Paul Sartin v. McNair Law Firm PA

PUBLISHED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
No. 13-1265
PAUL A. SARTIN, Independent Executor of the Estate of Peter
A.T. Sartin,
Plaintiff - Appellant,
and
PETER A.T. SARTIN,
Plaintiff,
v.
MCNAIR LAW FIRM PA,
Defendant - Appellee.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of
South Carolina, at Columbia. Joseph F. Anderson, Jr., District
Judge. (3:12-cv-00895-JFA)
Argued: May 13, 2014 Decided: June 23, 2014
Before NIEMEYER, GREGORY, and FLOYD, Circuit Judges.
Affirmed by published opinion. Judge Niemeyer wrote the
opinion, in which Judge Gregory and Judge Floyd joined.
ARGUED: Ronald L. Richter, Jr., BLAND RICHTER, LLP, Charleston,
South Carolina, for Appellant. Robert E. Stepp, SOWELL GRAY
STEPP & LAFFITTE, LLC, Columbia, South Carolina, for Appellee.
ON BRIEF: Eric S. Bland, BLAND RICHTER, LLP, Columbia, South
Carolina, for Appellant. William H. Jordan, SOWELL GRAY STEPP &
LAFFITTE, LLC, Columbia, South Carolina, for Appellee.
2
NIEMEYER, Circuit Judge:
In a complex procedural context, we are called to construe
the proper scope of Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 60(a), which
authorizes district courts to correct mistakes found in
judgments and orders.
Employing that Rule, the South Carolina District Court
revisited two sanctions orders it had entered against “the
Plaintiffs” in a private civil action more than a year earlier,
indicating that it had originally intended the sanctions to
apply to the plaintiffs’ attorney, Peter A.T. Sartin,
individually. Accordingly, it entered a Rule 60(a) clarifying
order dated December 4, 2009, imposing the sanctions on Sartin.
Sartin hired McNair Law Firm PA (“the McNair Firm”) to represent
him in South Carolina and to appeal the district court’s
clarifying order, but the McNair Firm filed the notice of appeal
two days late. The appeal was thereafter voluntarily abandoned.
Sartin commenced this malpractice action against the McNair
Firm based on the late filing, and the district court (through a
district judge different from the one who presided over the
earlier action) granted the Firm’s motion for summary judgment.
The court concluded that Sartin suffered no injury because of
the late notice of appeal, inasmuch as the district court in the
earlier action properly employed Rule 60(a) to clarify its
sanctions orders and, therefore, Sartin would not have succeeded
3
on his appeal of that order, even had the notice of appeal been
timely filed.
We agree and accordingly affirm.
I
In August 2006, California attorney Peter Sartin filed a
complaint in the District of South Carolina on behalf of
Travelers Insurance Company, as subrogee of Commercial Metals
Company (“CMC”), and CMC, for its uninsured losses, against
Tamini Transformatori, SRL, and Southwest Electric Company,
demanding $17.7 million in damages arising from the failure of a
transformer in a CMC facility in South Carolina. During the
course of that litigation, Sartin noticed depositions for 14
Tamini witnesses in Milan, Italy. After deposing two, however,
Sartin unilaterally cancelled the remainder and left Milan.
Claiming that Sartin’s actions during the course of the two
depositions and his abandonment of the remainder amounted to
abusive and sanctionable conduct, Tamini filed a motion
requesting that the court impose sanctions against “the
Plaintiffs,” pursuant to Federal Rules of Civil Procedure 26(c)
and 37(a). At the conclusion of the hearing on the motion, the
court sharply rebuked Sartin for his behavior:
I thought the conduct of Mr. Sartin was totally
inappropriate. And it was an egregious violation of
any type of discovery and I do feel that sanctions are
appropriate with regard to that.
4
* * *
And with regard to improperly limiting or terminating
depositions, I find that that is a serious, serious
issue. And after reviewing the video depositions that
were provided to the court and reviewing those, those
were very, very disturbing to me, because they appear
to be one of the most blatant cases of abuse of
depositions I have ever seen, and that kind of
behavior will not be tolerated in this district.
