Hartford Casualty Insurance v. Cornelius Turner , 642 F. App'x 733 ( 2016 )

FILED
NOT FOR PUBLICATION
MAR 16 2016
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK
U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT
In re: HARTFORD LITIGATION CASES, No. 13-55039
D.C. No. 2:12-cv-10434-PA-E
HARTFORD CASUALTY INSURANCE
COMPANY, de facto plaintiff defendant;
THE RULE COMPANY
INCORPORATED, de facto plaintiff
defendant; CRAIG PONCI, de facto
plaintiff defendant; NADJA SILLETO, de
facto plaintiff defendant; NORMA
PIERSON, de facto plaintiff defendant;
TONY GAITAN, de facto plaintiff
defendant; ELAINE ALBRECHT, de facto
plaintiff defendant; THORNHILL AND
ASSOCIATES, de facto plaintiff
defendant,
Plaintiffs - Appellees,
v.
CORNELIUS TURNER, de facto
defendant and plaintiff; LISA TURNER,
de facto defendant and plaintiff; MARIAN
TURNER, de facto defendant and plaintiff;
NINA R. RINGGOLD, Law Offices of
Nina R Ringgold defendant non-party de
facto party; AMY P. LEE, Law Offices of
Amy P Lee de facto defendant non-party,
*
This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent
except as provided by 9th Cir. R. 36-3.
Defendants - Appellants.
MARIAN TURNER; LISA TURNER; No. 14-55361
CORNELIUS TURNER,
D.C. No. 2:13-cv-08361-PA-E
Plaintiffs-counter-defendants
- Appellants,
And MEMORANDUM*
AMY P. LEE, Law Offices of Amy P. Lee;
NINA R. RINGGOLD, Law Offices of
Nina Ringgold,
Appellants,
v.
HARTFORD CASUALTY INSURANCE
COMPANY,
Defendant-counter-claimant -
Appellee,
And
THE RULE COMPANY,
INCORPORATED; CRAIG PONCI;
NADJA SILLETTO; NORMA PIERSON;
TONY GAITAN; ELAINE ALBRECHT;
THORNHILL AND ASSOCIATES, INC.,
Defendants - Appellees.
MARIAN TURNER; LISA TURNER; No. 14-56731
CORNELIUS TURNER,
2
Plaintiffs-counter-defendants, D.C. No. 2:13-cv-08361-PA-E
And
AMY P. LEE, Law Offices of Amy P. Lee;
NINA R. RINGGOLD, Law Offices of
Nina Ringgold,
Appellants,
v.
THE RULE COMPANY,
INCORPORATED; CRAIG PONCI;
NADJA SILLETTO; NORMA PIERSON;
TONY GAITAN; ELAINE ALBRECHT;
THORNHILL AND ASSOCIATES, INC.,
Defendants - Appellees,
HARTFORD CASUALTY INSURANCE
COMPANY,
Defendant-counter-claimant -
Appellee.
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Central District of California
Percy Anderson, District Judge, Presiding
Submitted March 8, 2016**
Pasadena, California
**
The panel unanimously concludes this case is suitable for decision
without oral argument. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(a)(2).
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Before: REINHARDT, MURGUIA, and OWENS, Circuit Judges.
Plaintiffs Lisa, Cornelius, and Marian Turner (“the Turners”) appeal the
denial of their motions to disqualify Judge Percy Anderson, the district court’s
orders remanding the case to state court, the denial of their motion to reopen
previously closed cases, the district court’s decision to strike the Turners’ filings
from the closed docket, orders sanctioning the Turners’ counsel, Nina Ringgold
and Amy Lee, for various instances of misconduct, and the district court’s refusal
to sanction defendants’ counsel. We affirm all orders.1
1. We affirm the denial of the Turners’ motions to disqualify Judge
Anderson. The Turners made their motions under 28 U.S.C. § 455, 28 U.S.C. § 47,
and the Due Process Clause. With respect to § 455, the Turners’ arguments in
favor of recusal are based on mere “unsubstantiated suggestion[s],” which we have
previously held are insufficient under both § 455(a) and (b). United States v.
