Yeh v. Hnath ( 2023 )

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DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA COURT OF APPEALS
No. 21-FM-0737
MARIANNA YEH, APPELLANT,
V.
GARY HNATH, APPELLEE.
Appeal from the Superior Court
of the District of Columbia
(2019-DRB-003969)
(Hon. Darlene M. Soltys, Trial Judge)
(Submitted September 29, 2022 Decided May 25, 2023)
Aaron Marr Page was on the brief for appellant.
Sogand Zamani was on the brief for appellee.
Before BECKWITH, EASTERLY, and DEAHL, Associate Judges.
EASTERLY, Associate Judge: Marianna Yeh sued Gary Hnath in Superior
Court for a divorce, asserting that the two were in a common-law marriage. Mr.
Hnath successfully moved for summary judgment and sought sanctions against Ms.
Yeh in the form of attorneys’ fees. Citing Super. Ct. Dom. Rel. R. 11 and the court’s
2
inherent authority, the Superior Court granted Mr. Hnath’s sanctions motion and
ordered Ms. Yeh to pay over $70,000 in fees. On appeal to this court, Ms. Yeh
challenges the sanction award as procedurally barred under Rule 11 and otherwise
an abuse of the court’s discretion to sanction parties for bad-faith litigation. We
agree on both grounds and reverse.
I. Facts and Procedural History
The following facts derive from the record or were found by the trial court
and are uncontested by the parties. Ms. Yeh and Mr. Hnath began a romantic
relationship sometime in 2006, while Mr. Hnath was married to another woman.
The two purchased a condo in D.C. together, held under both of their names as
tenants by the entirety—a form of property reserved for married couples 1—and Ms.
Yeh relocated from Canada to move in with Mr. Hnath. Mr. Hnath and his first wife
divorced in 2008, as his relationship with Ms. Yeh continued.
1
See Roberts & Lloyd, Inc. v. Zyblut, 691 A.2d 635, 638 (D.C. 1997) (“[O]nly
a married couple may be tenants by the entireties . . . .”). But see Coleman v.
Jackson, 286 F.2d 98, 102 (D.C. Cir. 1960) (holding that “a deed to a man and
woman who were not legally married, as tenants by the entireties, was ineffective as
to the creation of that tenancy but was effective to create a joint tenancy with right
of survivorship”).
3
In the years that followed, Ms. Yeh and Mr. Hnath maintained what was by
all appearances a serious relationship. Mr. Hnath listed Ms. Yeh (with her signed
approval) on various employer benefit forms and medical records as his “domestic
partner,” and the two jointly held a sizable investment account. In 2014, the two
jointly purchased a luxury car, and in 2016, they purchased a house in D.C. together
as joint tenants in fee simple. Both parties presented evidence from friends,
relatives, and acquaintances who variously characterized their understanding of the
parties’ relationship, with descriptions ranging from dating to spousal.
The two never formally registered a domestic partnership 2 or undertook a
marriage ceremony, however, and after intermittent “off and on” periods they
permanently separated in 2017 or 2018. Mr. Hnath formally married another woman
in October 2018, and in early 2019 he stopped making payments on the mortgages
and car loans that he shared with Ms. Yeh. At least one of the property mortgages
went into default and entered foreclosure proceedings with the mortgage lender, and
in August 2019 Mr. Hnath sued Ms. Yeh to partition their jointly owned properties
and thereby force their sales.
2
The District of Columbia permits a couple in a non-marital and committed
relationship to register as each other’s sole domestic partner and thus be entitled to
certain legal benefits. D.C. Code § 32-702(a).
4
Ms. Yeh subsequently filed the complaint underlying this case in November
2019, requesting absolute divorce to dissolve what she alleged was a common-law
marriage between herself and Mr. Hnath that began in August 2008. 3 In her
complaint, she alleged that Mr. Hnath had consented to spousal support payments
including the payments on their mortgages. Apparently as a result of Ms. Yeh’s
divorce action, Mr. Hnath’s suit for partition was dismissed. After Mr. Hnath filed
an answer to the divorce complaint, the parties engaged in discovery through 2020
and (because proceedings were significantly delayed due to the COVID-19
pandemic) into 2021.