I don’t know what they do in Mr. Sartin’s district,
but we don’t do that out here. You do not instruct
witnesses how to answer questions, you do not coach
witnesses, you do not arbitrarily just get up and
leave a deposition. That is totally inappropriate and
I think deserving of sanctions.
In the written order granting sanctions, dated October 17, 2007,
the court stated that it found “sanctions to be appropriate with
respect to what it consider[ed] to be egregious discovery abuse
by Plaintiffs.” In addition to imposing orders limiting
plaintiffs’ discovery, the court ordered “Plaintiffs” to pay
Tamini’s “costs, expenses, and attorneys’ fees,” in amounts to
be determined after further submissions.
Following the issuance of the October 17, 2007 sanctions
order, Travelers and CMC retained the firm of Nelson Mullins
Riley & Scarborough LLP, in lieu of Sartin, to assume
responsibility for the presentation of their case to the court.
After receiving Tamini’s submissions on its costs,
expenses, and attorneys’ fees, which exceeded $1 million, the
district court conducted a hearing on April 25, 2008, and
5
concluded that “an appropriate sanction to compensate Tamini and
sanction the Plaintiffs for the numerous events that took place
culminating with the trip to Milan, Italy . . . is $750,000.”
The court rejected as a sanction Tamini’s motion to dismiss the
case. The court also ordered the plaintiffs to pay attorneys’
fees and expenses in the amount of $201,881.72 incurred in
seeking to reopen or to re-depose the plaintiffs’ witnesses as a
result of the abuses in Italy.
Through their new counsel, Travelers and CMC filed a motion
to clarify, modify, and amend the sanctions orders pursuant to
Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 54(b), noting that the district
court had “assessed such sanctions solely against the Plaintiffs
without considering whether . . . such sanctions should more
properly be assessed instead against the Plaintiffs’ former
counsel, Peter A. T. Sartin.” The motion requested that the
court defer the payment of all sanctions until after the
completion of trial on the merits so that an evidentiary hearing
could be conducted for the purpose of allocating the sanctions
among Sartin, Travelers, and CMC. Summarily and without
explanation, the court denied the motion.
In October 2008, the parties settled the case, with the
defendants paying Travelers and CMC $5.5 million. As part of
the settlement, the parties waived the right to appeal the
sanctions orders.
6
Sartin thereafter commenced an action against Travelers and
CMC in Texas state court to recover his attorneys’ fees.
Travelers and CMC filed a counterclaim, seeking to hold Sartin
responsible for both the sanctions and the $2 million in
attorneys’ fees they paid Nelson Mullins. In a summary judgment
motion filed in the Texas action, Sartin alleged that Travelers
and CMC “ha[d] no evidence to prove that any of the $951,881.72
in sanctions” assessed by the South Carolina District Court in
the Tamini case “included any of the costs, expenses, and
attorneys’ fees submitted by Tamini pursuant to the Court’s
Order dated October 17, 2007, or, if so, which of those costs,
expenses, or attorneys’ fees were for which of the specific acts
or failures to act by [Sartin] that allegedly were negligent.”
To clarify the responsibility for sanctions, Travelers and
CMC returned to the South Carolina District Court in September
2009 and filed a motion under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure
60(a) to have the court clarify its “intent in its [October 17,
2007, and April 25, 2008] sanctions rulings.” Specifically, the
motion “request[ed] clarification as to whether any portion of
the sanctions that [the South Carolina] Court issued was a
sanction for conduct that occurred after the Court’s written
order of October 17, 2007,” when Nelson Mullins was representing
the plaintiffs. Sartin hired the McNair Firm to represent him
in opposing the motion of Travelers and CMC for clarification.
7
After conducting a hearing on the motion, the district
court (through the same district judge who had entered the
sanctions orders) acted pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil
Procedure 60(a) and entered an order dated December 4, 2009,
granting the motion of Travelers and CMC to clarify the original
sanctions orders. The court found that “[a]ll conduct that led
to the $951,881.72 sanction occurred prior to the October 17,
2007 order, while Sartin was counsel of record for Plaintiffs.”
