Martinez v. City of Chicago

Attorney had standing to appeal Dist. Ct.’s order directing her to pay plaintiffs $35,522.94 in fees and costs as sanction for misleading plaintiffs as to non-existence of documents held by Cook County State’s Attorney Office that were sought by plaintiffs as part of their discovery requests, even though State’s Attorney had paid said fees and costs prior to oral argument on appeal. While attorney had no standing to challenge monetary sanction contained in Dist. Ct.’s order, attorney could appeal Dist. Ct.’s detailed findings of attorney misconduct that were ultimately referred to ARDC. In doing so, Ct. overruled portion of its prior decision in Clark, 972 F.2d 817, to extent Clark held that formal, but non-monetary sanction against attorney was not appealable. Dist. Ct., though, did not err in sanctioning attorney, where attorney: (1) without factual basis, represented for over one year that certain criminal case files did not exist, when in fact such files did exist; (2) threatened to seek sanctions against plaintiffs if they persisted in seeking said files; and (3) filed frivolous objections to turning said files over to plaintiffs.