The bashing of civil rights attorneys continues

It has been reported that the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania has just sanctioned a civil rights attorney for filing and litigating a civil rights lawsuit against a corporation and a labor union.

The sanctions have definite 1st and 14th Amendment implications, as well as put a further chill upon ability of individuals to find a civil rights attorney who would agree to represent them in federal court, something that Rule 11 was not meant to do, and something that the U.S. Senate Democrats were recently cautioning about.

The fees that the civil rights attorney was ordered to pay are hefty, over $115,000.

The judge who imposed the sanctions is the same judge who bashed civil rights attorney Andy Ostrowski for criticizing federal judges and refused to allow him to practice law in federal court on that basis, so apparently this judge has a certain bend to punish civil rights attorneys.

I downloaded materials from that case from Pacer and will provide analysis of the case later on.

One thing I can state right away though.

The court that imposed sanctions did not apply the required strict scrutiny test before imposing sanctions for contents of a civil rights attorney's protected speech, which, in my opinion as an expert, makes sanctions unconstitutional and void.

Senate Democrats were urged by their leader to Vote no to changes to Rule 11 because there were concerns that Rule 11, as changed, will be disproportionately used against civil rights attorney, as it happened before.

I do not know whether Senate Democrats are aware of it or not, but Rule 11, and its shadows, 28 U.S.C. 1927 and the alleged "inherent power of the court" are already used to disproportionately sanction civil rights attorneys and thus chill civil rights litigation and deprive indigent civil rights plaintiffs of an ability to find a civil rights attorney who would agree to represent them, given the threat of sanctions such as imposed upon attorney Donald P. Russo in the elderly electrician Ernest Keister's civil rights case of age discrimination.

The case No. is 4:13-cv-118-MWB in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylavnia.

As I said above, I will post analysis of the case as soon as I have an opportunity to review the records I just downloaded from Pacer.gov.

Stay tuned.