On January 5, 2021, Mr. Hnath moved to compel discovery and requested
sanctions for Ms. Yeh’s failure to provide him with a transcript of her October 2018
deposition in an unrelated case in which she had sued a former employer for sexual
harassment and other claims. In this transcript, Ms. Yeh stated at one point that she
was not married and later that Mr. Hnath had previously been her “domestic partner
. . . [f]rom December 2006 to sometime in . . . the middle of 2017.” Ms. Yeh also
therein answered detailed questions about her intimate relationship with another man
3
The date on which Ms. Yeh alleged the common-law marriage commenced
shifted repeatedly throughout the litigation, a fact that the trial court accorded
significant weight in granting summary judgment against her.
5
that occurred around 2015. After Mr. Hnath finally obtained a copy of the transcript
from a source other than Ms. Yeh, he emailed Ms. Yeh on January 20, 2021, 4
demanding that she withdraw her complaint and declaring he would seek sanctions
if she did not do so by noon the following day. As the basis for this demand, Mr.
Hnath cited Ms. Yeh’s sworn statements that she did not consider herself married to
Mr. Hnath when she sat for the deposition in 2018. The email did not have a draft
motion for sanctions attached. Nothing in the record indicates that Ms. Yeh
responded or that Mr. Hnath took any action the following day.
Nine days later, on January 29, 2021, Mr. Hnath filed a motion entitled as a
“Verified Motion for Summary Judgment and for Sanctions.” Regarding the request
for sanctions, the pleading provided a paragraph summary of the factual basis for
such a request, alleging Ms. Yeh had filed her complaint to harass Mr. Hnath and
his new wife and that her suit was frivolous in light of the evidence, but it contained
no corresponding legal argument. Instead Mr. Hnath stated that his sanctions
request, which he indicated would be sought under Rule 11 and the court’s inherent
authority, would “be presented in a subsequent motion more fully.” After further
briefing and a hearing regarding whether summary judgment in favor of Mr. Hnath
4
All post-complaint communications between the parties referenced herein
took place through counsel.
6
was warranted, the trial court issued a two-page order on February 27, 2021, and
granted judgment to Mr. Hnath, stating that a detailed order would follow. In the
same order the court held Mr. Hnath’s motion 5 for sanctions in abeyance, stating that
it would schedule a hearing “in due course.”
The Superior Court subsequently issued a March 23, 2021, order explaining
its reasoning for granting summary judgment to Mr. Hnath. The court determined
that Ms. Yeh had failed to present any evidence of an express, present-tense mutual
agreement between herself and Mr. Hnath that they were married, a requisite element
of a common-law marriage in the District as set out in Gill v. Nostrand, 206 A.3d
869, 875 (D.C. 2019). The court also reasoned that Ms. Yeh’s shifting allegations
of the date the marriage began, her own repeated contemporaneous representations
that she and Mr. Hnath were “domestic partners,” and the lack of evidence of their
reputation in the local community as a married couple all weighed against her claim.
Lastly, the court observed that Ms. Yeh would have needed to establish that she and
5
The court referred to Mr. Hnath’s “motions,” plural, apparently because in
several pleadings Mr. Hnath filed in January 2021 he had asked the court to award
him sanctions in the form of attorneys’ fees for Ms. Yeh’s conduct during discovery.
None of these requests were made in standalone motions for sanctions, however, and
the court did not grant any request for fee sanctions prior to the order underlying this
appeal.
7
Mr. Hnath reaffirmed their intent to be married once the legal impediment of Mr.
Hnath’s first marriage had been removed, but found that she had failed to do so. 6
On April 28, 2021—two months after the court granted summary judgment—
Mr. Hnath filed a standalone motion for sanctions in the form of attorneys’ fees,
again citing both Super. Ct. Dom. Rel. R. 11 and the court’s inherent sanctions
authority. Mr. Hnath reiterated his assertions that Ms. Yeh had filed her suit for the
bad-faith purposes of harassment and delay as evidenced by the fact that her claims
lacked evidentiary basis, and that she had litigated her claim in a bad-faith manner.
