Summary
describing the certification requirements of Rule 11
Summary of this case from Haw. Structural Ironworkers Pension Tr. Fund v. AMC Entm't HoldingsOpinion
06 Civ. 975 (DAB) (KNF).
November 6, 2007
MEMORANDUM AND ORDER
BACKGROUND
In February 2006, plaintiff Cynthia Boyce-Idlett ("Boyce-Idlett"), proceeding pro se, commenced this action against defendant Verizon Corporate Services, Corp. ("Verizon") alleging employment discrimination, based on race, color and disability, and that she was denied long term disability benefits. In October 2006, the plaintiff engaged counsel, Donna H. Clancy, Esq. ("Clancy"). On February 2, 2007, Robert L. Levy, Esq. ("Levy") joined Clancy as counsel by filing a notice of appearance on behalf of the plaintiff. On February 7, 2007, the plaintiff sought leave to amend her complaint, which the defendant opposed. The defendant advised the Court that the copy of the complaint accompanying the motion to amend the pleading, was not the same document as that served on it or filed with the Clerk of Court ("Clerk"). After conducting an in camera review, the Court found discrepancies existed between documents purported to be duplicates of each other, submitted by the parties in connection with the motion to amend the complaint, and the pertinent documents housed in the file maintained by the Clerk for this action.
On May 9, 2007, the Court issued an order directing the parties to review the file maintained by the Clerk and to submit competent evidence that explains the discrepancies that exist between the various documents purported to be identical. On August 30, 2007, upon consideration of the parties' submissions in response to the May 9, 2007 order, and pursuant to Fed.R.Civ.P. 11(c)(1)(B), the Court, on its own initiative, entered an order describing specific conduct by the plaintiff and her counsel that appeared to violate Fed.R.Civ.P. 11(b), and directing the plaintiff and her counsel to show cause why they have not violated Fed.R.Civ.P. 11(b). Before the Court are: (i) the plaintiff's affidavit; (ii) the affidavit of the plaintiff's counsel; and (iii) a memorandum of law in support of the plaintiff's contention, that no violation of Fed.R.Civ.P. 11 has occurred.
DISCUSSION
Fed.R.Civ.P. 11 provides, in pertinent part, the following:
By presenting to the court (whether by signing, filing, submitting, or later advocating) a pleading, written motion, or other paper, an attorney or unrepresented party is certifying that to the best of the person's knowledge, information, and belief, formed after an inquiry reasonable under the circumstances, . . . (3) the allegations and other factual contentions have evidentiary support or, if specifically so identified, are likely to have evidentiary support after a reasonable opportunity for further investigation or discovery. Fed.R.Civ.P. 11(b)(3).
"[I]f evidentiary support is not obtained after a reasonable opportunity for further investigation or discovery, [a] party has a duty under the rule not to persist with [a particular] contention[(s)]." Fed.R.Civ.P. 11 Advisory Committee Notes, 1993 Amendments.
Whether a violation has occurred and what sanctions, if any, to impose is within a district court's discretion. See Storey v. Cello Holdings, L.L.C., 347 F.3d 370, 387 (2d Cir. 2003) (citingCooter Gell v. Hartmarx Corp., 496 U.S. 384, 402, 110 S. Ct. 2447, 2459); Schlaifer Nance Co. v. Estate of Warhol, 194 F.3d 323, 333 (2d Cir. 1999). To determine whether a Rule 11 violation has occurred, a court applies the objective standard of reasonableness under the circumstances, not the subjective beliefs of the person making the statement. See Storey, 347 F.3d at 387. "In order to function, the court must repose trust in the attorneys who come before it to make factual representations supported by evidence. . . . An attorney who abuses the trust of the court and who causes delay and needless expense thereby, should be penalized." In re September 11th Liab. Ins. Coverage Cases, 243 F.R.D. 114, 124 (S.D.N.Y. 2007).