The court further clarified that “[t]he entire monetary sanction
was for Sartin’s discovery abuses.” Finally, the court stated
that “[i]t was the court’s intent that Sartin, individually, be
assessed monetary sanctions based upon his conduct during the
course of his representation.” It therefore held that “Sartin,
individually, should be assessed monetary sanctions in the
amount of $951,881.72.”
On behalf of Sartin, the McNair Firm appealed the district
court’s Rule 60(a) clarification order, but it filed the notice
of appeal two days late. The Firm filed a motion requesting
that the district court approve the late filing of the appeal,
which the court denied. The Firm then filed a second appeal
from the order denying its motion to file an out-of-time appeal
and from the court’s earlier Rule 60(a) clarification order.
Although this court heard arguments on the two appeals, it never
issued an opinion because Sartin, Travelers, and CMC settled the
8
Texas case with mutual releases, and Sartin instructed the
McNair Firm to dismiss the two appeals taken with respect to the
Rule 60(a) clarification order.
Sartin then commenced this action against the McNair Firm,
alleging legal malpractice. He claimed that the McNair Firm’s
failure to file a timely notice of appeal in the earlier action
was a proximate cause of his failure to recover attorneys’ fees
against Travelers and CMC in the Texas case. The district court
(through a different district judge) granted the McNair Firm’s
motion for summary judgment by order dated December 5, 2012,
holding that Sartin had suffered no injury as a result of the
Firm’s failure to file a timely appeal because “the Fourth
Circuit would not have reversed [the district court’s Rule
60(a)] Clarification Order” entered in the earlier case.
This appeal followed. 1
II
The parties agree on the legal framework for this case. In
order for Sartin to succeed on his legal malpractice claim, he
must show that the McNair Firm’s failure to timely appeal the
Rule 60(a) clarification order in the earlier action caused his
injury. See Argoe v. Three Rivers Behavioral Ctr. & Psychiatric
1
Sartin died at the end of 2012, and the executor of his
estate is prosecuting this appeal. For clarity, we continue to
refer to the appellant as Sartin.
9
Solutions, 697 S.E.2d 551, 555 (S.C. 2010). This requires
showing that the McNair Firm’s negligence was a “but for” cause
of the injury. See Eadie v. Krause, 671 S.E.2d 389, 393 (S.C.
Ct. App. 2008) (“Proximate cause requires proof of causation in
fact and legal cause. Causation in fact is proved by
establishing the plaintiff’s injury would not have occurred ‘but
for’ the defendant’s negligence” (citation omitted)).
Accordingly, Sartin “must show [that he] most probably would
have been successful in the underlying suit if [the McNair Firm]
had not committed the alleged malpractice.” Summer v.
Carpenter, 492 S.E.2d 55, 58 (S.C. 1997). The relevant
question, therefore, is whether Sartin’s original appeal to the
Fourth Circuit from the Rule 60(a) clarification order would
have been successful had the notice of appeal been timely filed.
Sartin contends that the district court’s clarification
order was not authorized by Rule 60(a) and therefore was
erroneously entered. He argues that Rule 60(a) has a “limited
application” that only allows courts “to clarify de minimis
clerical mistakes such as typographical errors, or to fill-in
gaps in a judgment,” and no clerical mistake was involved in the
entry of the sanctions orders. Thus, he argues, the district
court exceeded the scope of its Rule 60(a) authority by imposing
sanctions on him individually. In addition, Sartin contends
that “there [was] nothing remotely ambiguous or vague about [the
10
sanctions orders]” because they were issued exclusively against
“Plaintiffs” and there was no indication that the court intended
to sanction him. Accordingly, Sartin maintains that his appeal
of the court’s Rule 60(a) clarification order would have been
successful had it been timely filed.
The McNair Firm argues, to the contrary, that the district
court acted within its discretion in issuing the clarification
order. It contends that “Rule 60(a) is broader than Sartin
argues” in that it allows a court to clarify its earlier order
to conform with its intent at the time it issued the order. In
short, it claims that “the district court’s original intent is
controlling.” Under this standard, it argues that “the
uncontroverted evidence establishes that [the district court’s]
original intent in issuing [its] sanctions order was to sanction
Sartin individually.” Accordingly, the McNair Firm maintains
that Sartin’s appeal of the court’s Rule 60(a) clarification
order would not have been successful had the appeal been timely
noticed.