Ms. Yeh opposed the motion. She argued that Mr. Hnath was not entitled to Rule
11 sanctions because he had not formally served her with a standalone sanctions
motion at least 21 days before filing, as required under Rule 11(c)(2). Ms. Yeh
denied any improper purpose in filing her divorce suit, asserted she had held a bona
fide if misguided belief that she had been in a common-law marriage, and pointed
to the evidence she had proffered supporting that belief; Ms. Yeh further argued that
6
This court recently held such a reaffirmation is not necessary if the couple
made an initial express agreement of marriage. See In re Est. of Jenkins, 290 A.3d
524, 531 (D.C. 2023) (“[W]here a couple makes an express mutual agreement in
words of the present tense to be married despite a known or unknown legal
impediment to marriage, and that agreement is followed by cohabitation, the couple
need not reaffirm their agreement after the impediment to marriage dissolves; they
need only continue to cohabit.”).
8
she lacked the financial resources to pay the requested fees.
The court held a hearing at which it heard argument from counsel for and
against sanctions and asked Mr. Hnath to submit an affidavit detailing the fees he
sought to be awarded. Mr. Hnath submitted an affidavit from counsel seeking an
award of $74,227.36. The court then granted Mr. Hnath’s motion, ordering Ms. Yeh
to pay the full amount of fees claimed. The court found that Mr. Hnath had “shown
by clear and convincing evidence that [Ms. Yeh had] brought and litigated her
meritless claim in bad faith, such that [it had] the discretion to award attorney’s fees
under both Rule 11 7 and under its inherent authority to police itself.” Observing that
Ms. Yeh’s “claim that the parties had a common law marriage was uncolorable” and
“implausible,” the court reasoned that it could
infer, given the lack of evidence and the surrounding
circumstances, that the claim was brought for an improper
purpose, namely to harass [Mr. Hnath], for unnecessary
delay (to continue to exclusively enjoy use of their jointly
held property and interfere with prompt resolution of his
complaint for partition and force the sale), and to
needlessly increase his litigation expenses, perhaps in
hopes of reaching a favorable settlement.
7
Ruling that Mr. Hnath’s January 2021 email threatening sanctions
effectively served as the notice required by Rule 11(c)(2), the court rejected Ms.
Yeh’s argument that Mr. Hnath could not avail himself of Rule 11 sanctions because
he had failed to follow the rule’s requisite procedures.
9
The court further reasoned that “[n]ot only did [Ms. Yeh] initiate this claim under
questionable circumstances, but the litigation tactics used throughout this case
appear to have been used to conceal important discovery documents,” specifically
her 2018 deposition transcript from her separate lawsuit for sexual harassment. 8 Ms.
Yeh timely appealed the sanctions order.
II. Analysis
In general, parties before the District’s courts are responsible for paying the
costs and fees that their own attorneys incur during the course of litigation, a practice
known as the “American rule.” Synanon Found., Inc. v. Bernstein, 517 A.2d 28, 35,
37 (D.C. 1986). This rule aims to avoid chilling possibly meritorious actions,
whereas a fee-shifting default might deter a party from ever initiating a claim for
fear of being stuck with an unpayable bill should they lose. See id. at 36. We permit
departures from the American rule, however, under limited circumstances where the
court orders a party to pay their opponent’s fees as a sanction for misconduct. See
8
While acknowledging in passing Ms. Yeh’s argument that the requested fees
were “unnecessarily high,” the court concluded that it was within its discretion to
award Mr. Hnath the full amount, reiterating its view that Ms. Yeh had acted in bad
faith. The court did not address Ms. Yeh’s repeated assertions of her limited ability
to pay or state that it considered other factors in determining the proper amount of
fees to award. But see infra note 16.
10
id. at 36-37. Some of these circumstances are defined by court rule, see, e.g., Super.
Ct. Dom. Rel. R. 11(c)(2), 16(e)(2), 30(d)(2), 37(a)(5)(A), while in other
circumstances courts may rely on their inherent authority to manage court affairs,
including the conduct of parties, see infra Section II.B.
Whichever authority a court relies on to impose a fee-shifting sanction, this
court reviews the sanction order for an abuse of discretion. In re Jumper (Jumper
I), 909 A.2d 173, 175 (D.C. 2006). But in conducting our review we recognize that
the trial court’s discretion over sanctions is not unbounded; its exercise “must rest
on correct legal principles, and a discretionary decision based on an erroneous
premise cannot stand.” Id. (cleaned up). The court indicated two sources of
authority for its sanctions order in this case. We consider each in turn.
