ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, August 7, 1996 TAG: 9608070057
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JAN VERTEFEUILLE STAFF WRITER
note: below
Using a seldom-imposed federal rule, a judge plans to sanction two lawyers who filed a lawsuit so frivolous, he said, it was the legal equivalent of a "drive-by shooting."
U.S. District Judge Samuel Wilson dismissed the lawsuit, against Gentry Locke Rakes & Moore of Roanoke and two other law firms, and said he plans to require the plaintiff and her two attorneys to pay some or all of the firms' legal fees. Those fees and expenses total at least $53,000.
The lawsuit alleged a conspiracy between several law firms and the seven justices on the Virginia Supreme Court to deprive the plaintiff, Blacksburg developer Georgia Anne Snyder-Falkinham, of an impartial decision. The suit's claims are based in part on an anonymous letter written to the Supreme Court and anonymous calls to the developer's lawyers.
Snyder-Falkinham also sued Sands, Anderson, Marks & Miller of Richmond, and Wharton, Aldhizer & Weaver of Harrisonburg, as well as individual attorneys from those firms.
"Federal court is not a safe haven to conduct legally and factually groundless litigation - litigation so devoid of merit that it is obviously conducted to harass and embarrass," Wilson wrote in an 11-page opinion filed Monday.
"This action is based on an alleged anonymous tip and has all the grace and charm of a drive-by shooting."
Wilson said he will sanction Snyder-Falkinham and her attorneys, Joseph Anthony of Roanoke and Michael Richardson of Chattanooga, Tenn., under Rule 11 of federal rules for civil cases. He asked all the parties in the case to file briefs with the court to determine how much the three should be required to pay to serve as a deterrent to such conduct.
Anthony said Tuesday that it would be inappropriate for him to comment "since the judge has made it personal" and has "made us [the attorneys] in essence a party to the litigation."
Jonathan Schraub, a Washington, D.C., attorney representing one of the law firms Snyder-Falkinham sued, called the lawsuit "so far over the edge in terms of being scandalous, if it didn't seriously affect people's reputations it would be laughable."
The lawsuit is the latest in a series of legal claims made by Snyder-Falkinham since 1991 to get back millions of dollars she lost in real estate ventures in the 1980s.
She originally sued Bruce Stockburger, a general partner in Gentry Locke who represented her in some business dealings, over a conflict of interest. The case was referred to mediation and was settled, with the law firm paying Snyder-Falkinham an undisclosed amount of money.
But the check has never been cashed because the developer claims she never agreed to a settlement. She hired new lawyers, but a state trial judge concluded that she did in fact agree to the settlement. She then appealed to the Virginia Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court upheld the judge's decision. Snyder-Falkinham then turned to the federal court in Roanoke, alleging that the circuit court erred in the case and that Gentry Locke attorneys conspired with Supreme Court justices to "corruptly" decide her appeal.
Snyder-Falkinham's attorneys have suggested that Gentry Locke and its partners, who are well-connected in Virginia legal circles, used their connections to prevent a fair hearing of the case.
The anonymous letter cited in the case was supposedly written by the "grateful wife" of a Gentry Locke attorney, thanking the Supreme Court justices for their "intense and concerted effort" to protect Gentry Locke's reputation.
Wilson's opinion suggests that the letter may have come from Snyder-Falkinham's camp. And if it is genuine, the anonymity in no way relieves her attorneys of making a reasonable inquiry into the facts, he wrote.
Rule 11 sanctions are infrequent in federal court. The 4th U.S. Circuit, of which Virginia is part, has stressed that Rule 11 should be used to deter and punish, rather than to compensate the other side, and that any monetary penalty imposed generally should be paid to the court.
But by using Rule 11 instead of another statute, Wilson can force the lawyers as well as their client to pay and can impose sanctions of any amount - more or less than the actual attorneys' fees.
LENGTH: Medium: 81 linesby CNB