"If, after notice and a reasonable opportunity to respond, the court determines that subdivision (b) has been violated, the court may . . . impose an appropriate sanction upon the attorneys, law firms, or parties that have violated subdivision (b) or are responsible for the violation." Fed.R.Civ.P. 11(c). A district court may consider a variety of factors when determining whether a Rule 11 violation has occurred, including,inter alia: (1) whether the improper conduct was wilful or negligent; (2) whether it was part of a pattern of activity or an isolated event; (3) whether it affected the entire pleading or only a particular count or defense; (4) what effect it had on the litigation process in time or expense; or (5) whether the responsible person is trained in the law. See Fed.R.Civ.P. 11 Advisory Committee Notes, 1993 Amendments.
A sanction imposed for violating Rule 11 is limited to what is reasonably necessary to deter repetition of the conduct by the offending person or comparable conduct by others similarly situated, and may include: (a) directives of a nonmonetary nature, such as striking the offending paper, issuing an admonition, reprimand, or censure, or, requiring participation in seminars or other educational programs; (b) an order to pay a penalty into court; or (c) referring the matter to disciplinary authorities. See Fed.R.Civ.P. 11(c)(2); Fed.R.Civ.P. 11 Advisory Committee Notes, 1993 Amendments. However, monetary sanctions cannot be awarded on the court's initiative unless it has issued an order to show cause, respecting the alleged Rule 11 violation, before a voluntary dismissal or settlement of the claims made by or against the party for whom sanctions are being contemplated. See Fed R. Civ. P. 11(c)(2)(B).
Complaint
The Court identified, in its show cause order, the following discrepancies between the copy of the complaint submitted with the plaintiff's motion to amend ("MC"), on one side, and the complaint on file with the Clerk ("CC") and the complaint served on the defendant ("SC"), on the other side: (1) page 2 of the MC was not identical to page 2 of the CC and the SC, in that it does not indicate, as the CC and SC do, the county in which the plaintiff was employed by the defendant, namely "Manhattan"; (2) page 3 of the MC is not identical to page 3 of the CC and the SC, in that it does not indicate the nature of the disability(ies) based on which the defendant allegedly discriminated against the plaintiff, namely "lupus, hypertension and heart;" and (3) page 4 of the MC is not identical to page 4 of the CC and the SC, in that it does not indicate "ERISA 502A" in the section entitled "The facts of my case are as follows."
Plaintiff
Clancy stated, in her May 25, 2007 affidavit explaining the discrepancies:
Based on my review of the Court file it appears that there are no discrepancies between the copy of the Complaint filed with the Court by plaintiff when commencing this action pro se and the copy of plaintiff's complaint submitted in connection with her motion. The only discrepancies lie with the attached exhibits.
The plaintiff stated, in her May 25, 2007 affidavit, that she believed her counsel's explanation of the discrepancies was "true and accurate in all aspects." However, in her affidavit, dated September 12, 2007, the plaintiff explained the discrepancies between the CC and the MC. She stated that, in early February 2006, she obtained a pro se complaint form from the Pro Se Office for this judicial district. The plaintiff completed the form, at her residence, and retained a copy for her file. On February 8, 2006, she returned to the court to file her complaint and was directed, by a Pro Se Office clerk, to complete section Nos. 3, 7 and 8 on the pro se complaint form, as these sections were left blank. The plaintiff paid the filing fee and returned a copy of the complaint with the exhibits to the Pro Se Office. According to the plaintiff, the Pro Se Office provided her with a copy of the first page of her complaint, stamped "filed," which she retained in her file. Other than the first page, the plaintiff asserted, she did not retain a copy of the original complaint filed with the court, containing the handwritten entries she made with respect to section Nos. 3, 7 and 8. She asserts further that, "in order to serve defendant with a copy of the complaint that was identical to the Court filed copy," and using her "best efforts to be complete and accurate," she used a copy of the first page of the complaint filed with the court that she obtained from the Pro Se Office, and she filled in manually the incomplete section Nos. 3, 7 and 8, on the copy of the complaint she retained at home. The plaintiff states: "I did not know or understand that I was required to serve an exact duplicate copy of the complaint that the Pro Se [O]ffice assisted me in filing with this Court."
