Lead Opinion
Reversed and remanded by published opinion. Judge FLOYD wrote the opinion, in which Judges NIEMEYER, KING, SHEDD, DUNCAN, and DIAZ joined. Judge WYNN wrote a separate opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part. Senior Judge DAVIS wrote a dissenting opinion.
ON REHEARING EN BANC
This appeal involves the interplay between 28 U.S.C. § 1447(d), which prohibits federal courts from reviewing orders remanding cases to state court, and Federal Rules of Civil Procedure 11 and 60(b)(3), which provide means for federal courts to remedy and deter the perpetration of fraud on the courts. Despite strong evidence that the plaintiffs in these consolidated actions misrepresented their intent to pursue claims against certain defendants, the lower court found that § 1447(d) deprived it of jurisdiction to either impose certain sanctions under Rule 11 or afford relief under Rule 60(b)(3). Because we conclude that using these rules to safeguard the courts from fraud does not amount to thе “review” proscribed by § 1447(d), we reverse.
I.
A.
This action arises from asbestos litigation brought by two individuals in Maryland state court. Plaintiffs Joyce Barlow and Clara Mosko separately sued Colgate-Palmolive Company — among numerous other companies
Despite Plaintiffs’ joinder of in-state defendants, Colgate removed the two cases to federal court on the basis of diversity of citizenship — asserting fraudulent joinder of the in-state defendants, and alleging that Plaintiffs’ deposition testimony and interrogatory responses demonstrated that they did not intend to pursue a clаim against any defendant other than Colgate, a diverse defendant.
[TJhere is some circumstantial evidence to suggest Ms. Barlow could possibly have been exposed to asbestos-containing products while working at RMR Corporation.... The evidence is certainly circumstantial, but it cannot be said that there is no possibility that a claim could be successfully proven against any of the non-diverse defendants.
(J.A. 106.) In support, Barlow’s counsel cited Barlow’s statement to a physician on or about June 21, 2011, that she “may have been” exposed to asbestos while working the assembly lines of RMR Corporation.
Based on the above representations, the district court (Judge Nickerson) remanded Barlow’s case to state court. The district court relied solely on the claim that Barlow was exposed to asbestos at RMR Corporation: “Barlow argues that her joinder of the in-state defendants was not fraudulent be'eause there remains a possibility that she was exposed to asbestos while working at RMR Corporation.... As a result, the Court finds that joinder of the in-state defendants here was not fraudulent. ...” (Id. at 367-68.)
Similarly, in Mosko’s case, Plaintiffs’ counsel represented that she may have a viable claim against at least one of the non-diverse defendants:
[I]t was certainly plausible at the time [that Mosko] filed her Complaint that local dеfendants should be implicated.... In fact, Plaintiffs counsel do have some circumstantial evidence that Ms. Mosko may have been exposed to asbestos at the Department of Agricul-' ture in the form of invoices [from an instate defendant, Walter E. Campbell Co., Inc.].
B.
' Shortly after returning to state court, Plaintiffs filed a joint motion to consolidate them cases with two other asbestos-relatеd cases.
[Plaintiffs] allege exposure to asbestos-containing Cashmere Bouquet powder products only and do not allege exposure to any other asbestos, asbestos-containing products or asbestos-containing dust in any other form.... Colgate attempts to highlight alleged differences in Plaintiffs’ worksites and occupations as well as their alleged exposures to [other] asbestos-containing products. However, neither Plaintiffs’ worksites nor their occupations are relevant to this consоlidation review because each of the Plaintiffs were exposed, in their homes, to asbestos-containing Cashmere Bouquet only .... The occupations or work-sites of the Plaintiffs should not affect the consolidation of these cases for trial because not one of the Plaintiffs testified that they were exposed to asbestos as a result of their employment.... In short, there is absolutely no evidence to indicate or even suggest that the Plaintiffs were exposed to asbestos in any form other than Cashmere Bouquet.
(J.A. 474-76 (paragraph breaks omitted) (emphases added).)
At a hearing on Plaintiffs’ consolidation motion, the state court judge told Plaintiffs’ counsel, “I can’t believe you actually told Judge Nickerson and Judge Quarles one thing and tell me another.” (Id. at 494.) The judge then posed the following question to Plaintiffs’ counsel: “It is a one-defendant case, right?” Counsel answered, “Yes.” (Id.)
C.