Holland, 519 F.3d 909, 913 (9th Cir. 2008) (quoting United States v. Cooley, 1
F.3d 985, 993 (10th Cir. 1993)). For the same reason, “the record does not suggest
1
We also grant the various motions for judicial notice that both the Turners
and the defendants filed with this court. See Trigueros v. Adams, 658 F.3d 983,
987 (9th Cir. 2011) (noting that we may take judicial notice of documents from
“proceedings in other courts . . . [that] have a direct relation to matters at issue” in
this proceeding (quoting United States ex rel. Robinson Rancheria Citizens
Council v. Borneo, Inc., 971 F.2d 244, 248 (9th Cir.1992))).
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that ‘the probability of actual bias’ on Judge [Anderson’s] part was ‘too high to be
constitutionally tolerable[,]’ so as to mandate his recusal on due process grounds.”
In re Marshall, 721 F.3d 1032, 1045 n.17 (9th Cir. 2013) (quoting Withrow v.
Larkin, 421 U.S. 35, 47 (1975)). Finally, § 47, which bars a judge from “hear[ing]
or determin[ing] an appeal from the decision of a case or issue tried by him,” is
plainly inapplicable to this case. We therefore affirm the district court.
2. We affirm the district court’s two orders remanding the case back to state
court. The Turners were plaintiffs in state court, and therefore cannot use the
removal statutes they invoke. See 28 U.S.C. §§ 1441 (“may be removed by the
defendant”); 1443 (“may be removed by the defendant”); 1446 (“defendant or
defendants desiring to remove”) (emphasis added). The Turners argue that they
have been made “de facto” defendants because the Los Angeles Superior Court is
not “constitutionally constructed.” As no authority exists for this nonsensical
proposition, it offers no basis upon which to reverse the district court.
3. We affirm the district court’s denial of the Turners’ motion to reopen a
previously closed case. As the district court recognized, it had no jurisdiction to
reopen the case because, when the case was dismissed, it involved only state law
claims as a result of the Turners’ voluntarily dismissal of their federal claims.
5
None of the Turners’ arguments based on Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 60(b)
offers a basis for relief from a judgment to which they voluntarily acceded.
4. We affirm the decision to strike documents from the docket that the
Turners attempted to file after the district court closed the docket. The Turners
have offered no evidence to support their allegation that they filed the documents
before the district court filed its remand order and closed the docket. Even if they
had filed the documents prior to the remand order, the documents could not have
altered the district court’s decision to remand to state court because
“counterclaims, even if they rely exclusively on federal substantive law, do not
qualify a case for federal-court cognizance.” Vaden v. Discover Bank, 556 U.S. 49,
61-62 (2009).
5. We affirm the district court’s imposition of sanctions against the Turners’
counsel, Ringgold and Lee. Our conclusion that the district court’s finding of bad
faith under 28 U.S.C. § 1927 was not erroneous is sufficient to uphold the award of
attorneys’ fees based on the Turners’ frivolous removal motion. As the district
court stated, courts in the Central District have repeatedly rejected the arguments
that Ringgold and Lee offered in support of the removal motion, and in fact have
previously sanctioned the duo on three occasions for similar conduct. That
Ringgold and Lee continued to press the same frivolous arguments establishes the
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bad faith required under § 1927.2 Nor did the district court abuse its discretion
when, several months later, it barred Ringgold and Lee from filing new cases in the
Central District for two months. It was not erroneous for the district court to
determine that the attorneys knowingly violated Local Rule 7-19 when they
misrepresented to the court that the defendants failed to respond to the Turners’
notice of a pending ex parte application.
6. Finally, we affirm the district court’s denial of the Turners’ request for the
issuance of an order to show cause why the defendants’ counsel should not be
sanctioned. The Turners cite no authority that establishes that a district court must
grant a request for an order to show cause. Moreover, the Turners’ stated basis for
the sanctions (that the defendants knew that removal jurisdiction existed) is
patently frivolous, for the reasons set forth above.
AFFIRMED.
2
For the same reasons, the district court did not abuse its discretion when it
referred Ringgold and Lee to the Central District’s Standing Committee on
Discipline and to the State Bar of California.
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