sanctioned lawyers for the use of wrong spacing (24-point instead of double-spacing) to cram more words than was allowed by "court rules" (25 page per brief), and required them to pay a $1,048.09 fine.
Was it proper for lawyers to achieve by stealth what they could do by openly asking the court for permission to exceed the page limit?
No, it was not.
Was it warranting a monetary fine and sanction?
I don't know.
Yet, what I do know that it is wrong to set limits for arguments.
Some lawsuits have more complex issues than others.
Lawsuits having just one claim require less pages for arguments than lawsuits having more than one claim, and the same court rules require grouping of claims together, for fear of forfeiting the claim on "claim preclusion" doctrine.
If you included all claims, you are at a disadvantage as compared to people who assert just one claim.
You are also at a disadvantage if you have more parties in your lawsuit (either plaintiffs or defendants), because that complicates the matter, and increases the number of claims.
Yet, the page limit for arguments remains the same.
I did not see analysis of those issues in 76-year-old Judge Victor Marrero's order of sanctions:
And, slapping lawyers with monetary sanctions without considering whether they were trying to obtain a fair review of all arguments for their clients, and whether the omission was inadvertent (after all, the pleading could have been done by an associate or a paralegal who did not know the spacing rules), was more characteristic of a cranky elderly and impatient judge who needs to retire and enjoy sunsets on the beach, than of a competent jurist.
Competent jurists do not mete out monetary sanctions that would require measuring the brief with a ruler. They concentrate on issues of merit of the case in front of them.
It was silly. And petty.
But it was not only silly, and petty - Judge Victor Marrero forgot himself to such a degree that he ordered the sanctioned lawyers to pay the fine to the clerk of his own court.
Which means - Judge Victor Marrero allowed his own court to profit from his own sanctioning decision, an unconstitutional conflict of interest recognized by the U.S. Supreme Court 90 years ago, before Judge Marrero was even born.
In recognition of this conflict, some New York courts (over the village court level) order sanctions to be paid not to the court clerk, but to a fund outside the court system, to avoid appearance of impropriety.
Apparently, appearance of impropriety was not much of a concern for Judge Victor Marrero.
So, by pointing out that lawyers for a party committed a faux pas by violating a non-sensical court rule about "one-size-fits-all" page limit for arguments on an important issue of a preliminary injunction, at the time when no discovery was made in the case and no issues aired out, the judge, in his persnickety and cranky zeal to have lawyers appearing in front of him observe formalities to the letter, chose to disregard the basic rule of due process - that judges presiding over cases must remain neutral and not create conflicts of interest.
Well, Judge Victor Marrero did, by having his court already, at the beginning of litigation, profit from the fine he imposed upon the lawyer for one of the parties - payable to the court itself.
Judge Victor Marrero should really retire.
And the case should really be transferred to another court - which, let me guess, will not happen.
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