Unpublished Disposition, 928 F.2d 1136 (9th Cir. 1991)

MEMORANDUM^* 

Attorney James Toledano appeals the imposition of Rule 11 sanctions against him for filing a frivolous motion for sanctions. We affirm.

The Supreme Court recently held that "an appellate court should apply an abuse-of-discretion standard in reviewing all aspects of a district court's Rule 11 determination." Cooter & Gell v. Hartmax Corp., 110 S. Ct. 2447, 2461 (1990). This holding overruled prior 9th Circuit precedent, which had held that an appellate court should review a district court's legal conclusions in a Rule 11 proceeding de novo. See Zaldivar v. City of Los Angeles, 780 F.2d 823, 828 (9th Cir. 1986). The Cooter Court went on to note that " [a] district court would necessarily abuse its discretion if it based its ruling on an erroneous view of the law or on a clearly erroneous assessment of the evidence." Id.

An attorney may be sanctioned for filing a motion "for any improper purpose, such as to harass or to cause unnecessary delay or needless increase in the cost of litigation." Fed.R.Civ.Proc. 11.

The district court found that the defendants "have requested sanctions against Heidi's a second time, despite a prior indication by this Court that there may be merit to Heidi's request for sanctions.... [T]his court finds that Defendants' counter-request was brought for improper purposes, solely to harass Heidi's and to protract the course of this litigation." The record supports this finding.

A district court is accorded discretion in its choice of what sanctions to impose. Cooter, 110 S. Ct. at 2458. The court's decision to impose sanctions does not need to be predicated on whether the improper behavior imposed costs on the other party. Here, the court imposed sanctions on its own motion out of its concern that the legal process was being abused. While the sanctioned behavior did not measurably enhance Heidi's costs, it was well within the district court's discretion to award as a sanction for abusing the legal process a portion of Heidi's attorneys' fees. The trial court did not abuse its discretion.

AFFIRMED.