A. Rule 11 Sanctions
Super. Ct. Dom. Rel. R. 11(b) directs that pleadings and other papers must be
submitted for a proper purpose, nonfrivolous, and supported by evidence or likely to
be so after investigation. If a party believes their opponent has violated that
directive, then they may move for sanctions, but under the rule such motions must
comply with several procedural requirements. The party accused of misconduct
11
must be given “notice and a reasonable opportunity to respond.” Super. Ct. Dom.
Rel. R. 11(c)(1). Further, a motion for sanctions “must be made separately from any
other motion” and “must be served under Rule 5, but it must not be filed with or
presented to the court if the challenged . . . claim . . . is withdrawn or appropriately
corrected within 21 days after service.” Super. Ct. Dom. Rel. R. 11(c)(2). The
requirement that a party be allowed 21 days to address any deficiencies is known as
Rule 11’s “safe harbor” provision. 9 “The purpose of the ‘safe harbor’ provision is
to give an opposing party the opportunity to admit candidly that it cannot support its
contention, and withdraw that position before the Rule 11 motion has been filed with
the court.” Goldschmidt v. Paley Rothman Goldstein Rosenberg & Cooper,
Chartered, 935 A.2d 362, 378 (D.C. 2007) (internal quotation marks omitted).
Compliance with the safe harbor provision is “required” for that party to be awarded
Rule 11 sanctions. Id. at 378-79.
The Superior Court determined that Mr. Hnath effectively complied with the
safe harbor requirement when he emailed Ms. Yeh declaring he would seek
sanctions by noon the next day, several months before he filed his standalone
9
Our cases engaging with the safe harbor provision do so almost exclusively
in the context of Super. Ct. Civ. R. 11(c)(2); because that provision is “functionally
identical” to Super. Ct. Dom. Rel. R. 11(c)(2), we apply those precedents here. See
In re S.U., No. 22-FS-569, 2023 WL 2920926, at *2 (D.C. Apr. 13, 2023).
12
sanctions motion, which itself postdated the court’s summary judgment ruling. In
making this determination, the court cited one case, United States v. BCCI Holdings
(Luxembourg), S.A., 176 F.R.D. 1, 2 (D.D.C. 1997), in which the federal trial court
stated that it “might have construed” a letter indicating an intent to file a motion for
sanctions as satisfying the safe harbor provision under the federal analogue to Rule
11 had the letter been differently worded. But this unpublished and in any event
nonbinding ruling is contrary to this court’s express holding that “a letter informing
opposing counsel of an intention to pursue sanctions is not the functional equivalent
of actual service of the Rule 11 motion.” Goldberg. Marchesano. Kohlman. Inc. v.
Old Republic Sur. Co., 727 A.2d 858, 864 (D.C. 1999). Therefore, Mr. Hnath’s
January 20, 2021, email could not satisfy the requirements of Rule 11 as a matter of
law, and the trial court’s conclusion to the contrary was in error.
Although the trial court did not consider Mr. Hnath’s subsequent actions, he
argues in his brief to this court that those actions fulfilled the procedural
requirements of Rule 11. Mr. Hnath’s motion for summary judgment and sanctions
did not satisfy Rule 11 in two respects: it was not a standalone motion for sanctions,
and it was not served on Ms. Yeh 21 days before it was filed. See Super. Ct. Dom.
Rel. R. 11(c)(2). And Mr. Hnath’s standalone motion for sanctions—yielding the
order underlying this appeal—was also not served on Ms. Yeh 21 days in advance
13
of filing and was filed only after the court had granted summary judgment, thus
making it impossible for Ms. Yeh to take corrective action and abandon her suit even
if she had been given the requisite 21 days to do so. See Goldschmidt, 935 A.2d at
379 (“A party cannot initiate the Rule 11 process after judgment has been entered.”).
We conclude that, because the trial court erroneously concluded that Mr.
Hnath complied with the mandatory terms of Rule 11, the court abused its discretion
in granting Mr. Hnath’s motion for sanctions thereunder.
B. Sanctions Under the Court’s Inherent Authority
The rules of procedure aside, the trial court also holds the power to grant
attorneys’ fees to an opposing party as part of its “inherent authority to award
sanctions in appropriate circumstances for intentional abuse of the litigation
process.” Jumper I, 909 A.2d at 176. We have referred to this exception to the
default American rule as the “bad-faith exception.” See Synanon, 517 A.2d at 37.
To assess attorneys’ fees under this exception, the court must first make a finding
that the sanctioned party acted “in bad faith, vexatiously, wantonly, or for oppressive
reasons,” Jumper I, 909 A.2d at 176 (quoting Chambers v. NASCO, Inc., 501 U.S.