Additionally, the plaintiff maintains: (i) when she retained counsel, she failed to advise counsel of this discrepancy; (ii) she "did not understand the legal significance of this irregularity;" and (iii) she "specifically advised [her counsel] that the served complaint was identical to the copy filed with the Court." The plaintiff states she did not intend to submit a document to the court for an improper purpose or to cause the Court any inconvenience or difficulty in deciding her motion to amend, and asks the Court to: (a) excuse her procedural errors; and (b) refrain from imposing sanctions on her or her counsel.
The plaintiff contends that, after she had filled in manually section Nos. 3, 7 and 8 on the copy of the complaint she retained at her residence, she placed that copy together with a copy of the first page of the complaint filed with the court, obtained from the Pro Se Office, and served it on the defendant. However, it appears, from the plaintiff's account of the discrepancies, that she had two copies of the incomplete complaint form at her home before she filed the complaint with the court. One copy was served on the defendant, after the plaintiff made changes to it. The other copy was provided by the plaintiff to her counsel, to whom she represented that the document was identical to the copy of the complaint filed with the court and served on the defendant.
The plaintiff's statement, that she did not know or understand that she was required to serve the defendant with an identical copy of the complaint filed with the court, is not credible because it contradicts her statements that: (i) she filled in incomplete sections of the complaint manually "in order to serve defendant with a copy of the complaint that was identical to the Court filed copy;" and (ii) she advised her counsel that the complaint she served on the defendant was identical to the copy filed with the court. The Court finds that the plaintiff knew and understood she was required to serve the defendant with a copy of the complaint identical to the one filed with the court because she filled in the incomplete sections of the complaint manually in order to conform to the Pro Se Office's instructions, requiring pro se litigants to submit "the original complaint plus two identical copies" when commencing a case, and explaining that, although copies may be handwritten or typewritten, "all copies (including any attached exhibits) must be identical to the original." Knowing and understanding that all copies of the complaint must be identical to the original complaint, filed with the court, and that she amended the original complaint and the one served on the defendant, the plaintiff provided her counsel an incomplete copy of the complaint, made before the amendments, purporting that it was identical to the copy served on the defendant and filed with the court. The plaintiff failed to provide any adequate explanation for her May 25, 2007 certification to the Court that no discrepancies existed between the CC and the MC, except for the discrepancies in the attached exhibits, where the evidence indicated the contrary.
"The key to rule 11 lies in the certification flowing from the signature to a pleading, motion, or other paper in a lawsuit."Oliveri v. Thompson, 803 F.2d 1265, 1274 (2d Cir. 1986). Signing a pleading, motion or other paper is not a meaningless act. Instead, it "denotes merit" and "sends a message to the district court that this document is to be taken seriously." Business Guides, Inc. v. Chromatic Communications Enter., Inc., 498 U.S. 533, 546, 111 S. Ct. 922, 930 (1991). The Court finds that, it was objectively unreasonable for the plaintiff, by signing her affidavits, to certify to the Court that, to the best of her knowledge, information and belief, formed after an inquiry reasonable under the circumstances, her factual contentions with respect to discrepancies between the CC, the MC and the SC, had evidentiary support, where the record evidence demonstrated the opposite was true, namely, that the MC was not identical to the CC and the SC. Contrary to the plaintiff's contention, failure to comply with the certification requirements of Rule 11 is not a "procedural error;" it is serious misconduct, subject to sanctions.
