A federal judge may discipline attorneys for St. Louis after they filed a lawsuit against the state that he said “a first-year law student” would know not to file.
Outgoing Mayor Tishaura Jones and Board of Aldermen President Megan Green filed the lawsuit last week challenging the state’s new law that puts the St. Louis Police Department under the direction of a local board appointed by the governor.
But in a blunt and stunning rebuke of the city’s legal representatives, U.S. District Judge Matthew Schelp noted immediately after the filing that “as a sovereign, Missouri enjoys sovereign immunity – the ‘privilege … not to be sued without its consent.’”
“A mere glance at the caption of this case is enough to raise a jurisdictional red flag,” the judge wrote about the case, titled “City of St. Louis et al., vs. State of Missouri.”
The judge gave St. Louis until Monday of this week to explain how the case was legal – and when the city failed to answer at all, the judge excoriated it in a memorandum on Wednesday.
Now the city has until next Wednesday to explain why the attorneys who filed the case shouldn’t be disciplined for a frivolous lawsuit under what’s known as federal Rule 11.
The attorneys representing St. Louis as listed in the complaint are City Attorney Sheena Hamilton, Assistant City Attorney Nathan S. Puckett, and Jefferson City attorney Charles W. Hatfield of Stinson LLP law firm representing Green.
“This jurisdictional issue is so glaring that a first-year law student would be able to recognize it,” the judge wrote in his Wednesday memorandum.
In making that argument, the judge cited a legal scholar’s paper that reads, “First-year constitutional law students are taught that states enjoy sovereign immunity by virtue of the Eleventh Amendment and the Constitution’s federalist structure.”
He also cited case law that described sovereign immunity as a “basic” feature of the federal courts, and other case law saying it’s “a ‘basic’ principle that the ‘Eleventh Amendment bars the federal courts from entertaining actions against the states without their consent …’
“It appears that this action never should have been brought against the State of Missouri in the first place.”
The judge wrote that he had presumed the city had some reason to believe the lawsuit was exempt from sovereign immunity, “because the flaw [in the case] was so apparent on the face of the Complaint.”
So, instead of dismissing the case immediately, he gave the city until Monday of this week to explain itself.
“To the Court’s surprise, though, neither the City of St. Louis nor Megan Green filed anything in response,” the judge wrote in his Wednesday memorandum. “They altogether ignored the Court’s Order and abandoned their case without so much as a muttering retreat. …
“A district court confronted with solid evidence of a pleading’s frivolousness may in circumstances that warrant it infer that it was filed for an improper purpose.”
The judge explained that “improper purposes” for filing the lawsuit could be to harass the state, to “attract publicity,” or “to solely engage in political protest.”
The judge concluded:
“After having the fundamental jurisdictional issue called to their attention, the City and Green went radio silent – at least to the Court. The Court can only speculate as to Plaintiffs’ purpose in hastily filing a slipshod action in federal court because they altogether ignored the Order while publicly discussing the matter with the press.
“All the Court can do is put their filing in the wider context to which everyone is privy. And in this context, Plaintiffs’ silence with the Court raises the appearance that they brought this action for improper purposes under Rule 11, namely, to harass the State of Missouri, to attract publicity, or to make a public statement of protest.
“The Court will therefore require Plaintiffs to show cause why their filing of this action against the sovereign State of Missouri did not violate Rule 11(b)(1) in that they must demonstrate their proper purpose for bringing this action.”