32, 45-46 (1991)), by clear and convincing evidence, In re Jumper (Jumper II), 984
14
A.2d 1232, 1247-48 (D.C. 2009); see also Jung v. Jung, 844 A.2d 1099, 1108 (D.C.
2004) (placing this “heavy burden” on the party seeking sanctions). We review this
predicate finding of bad faith for clear error. Jumper II, 948 A.2d at 1247.
“Because of their very potency, inherent powers must be exercised with
restraint and discretion.” In re M.L.P., 936 A.2d 316, 323 (D.C. 2007) (quoting
Chambers, 501 U.S. at 44). Consequently, this court’s decisions have urged
“caution” and “circumspection” before courts exercise their inherent authority to
award attorneys’ fees, in order to safeguard the right of access to the courts. Jumper
I, 909 A.2d at 176 (quoting Chambers, 501 U.S. at 50); Jumper II, 984 A.2d at 1248
(quoting Jung, 844 A.2d at 1108). We have emphasized that the standard for the
bad-faith exception is “necessarily stringent,” such that a fee-shifting sanction is
“proper only under extraordinary circumstances or when dominating reasons of
fairness so demand.” Jumper I, 909 A.2d at 176-77 (quoting In re Est. of Delaney,
819 A.2d 968, 998 (D.C. 2003)); accord Synanon, 517 A.2d at 37 (collecting cases).
And we have said that “the court must scrupulously avoid penalizing litigants for
aggressively litigating their claims or discouraging good faith assertions of colorable
claims and defenses.” Jung, 844 A.2d at 1108. Rather, the sanctioned party’s
conduct “must be so egregious that fee shifting becomes warranted as a matter of
equity.” Id. at 1107. Applying this standard, we have recognized that a party proved
15
bad faith by clear and convincing evidence only in a limited set of scenarios: where
a lawyer knowingly violated the rules of professional conduct, 10 a party committed
a fraud upon the court in the course of litigation, 11 a party wantonly failed to comply
with a final court order, 12 or a party’s claim had “no basis whatever in the evidence
to support it” and was admittedly brought for coercive purposes. 13
The Superior Court concluded that Ms. Yeh “lacked a good faith basis to even
10
Jumper II, 984 A.2d at 1249-50.
11
In re S.U., 2023 WL 2920926, at *2-3 (affirming sanctions against parties
who had “committed a fraud upon the [c]ourt, perjured themselves . . . , and
attempted to use [the court’s] authority to circumvent” a final court order in order to
kidnap children (brackets omitted)); Breezevale Ltd. v. Dickinson, 879 A.2d 957,
961 (D.C. 2005) (affirming sanction against a party who was “found to have forged
documents . . . and then steadfastly lied about it”); Jemison v. Nat’l Baptist
Convention, USA, Inc., 720 A.2d 275, 281, 287 (D.C. 1998) (affirming sanction
against a party who “was actively involved in the submission of forged documents
to the court” in a “collusive lawsuit”); Chevalier v. Moon, 576 A.2d 722, 724 (D.C.
1990) (affirming sanctions against a party who admitted to making false statements
under oath); Synanon, 517 A.2d at 32, 42 (affirming sanctions against a party that
had, among other misconduct, been “systematically destroying potential trial
evidence” subject to discovery that “culminat[ed] with calculated perjury”).
12
D.C. Dep’t of Pub. Works v. D.C. Off. of Hum. Rts., 195 A.3d 483, 500-01
(D.C. 2018).
13
Gen. Fed’n of Women’s Clubs v. Iron Gate Inn, Inc., 537 A.2d 1123, 1127
(D.C. 1988); id. at 1129 (noting the sanctioned party’s representative stated at a
hearing that she would only withdraw her claim if the other party withdrew their
counterclaim).