Counsel
As noted above, in response to the Court's directive to review and explain the discrepancies that existed with respect to the CC, the MC and the SC, Clancy represented to the Court that, upon completing the review, no discrepancies existed between the CC and the MC and declared that, to the best of her knowledge, "the copy of the complaint and exhibits submitted to the Court in connection with plaintiff's motion to amend was identical to the copy of the complaint and exhibits that plaintiff provided to my office when she retained us as counsel in this matter." Counsel explained that, when her office attempted to verify that the MC was a duplicate of the CC, the CC "did not contain a copy of the documents attached as either Exhibit "1" or Exhibit "2." In the absence of these documents, we proceeded with attaching the complaint to our motion in the form in which it was presented to us by the client."
In their response to the Court's show cause order, counsel stated that Clancy's representations to the Court, made in the plaintiff's motion to amend the complaint, "were based on reasonable and diligent inquiries into the relevant facts and examination of the documents maintained and provided by plaintiff and maintained in the Court's file." Counsel contend "anydiscrepancies and/or failure to accurately identify such discrepancies were not deliberate and not made for any strategic advantage or improper purpose," rather, "such failures were inadvertent and unintended, including, without limitation, the failure of counsel to fully identify certain non-substantive differences between the pro se complaint submitted by plaintiff as part of its Moving Papers and the copy of the pro se complaint maintained in the Court file."
Additionally, counsel maintain:
Consistent with her professional obligations, including her obligations under Rule 11, prior to filing plaintiff's Moving Papers, Ms. Clancy set out to confirm Ms. Boyce-Idlett's representation. Specifically, she sent a staff member from her office to the Clerk's office to obtain a copy of the pro se complaint and exhibits from the Court's file. However, the Court's file apparently did not contain a complete copy of plaintiff's complaint — neither copies of Exhibit 1 or Exhibit 2 could be located. Accordingly, no comparative review could be undertaken.
Counsel do not contend and no evidence exists to indicate that, while the exhibits attached to the CC were unavailable in the Clerk's file at the time Clancy's staff member sought to obtain a copy of the pro se complaint and its exhibits from that file, the original five-page complaint was absent from the Clerk's file at any time. Therefore, since the original five-page complaint in the Clerk's file was available for review and copying when Clancy's staff member sought to make a copy of it, but Clancy's staff member failed to make a copy, it cannot be said that counsel could not undertake a comparative review of the complaint, excluding the exhibits, or that counsel acted with reasonable diligence and consistent with their professional obligations, especially their obligations under Rule 11.
Furthermore, where: (a) the CC was available for review and copying; (b) counsel, pursuant to the Court's order of May 21, 2007, compared the CC and the MC, but failed to notice discrepancies, despite the Court's order alerting her to the same, and despite counsel's awareness that no prior comparison of the CC and the MC was undertaken by counsel; and (c) Clancy persisted in her representation that the CC and the MC were identical, it cannot be said that counsel's conduct was objectively reasonable, diligent or consistent with the certification requirements of Rule 11. Counsel's representation to the Court that something is when something is not strikes at the heart of the Rule 11 certification requirement and their failure to comply with the mandates of Rule 11 cannot be dismissed by characterizing Clancy's representation to the Court as an "inartful" statement.
Counsel state that, in making the representation to the Court that no discrepancies existed between the original complaint and the copy of the complaint filed in connection with the motion to amend the complaint, Clancy "was focused on the substantive allegations of the complaint (so as to ensure these allegations had been accurately represented in the Moving Papers) and on discrepancies in the content of the exhibits." According to counsel, Clancy's "representation was not fully accurate" and she "should have, in the interest of full and complete accuracy, recognized and acknowledged these discrepancies in her Affidavit," but "the failure to do so was inadvertent, not germane to the substantive issues in this case and devoid of any nefarious or otherwise improper intent." Counsel state: "[T]he failure to identify these discrepancies-which can be described as discrepancies as to the form rather than substance-during the Court ordered review is fairly characterized as a non-material oversight, occasioned, in part, on counsel's reasonable focus on discrepancies within the exhibits to the complaint." Additionally, according to counsel, "[t]he substance and consistency of plaintiff's factual allegations and legal claims noted by the Court are unaffected by the discrepancies in the complaint."