The issue thus presented is whether Rule 60(a) is
sufficiently broad to have authorized the district court in the
earlier case to give effect to its original intent to impose
sanctions on Sartin, individually, even though the change was
not the correction of a clerical mistake.
11
Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 60(a) authorizes a court to
“correct a clerical mistake or a mistake arising from oversight
or omission whenever one is found in a judgment, order, or other
part of the record.” The Rule gives the district court
discretionary authority, and a court of appeal’s review is for
abuse of discretion. See Caterpillar Fin. Servs. Corp. v. F/V
Site Clearance I, 275 F. App’x 199, 204 (4th Cir. 2008) (per
curiam) (citing Kocher v. Dow Chem. Co., 132 F.3d 1225, 1229
(8th Cir. 1997)). Discretion, such as Rule 60(a) confers, may
be abused “by an exercise that is flawed by erroneous factual or
legal premises.” James v. Jacobson, 6 F.3d 233, 239 (4th Cir.
1993).
Clearly, Rule 60(a) allows, as Sartin notes, courts to
perform mechanical adjustments to judgments, such as correcting
transcription errors and miscalculations. In the same vein, the
Rule is properly utilized “‘to perform a completely ministerial
task’ (such as ‘making a judgment more specific in the face of
an original omission’).” Caterpillar, 275 F. App’x at 204
(quoting Kosnoski v. Howley, 33 F.3d 376, 379 (4th Cir. 1994)).
And we have cautioned that a court may not employ Rule 60(a) to
reconsider a matter that has already been decided. As we
explained:
The basic distinction between clerical mistakes and
mistakes that cannot be corrected pursuant to Rule
60(a) is that the former consist of blunders in
12
execution whereas the latter consist of instances
where the court changes its mind, either because it
made a legal or factual mistake in making its original
determination, or because on second thought it has
decided to exercise its discretion in a manner
different from the way it was exercised in the
original determination.
Rhodes v. Hartford Fire Ins. Co., 548 F. App’x 857, 859-60 (4th
Cir. 2013) (per curiam) (quoting In re Walter, 282 F.3d 434, 440
(6th Cir. 2002)); accord Rivera v. PNS Stores, Inc., 647 F.3d
188, 194 (5th Cir. 2011) (“Clerical mistakes, inaccuracies of
transcription, inadvertent omissions, and errors in mathematical
calculation are within Rule 60(a)’s scope; missteps involving
substantive legal reasoning are not” (emphasis added) (footnote
omitted)).
But, contrary to Sartin’s argument, Rule 60(a) is not
confined just to fixing typographical and other clerical errors.
The Rule’s text also authorizes a court to correct “a mistake
arising from oversight or omission.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 60(a).
Such a mistake occurs when there is an inconsistency between the
text of an order or judgment and the district court’s intent
when it entered the order or judgment. A “mistake arising from
oversight or omission” also includes an unintended ambiguity
that obfuscates the court’s original intent. Rule 60(a)
authorizes a district court to correct either such mistake to
conform the text with its original intent. See Garamendi v.
Henin, 683 F.3d 1069, 1079 (9th Cir. 2012) (“Rule 60(a) allows
13
for clarification and explanation, consistent with the intent of
the original judgment, even in the absence of ambiguity, if
necessary for enforcement” (emphasis added)); Rivera, 647 F.3d
at 195 (“A district court’s authority under Rule 60(a) is also
limited to making corrections that are consistent with the
court’s intent at the time it entered the judgment” (emphasis
added)); Agro Dutch Indus. Ltd. v. United States, 589 F.3d 1187,
1192 (Fed. Cir. 2009) (“Courts enjoy broad discretion to correct
clerical errors in previously issued orders in order to conform
the record to the intentions of the court and the parties”
(emphasis added)); Walter, 282 F.3d at 441 (“[A] court properly
acts under Rule 60(a) when it is necessary to ‘correct mistakes
or oversights that cause the judgment to fail to reflect what
was intended at the time of trial’” (emphasis added) (quoting
Vaughter v. Eastern Air Lines, Inc., 817 F.2d 685, 689 (11th
Cir. 1987))); Burton v. Johnson, 975 F.2d 690, 694 (10th Cir.