16
bring her lawsuit.” Ms. Yeh’s case was undoubtedly meritless—indeed, as the trial
court assessed, it “was not a close call.” But a claim need not be meritorious to avoid
a bad-faith finding; it need only be colorable, a measure that is satisfied “when it has
some legal and factual support, considered in light of the reasonable beliefs of the
individual making the claim.” Jung, 844 A.2d at 1108 (emphasis added and internal
quotation marks omitted). As summarized above, the record contains some evidence
that she and Mr. Hnath had a serious, long-lasting romantic relationship featuring
many of the functional hallmarks of marriage—for example, co-habitation, joint
property ownership, comingled finances, and some (admittedly mixed) evidence that
the two presented to others as husband and wife. 14 Facts like these can provide
support for a claim of common-law marriage. See, e.g., Gill, 206 A.3d at 875(naming evidence of durable cohabitation and the general reputation of the
relationship among relatives and acquaintances as factors to weigh in a common-law
marriage analysis). To be clear, moderately diligent research by Ms. Yeh’s counsel
would have shown that her evidence did not prove the required assertion of an
express mutual agreement, but “[b]ad faith must be distinguished from, for example,
negligence or professional incompetence.” See Jumper I, 909 A.2d at 177. The
legal shortcomings of her claim notwithstanding, given the evident serious
14
Some record evidence even suggests the existence of a child bearing both
of their last names whom they considered part of their family.
17
relationship between the parties, we cannot say on this record it was unreasonable
for Ms. Yeh to believe in good faith that her relationship with Mr. Hnath merited
legal recognition as a common-law marriage. See McCoy v. District of Columbia,
256 A.2d 908, 910 (D.C. 1969) (noting that the concept of common-law marriage is
“almost uniformly misunderstood”).
Moreover, it is not enough for a defendant seeking sanctions from the
initiation of an action to establish that a plaintiff’s claim was “entirely without color”
when brought; they must also establish by clear and convincing evidence that it was
“asserted wantonly, for purposes of harassment or delay, or for other improper
reasons.” Jumper II, 984 A.2d at 1248. This language resembles in part that of Rule
11(b)(1), and indeed we have acknowledged that the court’s inherent sanctions
authority can overlap with and fill gaps in the sanctions provided by rule, see, e.g.,
Jumper I, 909 A.2d at 176; Delaney, 819 A.2d at 998, but the absence of the
associated procedural protections that the rules provide suggests a higher degree of
bad faith in a party’s purpose must be shown. Here, we are not persuaded that the
fact that Ms. Yeh had repeatedly represented her relationship with Mr. Hnath as a
“domestic partnership” itself establishes her bad-faith purpose under this standard.
A layperson might reasonably understand that she had never participated in a
marriage ceremony and thus disclaim any formal marriage on official documents,
18
and yet come to believe that the qualities of her relationship might under law
constitute a common-law marriage. Without proof that she knew her claim was
baseless when she filed it, Ms. Yeh’s claim was not so “entirely without color” as to
give rise to an inference that she filed her claim “wantonly” or otherwise in bad faith.
See Delaney, 819 A.2d at 999 (internal quotation marks omitted) (“Sanctions should
not be imposed unless it is patently clear that a claim had absolutely no chance of
success prior to filing.” (cleaned up)).
Nor do we discern clear and convincing evidence to support the court’s
inference that Ms. Yeh’s complaint was filed “for the improper purpose of harassing
[Mr. Hnath] and delaying resolution” of Mr. Hnath’s partition action. The timing of
the divorce complaint does suggest that Ms. Yeh filed it in reaction to Mr. Hnath’s
partition suit, but this does not itself sufficiently evince a purpose to harass or
improperly delay. It seems entirely plausible that the question of any lasting legal
effects of her relationship with Mr. Hnath had not been relevant to Ms. Yeh prior to
the partition suit, and Ms. Yeh could have reasonably, and perhaps justifiably, feared
the loss of the properties Mr. Hnath sought to partition, given the indications in the
record that she used them as her primary residences. Seeking to protect a potentially
valid property interest at stake in another action is not an improper purpose that
might justify a bad-faith sanction. The other evidence the court cites of Ms. Yeh’s
19
improper purpose—text messages from Ms. Yeh from February 2015 and October
2018 suggesting her desire for relationships with wealthy men and animosity toward
Mr. Hnath and his new wife, respectively—both well predate her complaint and shed
little, if any, light on this lawsuit. “The truth is that litigation often is brought for a
host of purposes,” and the record lacks clear and convincing evidence that here Ms.
Yeh’s predominant motive was an egregiously improper one. See Jung, 844 A.2d at
1112 (“We do not comprehend the bad faith exception to the American rule to allow
the trial judge to sanction litigants for bringing colorable claims when they also
happen to have other ulterior motives of questionable propriety.”).