Counsel do not make citation to any authority for the proposition that the "allegations and other factual contentions," contemplated by Rule 11, include only those that pertain to the plaintiff's underlying substantive factual allegations and legal claims, and the Court finds none. Moreover, counsel's contentions, that Clancy's representation to the Court "was not fully accurate" and that she "should have, in the interest of full and complete accuracy, recognized and acknowledged these discrepancies in her Affidavit," are irrelevant to counsel's compliance with Rule 11 because Rule 11 requires evidentiary support for factual contentions, not representations that are free of errors. In addition, the standard for determining whether Rule 11 has been violated is whether it was objectively reasonable for counsel to act as they did under the circumstances, not whether the representation, lacking in evidentiary support, amounted to a material oversight. To state that Clancy's failure to provide evidentiary support for her factual contentions is a "non-material oversight" presupposes that Rule 11 allows one who signs a pleading, written motion or other paper to determine which factual contentions in the document are material, thus requiring compliance with Rule 11. However, Rule 11 neither imparts such discretion to the signer nor makes the materiality of a factual contention a criterion for subjecting the signer to the requirements of Rule 11.
The plaintiff urges the Court, in her memorandum of law, to refrain from imposing sanctions on her or her counsel, and makes citation to the following recent decisions in which district courts denied motions for sanctions, under Rule 11: (a) Fried v. Kelly, No. 06 Civ. 1528, 2007 WL 1821697 (S.D.N.Y. June 26, 2007); (b) Greene v. Donovan, No. 07 Civ. 1928, 2007 WL 2005558 (S.D.N.Y. July 10, 2007); (c) Abdelhamid v. Altria, No. 06 Civ. 3927, 2007 WL 2186275 (S.D.N.Y. July 27, 2007); and (d) (888) Justice, Inc. v. Justenterprises, Inc., No. 06 CV 6410, 2007 WL 2398504 (S.D.N.Y. Aug. 22, 2007). However, other than indicating to the Court, in the form of parenthetical phrases, that the courts in these cases declined to impose Rule 11 sanctions, the plaintiff failed to discuss these cases and their relevance to the instant case or to make any arguments demonstrating by analogy or comparison that the circumstances in the cited cases are akin to those in the instant case, thus warranting the Court in adopting and applying the reasoning employed by the courts in the cited cases to her case as well.
The Court notes that the plaintiff's statements respecting the law governing the standard under Rule 11, in her memorandum of law, are supported by citations to the wrong reporters. The plaintiff makes citation to "W.K. Webster Co. v. AM. President Lines, Ltd., 32 F.2d 665, 670 (2d Cir. 1994)" and "Eastway Const. Corp. v. City of New York, 762 F.3d 243, 254 (2d Cir. 1985)." The correct citations are W.K. Webster Co. v. Am. President Lines, Ltd., 32 F.3d 665, 670 (2d Cir. 1994) and Eastway Constr. Corp. v. City of New York, 762 F.2d 243, 254 (2d Cir. 1985).
Moreover, the plaintiff misstated the law when she wrote that the court in Abdelhamid "also declined to impose Sanctions under Rule 11 noting that the principle [sic] objective of the imposition of Rule 11 sanctions is to deter baseless filing and the curbing of abuses." While it is true that the court inAbdelhamid, relying on a Second Circuit jurisprudence, noted that "the principal objective of the imposition of Rule 11 sanctions is not compensation of the victimized party but rather the deterrence of baseless filings and the curbing of abuses," the court did not decline to impose sanctions. The court only declined to award the defendants' legal fees, but imposed a sanction: dismissal of the amended complaint with respect to certain defendants. See Abdelhamid, 2007 WL 2186275, at *8. Based on the record in the instant case, the Court finds that it was objectively unreasonable for counsel to represent to the Court factual contentions concerning the plaintiff's five-page complaint without evidentiary support.
