Satellite Dealers v. Echostar Comm Corp ( 2003 )

United States Court of Appeals
Fifth Circuit
F I L E D
IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FIFTH CIRCUIT August 21, 2003
__________________________ Charles R. Fulbruge III
Clerk
No. 02-41484
__________________________
SATELLITE DEALERS SUPPLY, INC.,
Plaintiff-Appellant,
versus
ECHOSTAR COMMUNICATIONS CORPORATION,
Defendant-Appellee.
consolidated with
________________________
No. 02-41755
_________________________
SATELLITE DEALERS SUPPLY, INC.,
Plaintiff-Appellee,
versus
ECHOSTAR COMMUNICATIONS CORPORATION,
Defendant-Appellant.
___________________________________________________
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Eastern District of Texas
(5:00-CV-268)
___________________________________________________
Before WIENER, CLEMENT, and PRADO, Circuit Judges.
PER CURIAM:*
* Pursuant to 5TH CIR. R. 47.5, the court has determined that
this opinion should not be published and is not precedent except
under the limited circumstances set forth in 5TH CIR. R. 47.5.4.
Satellite Dealers Supply, Inc. (“SDS”) appeals the district
court’s grant of the motion of Echostar Communications Corporation
(“ECC”) to dismiss these consolidated cases for lack of personal
jurisdiction. For its part, ECC appeals the district court’s
denial of ECC’s post-judgment motions for sanctions. We affirm the
district court’s rulings on jurisdiction but vacate its denial of
sanctions and remand for further treatment of that issue.
As a preliminary matter, we reject ECC’s challenge to SDS’s
jurisdictional statement implicating its notice of appeal, which
identified the district court’s September 23, 2002 denial of SDS’s
motion for reconsideration rather than the court’s September 18,
2001 dismissal for lack of personal jurisdiction. See Foman v.
Davis, 371 U.S. 178, 180-81 (1962); C.A. May Marine Supply Co. v.
Brunswick Corp., 649 F.2d 1049, 1056 (5th Cir. 1981) (“The party
who makes a simple mistake in designating the judgment appealed
from does not forfeit his right of appeal where the intent to
pursue it is clear.”); Kelley v. Price-Macemon, Inc., 992 F.2d
1408, 1412 n.6 (5th Cir. 1993)(stating that an “appeal from the
denial of [a Rule 59 motion] may also be considered as a timely
appeal from the underlying order granting ... [a] motion for
summary judgment”).
As for personal jurisdiction, we have carefully reviewed the
facts and the legal arguments as reflected in the record on appeal,
the appellate briefs of the parties, and the oral arguments
presented by counsel. As a result, we are firmly convinced that
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the district court’s rejection of SDS’s assertions of personal
jurisdiction over ECC on alternative grounds of alter ego, general
jurisdiction, and specific jurisdiction, is firmly grounded in fact
and in law and thus should be affirmed.
We have no way of reaching a conclusion either way, however,
about the district court’s denial of ECC’s motions for sanctions
under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 11 and 28 U.S.C. § 1927, even
though we review such rulings under the highly deferential abuse of
discretion standard. Denying both sanction motions, the district
court stated only that “[a]fter reviewing the motions, the
responses and the applicable law, the court has determined that
sanctions are not warranted.” In response to ECC’s contention that
we should remand the sanctions question for a more detailed
explanation by the district court of its reasons for denying
sanctions, SDS argues that the trial court need not give reasons
when it denies sanctions, only when it grants them; and that the
record on appeal and the briefings of the parties are sufficient to
support the conclusion that the district court did not abuse its
discretion in denying sanctions.
SDS’s contention reiterated at oral argument by counsel, that
remand for explication is required only when sanctions are granted,
but not when they are denied, is wrong. In the recent case of
Copeland v. Wasserstein, Perella & Company, Inc., 278 F.3d 472 (5th
Cir. 2002), the district court —— like the court in this case ——
denied sanctions in an oral ruling from the bench without
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substantive explanation. We remanded, stating that we “must be
able to understand the district court’s disposition of the
sanctions motion.” Id. at 484. Because the district court’s oral
findings in Copeland were broadly and summarily made, and —— as in
this case —— the movant had alleged the expenditure of vast sums in
attorney’s fees and expenses, we concluded that we were “simply
unable to review this issue on appeal without at least a brief
statement, on each point, of the reasons for denying sanctions from
the perspective of the judge who is in the best position to expound
on these matters.” Id. We are bound to follow that precedent
here.
Although, as in Copeland, ECC claims hundreds of thousands of
dollars in legal expenses and costs, and although the district
court’s denial of sanctions contains even less express reasoning
than was given by the district court in Copeland, SDS has advanced
substantial legal and factual reasons in support of affirming the
district court’s denial of sanctions against it. Even though we
might comb the record and appellate briefs of the parties in a de
novo effort to find support for the court’s ruling, the fact
remains that we require a reviewable explanation of a sanctions
ruling, whether it be a grant or a denial.
In all likelihood, the district court can and will explain its
ruling on sanctions as a non-abusive exercise of its discretion.
Even though we are reluctant to add to that court’s workload by
remanding this tangential dispute over sanctions, we must have
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something from that court demonstrating that it exercised its
discretion without abusing it.
For the foregoing reasons, we affirm the district court’s
dismissal of these consolidated cases for lack of personal
jurisdiction, but we vacate its denial of ECC’s motions for
sanctions and remand for an explanation of whatever ruling it might
make on the sanctions issue on remand.
AFFIRMED in part, VACATED in part, and REMANDED.
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