Finally, the court concluded that Ms. Yeh litigated her suit in a bad-faith
manner. It drew this conclusion primarily on the basis of Ms. Yeh’s apparent delays
in disclosing the transcript of her 2018 deposition testimony in the unrelated sexual
harassment lawsuit. Ms. Yeh, through counsel, did resist turning over the transcript
in question, but she represented that her reluctance was due to her desire to avoid
violating a protective order issued in that case that rendered some of the transcripts
confidential. That position was not so far beyond plausible that it was a clear
smokescreen for improper delay. We also think the Superior Court’s assessment
that the transcript would have “devastated” her claim is somewhat of an
overstatement. Ms. Yeh’s transcribed admission that she and Mr. Hnath were not
20
married, in the context of a case where the legal status of her relationship with Mr.
Hnath was not at issue, is no doubt adverse evidence in her later suit, but is not clear
and convincing evidence that her suit was, as Mr. Hnath argued, a “shakedown”—
and her admission that she and Mr. Hnath had been “domestic partners” was not
remarkably different from other evidence already in the record of similar
representations from both parties.
The court additionally identified Ms. Yeh’s otherwise deficient discovery
responses and her successive motions for pendente lite relief as evidence of bad faith.
It is evident that Ms. Yeh’s discovery responses were not always fully forthcoming,
requiring repeated exhortations from Mr. Hnath for supplementary responses. But
her conduct in discovery appears within the realm of quotidian guardedness and
noncompliance, not evidence of the “deliberate oppressiveness” that would merit
bad-faith sanctions. See Schlank v. Williams, 572 A.2d 101, 111 (D.C. 1990). And
while the court emphasized Ms. Yeh’s repeated filing of four motions for pendente
lite relief, we can identify only two, with an additional related motion for
reconsideration when the first was held in abeyance. 15 Ms. Yeh clearly stated in her
second motion that she was renewing her efforts to secure alimony pending litigation
15
Ms. Yeh also filed a brief supplement to her motion for reconsideration
including her financial information.
21
because her financial circumstances had changed following her loss of employment;
this solitary successive filing based on a change in circumstances likewise cannot
reasonably be said to be an abuse of the judicial system.
In sum, we cannot discern clear and convincing evidence in the record that
Ms. Yeh’s actions in pursuing her case remotely resembled conduct we have
previously affirmed as sanctionable. She perpetrated no flagrant fraud on the court,
she did not wantonly disobey its orders, and she did not knowingly violate any
professional ethical duties. Although we do not condone Ms. Yeh’s apparently half-
hearted approach to the discovery process, her behavior overall appears of a kind
with that of countless litigants in our courts who bring ill-supported claims under
acrimonious conditions and ultimately lose on the merits—and far from the
extraordinary circumstances or egregious misconduct that would justify invocation
of the bad-faith exception. We conclude that the trial court’s finding of bad faith
was clearly erroneous and consequently that the court abused its discretion in
sanctioning Ms. Yeh under its inherent authority. 16
16
In her brief to this court, Ms. Yeh does not contest the trial court’s
determination that she should pay the entirety of the claimed fees and not some lesser
amount—and our conclusion that the court was without basis to sanction Ms. Yeh
for her conduct would moot the inquiry even if it had been raised. But we note that
we have previously stated the following, in the context of Rule 11 sanctions:
22
III. Conclusion
For the foregoing reasons, the judgment of the Superior Court granting
monetary sanctions against Ms. Yeh is reversed.
So ordered.
In imposing a monetary sanction, the trial court should
expressly consider at least four factors, all of which serve
to limit the amount assessed: (1) the reasonableness of the
injured party’s attorneys’ fees . . . ; (2) the minimum
amount that will serve to adequately deter the undesirable
behavior; (3) the offending party’s ability to pay, bearing
in mind that sanctions should not be so large as to bankrupt
the offending party . . . or otherwise cause the offending
party great financial distress; and (4) the offending party’s
history, experience, and ability, the severity of the
violation, the degree to which malice or bad faith
contributed to the violation, the risk of chilling the type of
litigation involved, and other factors as deemed
appropriate in individual circumstances.
Williams v. Bd. of Trs. of Mount Jezreel Baptist Church, 589 A.2d 901, 911-12 (D.C.
1991) (cleaned up). The trial court in this case did not engage in any such express
analysis.