Exhibits to the Complaint
The Court identified, in its show cause order, the following discrepancies among the exhibits submitted with the plaintiff's motion to amend ("ME"), the exhibits on file with the Clerk ("CE") and the exhibits served on the defendant ("SE"): (1) Exhibit 2, to the ME and the CE was not included with the SE; (2) a 22-page document entitled "The Plan for Group Insurance (As Amended and Restated Effective January 1, 2002," included in the ME was not included in the CE and the SE; and (3) a significant number of duplicate copies of various exhibits, in a looseleaf format, was included in the CE but not included in the ME and the SE. Additionally, in response to the Court's May 9, 2007 order, the plaintiff identified the following discrepancies: (a) a copy of a confirmation statement of the plaintiff's benefits is included in the CE but is not included in the ME; (b) four additional pages of confirmation statements are included in the ME but are not included in the CE; (c) a document entitled "Disability Income Protection Questions," dated November 14, 2001, is included in the ME but is not included in the CE; (d) a four-page document entitled "Verizon Sickness Disability Benefit" is not included in the ME but is included in the CE; and (e) a two-page document entitled "Verizon Vacation Policy" is not included in the ME but is included in the CE.
In response to the Court's show cause order, the plaintiff states that, after the Court alerted her to the discrepancies among the CE, the ME and the SE, she "was focused solely on the exhibits," which "was reflected in [her] Affidavit, dated May 25, 2007, to the Court to explain discrepancies in the exhibits." In her May 25, 2007 affidavit, the plaintiff stated that at the time she retained counsel, she "turned over [her] entire file including [her] copy of the complaint and the corresponding exhibits." In that affidavit, the plaintiff adopted her counsel's explanation of the discrepancies that exist among the CE, the ME and the SE as "true and accurate in all respects."
Clancy explained, in her affidavit dated May 25, 2007, in the most pertinent parts, that: (i) "a copy of a confirmation statement of the plaintiff's benefits" that is in the Clerk's file "was inadvertently omitted from plaintiff's submissions [in connection with the motion to amend], while four additional pages of confirmation statements were submitted as exhibits to the complaint on the motion to amend but were not contained in the Court's filed copy;" (ii) "[t]he copy of the complaint submitted to the Court in connection with the motion to amend attached two documents, The Plan for Group Insurance and Disability Income Protection Questions, dated November 14, 2001, that were not contained in the Court's copy." Clancy asserted the discrepancies in the exhibits are "the result of human error" resulting from: (a) "errors in the photocopying and attachment of these exhibits by plaintiff and/or the pro se clerk's office after these exhibits were presented to that office by plaintiff; and (b) plaintiff presented to this office a copy of these exhibits in the form and sequence in which she believed that they were filed" with the court. Furthermore, according to Clancy, "these discrepancies were inadvertent, accidental, not calculated to obtain any litigation advantage and not prejudicial to defendant in any material regard."
In their affidavit, dated September 12, 2007, counsel state they believed their client and Clancy's statements in connection with the motion to amend and those in their May 25, 2007 affidavits were "accurate in all material aspects." Counsel explained that, in the course of various communications with the plaintiff, the plaintiff assured Clancy that the exhibits and the complaint she provided to her were identical to those filed with the Clerk. Counsel state that, because the exhibits were unavailable when Clancy sent her staff member to review the documents pertaining to the plaintiff's action in the Clerk's file, "no comparative review could be undertaken." According to counsel, because of the above-noted unavailability of the exhibits, it was reasonable and appropriate, under the circumstances, for them to rely on the representations of the plaintiff that the exhibits filed with the Clerk and served on the defendant were identical, "while at the same time acknowledging to opposing counsel the existence of a potential issue and providing due notice of how plaintiff intended to proceed in the face of the existing uncertainty."
