Bad Faith Sanctions – Attorney Fees

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US Supreme Court

Case Name: Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., v. Haeger, et al

Case No.: 15-1406

Focus: Bad Faith Sanctions – Attorney Fees

When a federal court exercises its inherent authority to sanction bad-faith conduct by ordering a litigant to pay the other side’s legal fees, the award is limited to the fees the innocent party incurred solely because of the misconduct—or put another way, to the fees that party would not have incurred but for the bad faith

“Federal courts possess certain inherent powers, including “the ability to fashion an appropriate sanction for conduct which abuses the judicial process.” Chambers v. NASCO, Inc., 501 U. S. 32, 44–45. One permissible sanction is an assessment of attorney’s fees against a party that acts in bad faith. Such a sanction must be compensatory, rather than punitive, when imposed pursuant to civil procedures. See Mine Workers v. Bagwell, 512 U. S. 821, 826–830. A sanction counts as compensatory only if it is “calibrate[d] to [the] damages caused by” the bad-faith acts on which it is based. Id., at 834. Hence the need for a court to establish a causal link between the litigant’s misbehavior and legal fees paid by the opposing party. That kind of causal connection is appropriately framed as a but-for test, meaning a court may award only those fees that the innocent party would not have incurred in the absence of litigation misconduct. That standard generally demands that a district court assess and allocate specific litigation expenses—yet still allows it to exercise discretion and judgment. Fox v. Vice, 563 U. S. 826, 836. And in exceptional cases, that standard allows a court to avoid segregating individual expense items by shifting all of a party’s fees, from either the start or some midpoint of a suit.”

Reversed and Remanded

Concur:

Dissent:

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Attorney Derek A. Hawkins is the managing partner at Hawkins Law Offices LLC, where he heads up the firm’s startup law practice. He specializes in business formation, corporate governance, intellectual property protection, private equity and venture capital funding and mergers & acquisitions. Check out the website at www.hawkins-lawoffices.com or contact them at 262-737-8825.