Federal Trial Judge’s Sanctions Against 2 Attorneys Overturned

In a decision likely to fuel controversy in the federal judiciary, a federal appeals court Thursday unanimously overturned $6,200 in sanctions that a Los Angeles trial judge had imposed against two San Diego attorneys simply because they had not gone through the pro forma task of being admitted to practice in the U.S. District Court here--a task that takes about 10 minutes and costs $20.

The appellate court in San Francisco said that U.S. District Judge Richard A. Gadbois Jr. overstepped his authority when he sanctioned Jose E. Tafolla and Philip W. Orr, who had been representing Linda M. Zambrano, a Riverside resident, in an unlawful-arrest suit against the city of Tustin.

After discovering that the lawyers had not been admitted to practice law in the Los Angeles federal court, Gadbois ordered a halt to the December, 1987, trial on the second day, saying the two attorneys were no more qualified than an “auto mechanic” to conduct the case. Gadbois also threatened to hold Orr in criminal contempt and put him in leg irons if he ever applied for admission to the Los Angeles Federal District Court and did not disclose that he had been sanctioned.

“We cannot be blind to the situations where trials courts overreact to perceived or minor slights,” appellate Judge Stephen Reinhardt of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals said in Thursday’s ruling. Judges Mary M. Schroeder and Charles L. Hardy joined in the opinion.

Gadbois declined to comment on the decision.

The decision noted that there now is an “intense debate” in legal circles about the criteria judges should use in sanctioning lawyers. “Any sanction imposed must be proportionate to the offense and commensurate with principles of restraint and dignity inherent in judicial power,” the judges said in a lengthy ruling.

The appeals panel said a sanction such as the one imposed by Gadbois would only be justified if there was proof that the lawyers had acted in bad faith. The panel said Tafolla and Orr, both members of the State Bar, appeared to be guilty of no more than negligence when they failed to gain approval to practice in the federal court here--a routine process.

Rigorous Examination

Getting approved for practice of federal law is normally a much simpler matter than gaining admission to the California State Bar, which requires an applicant to pass a rigorous, three-day examination and a character review.

In order to get admitted in the Los Angeles federal court, known as the Central District of California, a lawyer must first be admitted to the California State Bar, must be recommended by another attorney already admitted in Los Angeles, swear that he has read the local rules and pay $20.

The appeals court judges noted that “admission into a state Bar does not, at least in theory, carry with it an automatic entitlement for admission into the federal district courts of that state. . . . At the same time, we would be guilty of serious self-delusion if we did not acknowledge that . . . the process for admission before the federal district courts is generally perfunctory and pro forma. “

Isabel R. Katupodis, an aide to Alan Abersman, chief deputy of the Los Angeles District Court, said she could not remember a single applicant who already was a member of the California Bar being denied admission to practice in the Central District in the 13 years she has worked here. She said “at least” 25 applicants are admitted every Tuesday and Thursday.

Since both Tafolla and Orr were members of the California Bar and had been admitted to practice in the federal court in San Diego, their admission to practice in Los Angeles appeared highly likely.

According to the appeals court decision, Tafolla said he had planned to apply and had not gotten around to it. Orr was brought into the case by Tafolla after it was filed and said that since he had made some pretrial appearances in the case without having been admitted, he assumed that there was no problem.

The three appellate judges also criticized Gadbois for declaring a mistrial in the case. Gadbois “expressed the startling conclusion that Orr and Tafolla were not ‘any more qualified than an auto mechanic’ to conduct the trial because they had not been admitted in the federal court here,” the decision said.

The judges noted that Tafolla had been licensed to practice law in California for 12 years and Orr for five years when Gadbois ordered the mistrial on Dec. 2, 1987. “Although their failure” to comply with the local rule on gaining admission to practice in the Los Angeles Federal District Court “reflects poorly upon them, nothing in the record suggests that either one could not have competently handled Ms. Zambrano’s trial,” the ruling said.

Both sides in the case of Zambrano vs. City of Tustin were hurt by the judge’s decision to declare a mistrial, the judges said. “The court would have been well advised to allow Tafolla and/or Orr to seek admission to the Bar of the Central District before declaring a mistrial,” the opinion said.

After declaring a mistrial, Gadbois sent a letter to Manuel L. Real, the chief judge of the Federal District Court here, describing what he had done. “I am very concerned about this conduct. . . . At the least we should assure that these guys don’t ever get admitted here, at least on the usual mechanical basis,” Gadbois said in the letter.

The appeals court decision also raised questions about a statement Gadbois made to Orr in court on Dec. 2, 1987, after the judge discovered that Orr had not been admitted in Los Angeles. Gadbois told Orr that another federal district judge in Los Angeles had held a lawyer in criminal contempt “and had him put into leg irons and taken out of the courtroom” because the lawyer had not been admitted to practice in Los Angeles.

‘Different Kettle of Fish’

The opinion did not name the other judge. But a court transcript revealed that Gadbois said A. Wallace Tashima was the judge who had ordered a lawyer to be put into leg irons.

“I have never done that and I deny that I did that,” Tashima said in an interview. He said that he once jailed a lawyer for criminal contempt because he attempted to practice in his courtroom without being licensed to practice in California or anywhere else in the United States. “To me that was practicing law without a license. . . . That’s an entirely different kettle of fish.”

Tafolla said in an interview that he believed that Gadbois had “overreacted.”

Orr was in court in San Diego Thursday and not available for comment.

Manuel Sanchez, a San Diego lawyer who handled the appeal for Tafolla and Orr, said he was delighted with the decision and pleased that the conclusion of the sanctions case would enable the main trial on the unlawful arrest suit to go forward. “It’s been too long for this woman to get her day in court,” he said.