7th Circuit Benchslap: Lawyer’s ‘Gibberish’ in Brief Draws Sanction Threat
An attorney who was brought on at the appellate state to represent a pro se litigant who claimed she was discriminated against by her former employer filed a brief that the Seventh Circuit found to be so bad that it ordered him to show cause why he shouldn’t be sanctioned.
Above the Law reports on the case, with a copy of the court’s opinion included. That opinion includes a stinging rebuke, including this passage:
“The patently frivolous nature of this appeal isn’t the only thing that troubles us. The hopelessness of [the plaintiff-appellant’s] cause didn’t deter her lawyer, Jordan Hoffman, from signing and submitting a bizarre appellate brief laden with assertions that have no basis in the record and arguments that have no basis in the law. In so doing, Hoffman violated Rule 28 of the Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure.”
The court also found the brief to be “chock-full of impenetrable arguments and unsupported assertions, and it is organized in ways that escape our understanding.”
Read the Above the Law article.