1992) (“A District Court is not limited under Rule 60(a) to the
correction of clerical mistakes arising from oversight or
omission. Rather, a district court may also invoke Rule 60(a)
to resolve an ambiguity in its original order to more clearly
reflect its contemporaneous intent and ensure that the court’s
purpose is fully implemented” (emphasis added)).
In sum, the scope of a court’s authority under Rule 60(a)
to make corrections to an order or judgment is circumscribed by
14
the court’s intent when it issued the order or judgment. And
the court’s original intent “may be ascertained through
consideration of contemporaneous documents, such as a memorandum
opinion or transcript, and by the presiding judge’s own
subsequent statements regarding his intent.” Rhodes, 548 F.
App’x at 860; accord Rivera, 647 F.3d at 197 (“‘[A] judge’s own
subsequent statements of his intent’ are reliable evidence in
the Rule 60(a) context” (alteration in original) (quoting In re
Jee, 799 F.2d 532, 535 (9th Cir. 1986))).
Here, the district court’s intent at the time it issued the
sanctions orders was manifested both by what the court later
stated about its intent and by contemporaneous documents. In
the Rule 60(a) clarification order, the court stated, “It was
the court’s intent that Sartin, individually, be assessed
monetary sanctions based upon his conduct during the course of
his representation.” The court’s statement about its own intent
is reliable evidence. See Rivera, 647 F.3d at 197.
And the contemporaneous evidence strongly supports the
court’s statement. During the hearing when the district court
first considered whether to impose sanctions, the court focused
entirely on the conduct of Sartin without suggesting any
complicity or fault on the part of his clients. It stated, for
example:
15
I thought the conduct of Mr. Sartin was totally
inappropriate. And it was an egregious violation of
any type of discovery and I do feel that sanctions are
appropriate with regard to that.
* * *
I don’t know what they do in Mr. Sartin’s district,
but we don’t do that out here. You do not instruct
witnesses how to answer questions, you do not coach
witnesses, you do not arbitrarily just get up and
leave a deposition. That is totally inappropriate and
I think deserving of sanctions.
(Emphasis added). Moreover, the conduct that drew the court’s
ire -- Sartin’s handling of discovery -- was not the type of
conduct in which Sartin’s clients would typically participate.
Indeed, Sartin has pointed to no evidence in the record -- and
we can find none -- suggesting that the court was concerned
about any conduct of Sartin’s clients. The contemporaneous
evidence thus supports the court’s later statement that it had
always intended to sanction Sartin individually. 2 See Sanchez v.
2
Indeed, during the hearing on the Rule 60(a) motion to
clarify the sanctions orders, the district court repeatedly made
this point, speaking for instance to Sartin’s counsel:
Court: Let me just ask you this question. In my
October [17] order I made the statement that
the conduct of Mr. Sartin [was] totally
inappropriate, it was an egregious violation
of any type of discovery and I did feel that
sanctions [were] appropriate with regard to
that, and specific reference to Mr. Sartin’s
conduct, and I was referencing the Italy
depositions. What about that is not clear as
to what my intent was?
16
City of Santa Ana, 936 F.2d 1027, 1033 (9th Cir. 1990) (holding
that the district court had the authority to correct a prior
judgment under Rule 60(a) since there was no reason in the
record to doubt the district judge’s statements of his prior
intent).
To be sure, the text of the district court’s sanctions
orders imposed sanctions only on “Plaintiffs.” But this mistake
can perhaps be explained by the fact that Tamini’s motion, which
only requested sanctions against “Plaintiffs,” frequently
conflated Sartin and his clients. For example, the motion
explained that “Mr. Sartin inexplicably left [Italy] without
providing any notice to Tamini” but later complained that
“Plaintiffs rendered [Tamini’s preparation] an extraordinary
waste of time and resources by inexplicably and without notice
leaving Italy.” (Emphasis added). In granting the sanctions
motion, the court likewise focused on “Plaintiffs” generally.
Nevertheless, the record indicates that the court’s exclusive
motivation for imposing sanctions was the personal conduct of
Sartin himself in conducting discovery. Thus, notwithstanding
the district court’s use of the term “Plaintiffs” in its
sanctions orders, we conclude that the court’s later statement
Counsel for Sartin: Nothing that I know of, Your
Honor.
17
that it had always intended to impose sanctions on the
plaintiffs’ attorney is supported by the record.
To hold otherwise, we note, would call into question the
veracity of a declaration made by the district court about its
own intent. In order to find the district court’s explanation
of its intent suspect, the contrary evidence would have to be
especially clear. In the record before us, it is not.
At bottom, we conclude that the district court’s original
intent was to impose sanctions on Sartin individually and,
therefore, that the court did not abuse its discretion in giving
effect to that intent in its Rule 60(a) clarification order.
Because we conclude that the district court in the earlier case
properly employed Rule 60(a), we affirm the district court’s
conclusion in this case that the McNair Firm’s failure to appeal
the earlier Rule 60(a) clarification order caused Sartin no
injury.
III
Sartin’s other arguments require less discussion.
First, he contends that the district court’s issuance of
its Rule 60(a) clarification order was improper because the
matter had already been litigated pursuant to the earlier Rule
54(b) motion of Travelers and CMC to allocate sanctions, which
the court summarily denied. Sartin argues that “Rule 60(a)
18
cannot be used to revisit a matter that has already been
adjudicated.” The district court’s Rule 54(b) ruling, however,
did not conclude, either explicitly or implicitly, that Sartin
should not be liable for sanctions. The ruling itself contained
no explanation. Moreover, its context and the record do not
supply an explanation. We do note, however, that the Rule 54(b)
motion requested not only an allocation of the sanctions but
also a delay of payment to Tamini until after the trial on the
merits of the case. The district court could simply have
determined not to delay payments to Tamini while Sartin,
Travelers, and CMC squabbled over allocation. As such, we
cannot conclude that the court’s Rule 54(b) ruling evinced an
intent to spare Sartin from sanctions. We therefore reject
Sartin’s argument that the district court’s denial of the Rule
54(b) motion barred the court from later issuing its Rule 60(a)
clarification order.
Sartin also contends that the district court lacked
jurisdiction to issue its Rule 60(a) clarification order because
that litigation had been finally dismissed over a year before it
issued the order. The case was dismissed on October 20, 2008,
and the Rule 60(a) clarification order was issued on December 4,
2009. But Sartin properly concedes that “Rule 60(a) . . . has
no time limit.” See Fed. R. Civ. P. 60(a) (“The court may
correct a clerical mistake or a mistake arising from oversight
19
or omission whenever one is found in a judgment, order, or other
part of the record” (emphasis added)); Scola v. Boat Frances,
R., Inc., 618 F.2d 147, 152 (1st Cir. 1980) (“Under Rule 60(a) a
clerical mistake in a judgment or other error arising from
oversight or omission may be corrected by the court ‘at any
time’”). The Rule would lose much of its vitality if it were
not available to correct mistakes in final judgments, and
nothing in the language of the Rule suggests such a limitation.
Courts have frequently issued Rule 60(a) clarifications after
litigation has been finally concluded. See, e.g., Rivera, 647
F.3d at 191 (affirming a correction of summary judgment from
“with prejudice” to “without prejudice”); United States v.
Mansion House Ctr. North Redevelopment Co., 855 F.2d 524, 527
(8th Cir. 1988) (per curiam) (rejecting the argument that Rule
60(a) “was not intended to permit the reopening of a final
judgment”); Jackson v. Jackson, 276 F.2d 501, 502-03 (D.C. Cir.
1960) (affirming an adjustment of child support five years after
the original judgment). As such, we conclude that the district
court had jurisdiction to enter its Rule 60(a) clarification
order.
For the reasons given, we affirm the summary judgment of
the district court.
AFFIRMED
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