fine imposed by a court of the *737United States except upon conviction of a crime, which in this instance, says the appellant, can be only the crime of criminal contempt, if there be a crime at all. But in my view the phrase quoted modifies the whole of the sentence and not merely the word “power”. It would follow that the words of restriction are not applicable under the circumstances at bar.