After the post-remand hearing, Colgate moved in the district court for relief from Plaintiffs’ purported misrepresentatiоns. Specifically, Colgate sought relief under Rule 11 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and asked that the district court sanction Plaintiffs’ attorneys by imposing monetary penalties, referring them to the state bar, and awarding any other relief that the district court deemed appropriate. The nearly identical motions in Barlow’s and Mosko’s separate cases were consolidated before Judge Nickerson. A hearing was held on these motions, at which Plain
On June 26, 2013, Júdge Nickerson “denied” Colgate’s motions. (Id. at 1107, 1109.) Although the district court characterized the allegations in the motions as “substantial” and acknowledged that the different statements by Plaintiffs’ counsel “appear to be in sharp conflict,” the court concluded that 28 U.S.C. § 1447(d) deprived it of jurisdiction to vacate or strike its remand orders. (Id. at 1106, 1108.) The district court further stated that “[w]ere the Court to consider other possible sanctions, it would decline to impose them.” {Id.) It was “not convinced that counsel’s conduct is sanctionable” because the alleged misrepresentations were “attributable to different attorneys in markedly different litigation contexts.” (Id.) This appeal followed.
II.
We review questions of law, including a lower court’s determination of its subject-matter jurisdiction, de novo. Trans Energy, Inc. v. EQT Prod. Co.,
III.
This appeal concerns whether a district cоurt retains jurisdiction to issue sanctions under Rule 11 and to vacate a remand order under Rule 60(b)(3) following remand of the case to the state court. The propriety of such relief requires us to assess the interplay between these rules and 28 U.S.C. § 1447(d).
A.
The federal removal statute prohibits review of orders remanding removed cases:
An order remanding a ease to the State court from which it was removed is not reviewable on appeal or otherwise, except that an order remanding a case to the State court from which it was removed pursuant to section 1442 [cases against federal officers] or 1443 [certain civil rights cases] of this title shall be reviewable by appeal or otherwise.
28 U.S.C. § 1447(d). This statute generally precludes review of a remand order if the remand is for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction or for defects in the removal procedure. Powerex Corp. v. Reliant Energy Servs., Inc.,
This Circuit has recognized three exceptions to § 1447(d)’s limit on reviewing remand orders: (1) when the remand was not based on a determination either that the court lacked subject-matter jurisdiction or that there was a defect in the removal procedure; (2) when the review is of a “collateral decision that is [logically and factually] severable from the remand оrder” and that had a “conclusive effect upon the parties’ substantive rights”; and (3) when the district court exceeds the scope of its authority in issuing a remand order. In re Blackwater Sec. Consulting, LLC,
Nevertheless, as discussed below, the types of relief provided by Rule 11 and Rule 60(b)(3) do not involve “review” as proscribed by § 1447(d). Accordingly, Colgate’s motions never implicated § 1447(d) in the first instance.
B.
Rule 11(b) specifically authorizes courts to impose sanctions for misrepresentations. It requires attorneys to submit a filing in good faith and without knowledge of the falsity of its contents:
By presenting to the court a pleading, written motion, or other paper ... an attorney ... certifies that to the best of the person’s knowledge, information, and belief.... (1) it is not being presented for any improper purpose ... [and] (3) the factual contentions have evidentiary support or, if specifically so identified, will likely have evidentiary support after a reasonable opportunity for further investigation or discovery....
Fed.R.Civ.P. 11(b). If a court “determines that Rule 11(b) has been violated, the court may impose an appropriate sanction on any attorney, law firm, or party that violated the rule or is responsible for the violation,” Fed.R.Civ.P. 11(c)(1), although the sanction “must be limited to what suffices to deter repetition of the conduct or comparable conduct by others similarly situated,” Fed.R.Civ.P. 11(c)(4).
The Rule 11 jurisdictional issue before us involves two similar but distinct questions: (1) whether a district court retains jurisdiction to impose sanctions after remanding an action to state court and (2) whether an appeals court can review a district court’s determination regarding the imposition of sanctions in such' a circumstance. As set forth below, we answer both questions in the affirmative.
The Supreme Court itself has spoken on these issues. In Cooter & Gell v. Hartmarx Corp.,
Two years later the Court reached a similar conclusion in Willy v. Coastal Corp.:
[Although a] final determination of lack of subject-matter jurisdiction of a case in a federal court ... precludes further adjudication of it[,] ... such a determination does not automatically wipe out all proceedings had in the district court at a time when the district court operated under the misapprehension that it had jurisdiction.
This Court’s own caselaw is in accord. In Anton Leasing, Inc. v. Engram, the district court granted the plaintiffs motion to remand the case to state court for failure to rеmove the case to the proper venue.
Then — after, remand — the defendant filed a motion in the district court to transfer venue to cure his prior error. Id. The plaintiff opposed this motion and again requested attorney’s fees, which the district court awarded. Id. The defendant appealed. On appeal, this Court held that although “the district court was without jurisdiction to rule on the transfer motion, ... the court had jurisdiction to review the [post-remand] request for just costs and that that part of the order is appealable.” Id. (citing News-Texan, Inc. v. City of Garland,
As these cases demonstrate — and as we reiterаte here — district courts have jurisdiction to decide Rule 11 sanctions motions on the merits, even when they are filed after the underlying action is remanded to state court. It is unclear whether the district court in this case recognized as much.
Ultimately, however, why the district court denied other Rule 11 sanctions is not dispositive to this appeal’s outcome. Because we reverse the orders for erroneously holding that the court lacked jurisdiction to consider Rule 60(b)(3) motions, infra Part III.C, we simply remand the cases for reconsideration of Colgate’s motions in full and in light of this opinion, see infra Part IV.
C.
We further find that § 1447(d) does not limit a court’s authority to provide relief — in this case, through vacatur — from a fraudulently obtained remand order under Rule 60(b)(3). Critically, § 1447(d) prohibits “reviewing” an order, but it does not prohibit “vacating” an order as permitted by Rule 60(b)(3). This distinction is not merely semantic. Rather, as several fundamental tenets of stаtutory construction demonstrate, it is a distinction with an important difference. Felix Frankfurter, Some Reflections on the Reading of Statutes, 47 Colum. L.Rev. 527, 546 (1947) (“Exactness in the use of words is the basis of all serious thinking.” (citation omitted)); Conn. Nat’l Bank v. Germain,
Rule 60(b)(3) provides that a court “may relieve a party” from a “final judgment, order, or proceeding” for “fraud ..., misrepresentation, or misconduct by an opposing party.” Rather than assess the merits of a judgment or order, it focuses on the unfair means by which a judgment or order is procured. Schultz v. Butcher,
We conclude that Colgate seeks vacаtur based on a collateral consideration — Colgate’s allegation that the remand orders
Admittedly, three circuits — in unpublished opinions — have ruled that § 1447(d) deprives courts of jurisdiction to afford relief under Rule 60(b)(3).
Our prior decision in In re Lowe,
Lowe is consistent with several factually similar cases (that is, cases in which a party asked for reconsideration of a remand order), all of which were correctly decided in view of § 1447(d)’s bar on “review.” See, e.g., Agostini v. Piper Aircraft Corp.,
The actions before the Court today, however, are not controlled by Lowe. Unlike in Lowe, Colgate requests vacatur, not reconsideration. And Unlike reconsideration, vacatur does not require reassessing the facts that were presented to the district court at the time the cases were removed. See Aquamar S.A.,
In sum, nothing in the plain language of § 1447(d) or courts’ interpretation thereof bars vacatur of the district court’s remand orders if the court determines that such relief is warranted. Although reconsideration is a subspecies of review, see In re Lowe, 102 F.3d at 733-34, vacatur, without revisiting a prior order’s merits, is no such cousin or relative.
IV.
Because the district court had jurisdiction to consider Colgate’s motions, it should have resolved the motions on their merits. A cursory reading of the court’s orders, perhaps, suggests that it did just that.
In “den[ying]” Colgate’s motions,
On remand, the district court is directed to make specific findings — supported -by cogent reasoning — on whether Plaintiffs engaged in misconduct while in federal court and whether Rule 11 relief is warranted. Given the district court’s familiarity with the issues and litigants, it is better
As with the Rule 11 motions, Colgate’s Rule 60(b)(3) motions require a showing of misconduct by the other party, among other things.
V.
The district court’s orders are reversed. The cases are remanded for the -district court to rule on Colgate’s Rule 11 and Rule 60(b)(3) motions on their merits.
REVERSED AND REMANDED
Notes
. Barlow named 23 defendants. (J.A. 47-53.) Mosko named 36 defendants. {Id. at 56-65.)
. A federal court has subject-matter jurisdiction to hear a case if (1) "the matter in controversy exceeds the sum or value of $75,000" and (2) there is complete diversity among defendants and plaintiffs. 28 U.S.C. § 1332(a); Turner v. IP Morgan Chase Bank, N.A.,
. We use "Plaintiffs’ counsel” to refer to both Barlow’s attorney and Mosko’s attorney because their attorneys are the same person, or at least hail from the same law firm. See Restatement (Third) of the Law — The Law Governing Lawyers § 14 cmt. h (2000) ("When a client retains a lawyer [who is part of a law firm], the lawyer’s firm assumes the authority and responsibility of representing that client, unless the circumstances indicate otherwise.”). Different attorneys from the Law Offices of Peter G. Angelos represented Barlow and Mosko at different stages of litigation: Jennifer Lilly signed Barlow’s and Mosko’s respective motions for remand in federal court, but Thomas Kelly signed Barlow and Mosko’s joint motion for consolidation of their cases into a trial group.