As discussed above, Rule 11 does not require "accuracy in all material aspects" but evidentiary support for factual contentions. The plaintiff's motion to amend was filed on February 7, 2007. Counsel submitted to the Court a copy of an e-mail message sent to opposing counsel, dated February 5, 2007, stating, in pertinent part:
As you indicated, your copy [of the complaint] only had Exhibit 1 documents attached and not Exhibit 2. Although Ms. Boyce-Idlett informed me that she had filed the complaint with both Exhibit 1 and Exhibit 2 documents, the Court copy has neither set of Exhibits attached. My copy has both Exhibit 1 and 2 documents which I will submit as an attachment to plaintiff's motion to amend.
Contrary to counsel's contention, Clancy's e-mail message to opposing counsel does not acknowledge "the existence of a potential issue," only that the Clerk's file did not contain the exhibits and that a copy of the complaint opposing counsel sent to her did not contain Exhibit 2. No mention is made, in the February 5, 2007 e-mail message, of "a potential issue" with respect to the content of the exhibits or a concern about whether the ME, the CE or the SE are identical. If, as counsel contend, at the time the plaintiff's motion to amend was filed, Clancy was aware that "a potential issue" or "uncertainty" existed with respect to the exhibits: (i) presented to her by the plaintiff; (ii) filed with the Clerk; or (iii) served on the defendant, it was not objectively reasonable for counsel to rely on the plaintiff's representation that the exhibits, submitted to the Court, in connection with the motion to amend, were identical to those filed with the court and served on the defendant.
Counsel have not presented any evidence demonstrating that, when Clancy's staff member visited the court, the person requested that a search be made by the Clerk to locate the exhibits or that the staff member or counsel ever returned to the court, after the staff member's sole visit there, and prior to the Court's order directing counsel to compare the submissions with the documents in the Clerk's file, to ascertain whether the exhibits were available subsequent to the staff member's visit to the court. The failure to make a reasonable inquiry with the Clerk about the absence of the exhibits from the court's file or to follow up on the status of the exhibits absent from that file, where no impediment existed to such an inquiry or follow up endeavor, was neither reasonable nor diligent. Being aware that: (i) the exhibits were not available on the day counsel's staff member visited the court; and (ii) no subsequent inquiry was made about the status of the exhibits' availability in the Clerk's file, it was not reasonable for counsel to make submissions to the Court, based on their client's representations to Clancy, that the exhibits submitted to her were identical to those in the Clerk's file. Moreover, no exigent circumstances were shown to exist that would have forced counsel to rely on the statements of their client,see Rodick v. City of Schenectady, 1 F.3d 1341, 1351 (2d Cir. 1993), and the extent of counsel's reliance on the information supplied by their client cannot be said to have been objectively reasonable or justified, under the circumstances, cf. Kamen v. American Tel. Tel. Co., 791 F.2d 1006, 1012 (2d Cir. 1986);Calloway v. Marvel, 854 F.2d 1452, 1470 (2d Cir. 1988), rev'd in part on other grounds, 493 U.S. 120, 110 S. Ct. 1116 (1989).
The Court finds that the plaintiff and her counsel failed to comply with the certification requirements of Rule 11, since no evidence exists supporting their representations to the Court that the complaint and the attached exhibits, submitted in connection with the plaintiff's motion to amend the complaint, were true and complete copies of those filed with the Clerk. It was not objectively reasonable for the plaintiff and her counsel to make such representations to the Court, in light of the circumstances described above. Therefore, the Court finds that imposing a sanction on the plaintiff and her counsel is warranted. The plaintiff and her counsel are directed to pay to the Clerk of Court, on or before November 21, 2007, as a sanction, $1500. The plaintiff shall pay $300 and her attorneys, Clancy and Levy, shall each pay $600. The instant sanction should serve as a specific deterrent to Boyce-Idlett and her counsel and as a general deterrent to anyone else contemplating engaging in conduct similar to that described above.
SO ORDERED: