Attorney Wins Bid to Reverse Sanction for Failing to Appear

A attorney who was fined $100 for failing to appear at a status conference was granted reversal of the sanction, because the lower court didn’t apply sanctions in similar instances and it failed to give her a chance to explain why she didn’t show up, the First Circuit ruled Thursday.

Attorney Kendys Pimentel-Soto said she missed the conference scheduled in September 2015 because she mistakenly entered the wrong date in her electronic calendar. At the time of the hearing, she says she was preparing her client for what she believed was the hearing the following day.

Pimentel-Soto argued that the U.S. District Court for the District of Puerto Rico abused its discretion by not providing a justification for the sanction, and it imposed the sanction without providing an opportunity to be heard. She said that the decision to sanction her was an abuse of discretion and arbitrary and capricious, especially since attorneys for other cases in the court weren’t sanctioned for failing to appear.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit agreed, saying that there’s nothing to indicate what determines which nonappearing attorneys are sanctioned and which aren’t.

“There is no hint in either the local rules, the standing order of any judge, or case law indicating what criteria differentiate this failure from those not sanctioned,” the court said.

District courts have been repeatedly urged to “listen before sanctioning,” the appeals court said. It continued, saying in its ruling that it’s unlikely district judges would want to impose sanctions when no one is at fault, such as counsel suffering a heart attack on the way to court.

“Unequal treatment without an opportunity to be heard” in cases like this “may cause observers to suspect irrationality or worse,” the court said.

Judge William J. Kayatta Jr. wrote the opinion, joined by Chief Judge Jeffrey R. Howard and Judge O. Rogeriee Thompson.

Pimentel-Soto represented herself.

The Justice Department represented the federal government.

The case is Pimentel-Soto v. United States, 1st Cir., No. 17-1967, 4/23/20.