A tri-panel of judges in the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals (Louisiana) recently wrote an opinion on a case originally filed as a civil rights action by a cheerleader, Samantha Sanchez (Plaintiff) against Carrolton-Farmers Branch Independent School District (Defendant) in Carrolton, Texas. The plaintiff was represented by Harry Jones and Jessica Brown Wilson of law firm Littler and Mendelson. In the summary of their opinion, the judges called the action a petty squabble.
Reduced to its essentials, this is nothing more than a dispute, fueled by a disgruntled cheerleader mom, over whether her daughter should have made the squad. It is a petty squabble, masquerading as a civil rights matter, that has no place in federal court or any other court.We had no access to the actual appeal but much of it was referenced on the opinion. The tone of the appeal appeared to have been hostile to the original trial judge - Magistrate Judge Stickney - that the appeals judges found it appropriate to point out the poor manner in which the appellate briefs were prepared.
These sentences are so poorly written that it is difficult to decipher what the attorneys mean, but any plausible reading is troubling, and the quoted passage is an unjustified and most unprofessional and disrespectful attack on the judicial process in general and the magistrate judge assignment here in particular. This may be a suggestion that Magistrate Judge Stickney is incompetent. It might be an assertion that all federal magistrate judges are incompetent. It could be an allegation that only Article III judges are competent. Or it may only mean that Magistrate Judge Stickney’s decisions in this case are incompetent, a proposition that is absurd in light of the correctness of his impressive rulings. Under any of these possible readings, the attorneys’ attack on Magistrate Judge Stickney’s decisionmaking is reprehensible. The summary judgment on all of Sanches’s claims is AFFIRMEDThe footnote was the more scathing, giving the reader an impression that the law firm had no access to modern software that could check for spelling and grammatical errors. Here’s the footnote:
Usually we do not comment on technical and grammatical errors, because anyone can make such an occasional mistake, but here the miscues are so egregious and obvious that an average fourth grader would have avoided most of them. For example, the word “principals” should have been “principles.” The word “vacatur” is misspelled. The subject and verb are not in agreement in one of the sentences, which has a singular subject (“incompetence”) and a plural verb (“are”). Magistrate Judge Stickney is referred to as “it” instead of “he” and is called a “magistrate” instead of a “magistrate judge.” And finally, the sentence containing the word “incompetence” makes no sense as a matter of standard English prose, so it is not reasonably possible to understand the thought, if any, that is being conveyed. It is ironic that the term “incompetence” is used here, because the only thing that is incompetent is the passage itself.The case obviously had no merit requiring no further analysis. What we found interesting was the manner in which the judges berated the trial attorneys. Such scathing attacks on a litigant's writing skills by judges are very rare and worth noting. It offers precious insights on the way that appeals judges may view a legal brief, particularly the tone.
Lesson learned: Be respectful of judges, they may just embarrass you in public. Remember that their opinions are published and easily accessible on the web. Also, invest in writing software that checks for spelling and grammar.
READ THE ACTUAL OPINION