. Barlow later contradicted this statement at her deposition, where she admitted that she did not believe that she was “exposed to asbestos at any time as a result of [hеr] employment at RMR Corporation” and that the information she relayed to her physician was based on gossip, rumor, and hearsay. (J.A. 131, 133, 137'.)
. Plaintiffs'' counsel made these statements despite Mosko admitting at a deposition on May 29, 2012, that she did not believe that she was exposed to asbestos while working at the Department of Agriculture.
. The district court handed down remand orders in Mosko’s and Barlow’s cases on September 21, 2012, and November 1, 2012, respectively. The joint motion was filed eight days after the remand in Barlow’s case.
. The original panel consisted of Judge Davis, Judge Floyd, and Judge Cogburn, United States District Judge for the Western District of North. Carolina, sitting by designation. A majority affirmed the district court’s determination "insofar as it ruled that it lacked jurisdiction." Barlow v. Colgate Palmolive Co.,
. Although the district court’s reasoning in denying the motions is somewhat opaque, one aspect of the orders is clear: the district co.urt declined vacating the remand orders as a
. Besides these decisions from our sister circuits, two district courts have ruled on the issue, finding that they lacked jurisdiction to grant relief under Rule 60(b)(3) — determinations apparently influenced by the lack of binding precedent on this specific issue, in the face of a bounty of cases applying § 1447(d) in other contexts. See Omi's Custard Co. v. Relish This, LLC, No. 04-cv-861-DRH,
. Although a handful of other appellate decisions have found that motions filed under different subsections of Rule 60(b) ask for impermissible review, those decisions are irrelevant here because their pertinent subsections do not focus on the means by which a remand order is obtained. See Bender v. Mazda Motor Corp.,
. The court “denied” all of Colgate's motions, including the Rule 60(b)(3) motions that it technically should have “dismissed” based on the court’s determination that it lacked jurisdiction. (J.A. 1107, 1109.)
. One additional requirement is a showing that the movant had a '‘meritorious claim or defense.” Square Constr. Co. v. Wash. Metro. Area Transit Auth.,
Concurrence Opinion
concurring in part and dissenting in part:
I agree with the majority opinion that courts retain the power to sanction attorneys after a remand to state court. But in my view, so did the district court.
The district court rightfully understood that it generally could sanction the parties herе — that is why it denied, instead of dismissing for lack of jurisdiction, the sanctions motions. It is clear that the district court determined that the complained — of conduct did not warrant sanc
I.
Although my fine colleagues in the majority opinion frame the first issue before us as “whether a district court retains jurisdiction to impose sanctions after remanding an action to state court,” ante at 1008, I do not believe that this is an issue we must address — because the district court understood perfectly well that it did.
Indeed, nothing in the district court’s order on appeal suggests that the court believed that it generally lacked jurisdiction to impose sanctions for attorney misconduct after noted that while it found counsel’s conduct “troubling,” the court was “not convinced that counsel’s conduct is sanctionable.” J.A. 1106. That is why the district court simply denied the motions rather than dismissing them for lack of jurisdiction.
Additionally, the district court recognized that Defendant sought only one sanction' — -“for the Court to strike the orders of remand[,]” J.A. 1106, and apparently believed that such relief would effectively constitute reconsideration, which 28 U.S.C. § 1447(d) prohibits. Nevertheless, the district court deemed the challenged conduct unworthy of sanctions. Therefore, so long as that determination stands, any error in the district court’s Section 1447(d) analysis was harmless.
That being said, I agree with the majority opinion that this matter should be remanded to the district court. At bottom, the parties dispute whether Plaintiffs, through counsel, misrepresented to the federal district court that there existed the “slightest] possibility of a right to relief’ or a “glimmer of hope” on their claims against Maryland state defendants such that remand to state court was appropriate. J.A. 368. After remand to state court, Plaintiffs, through counsel, represented their matters as one-defendant cases. I find the district court’s abbreviated analysis — that the statements were made by different lawyers in different contexts, with no elaboration or explanation— insufficient to allow for appellate review. I therefore agree that we should remand to the district court for further explanation of its decision. See, e.g., Miltier v. Beorn,
II.
In sum, the majority opinion makes an issue where none exists. I cannot agree with that undertaking — but do agree with the majority that the district cоurt’s sanctions determination is too minimalist to review. Therefore, I would remand solely for further explanation of that determination.
. My fine colleagues in the majority opinion frame the second issue before us as "whether an appeals court can review a district court’s determination regarding the imposition ' of sanctions in such a circumstance." Ante at 1008. But, frankly, I fail to see why that needs to be addressed here, particularly given that we are remanding.
. An unaddressed question in this appeal is how, procedurally, these cases would make their way from state court back to federal court and whether their doing so would of
. The entirety of Three J Farms footnote three is worth noting:
In his order ..., the district judge referred to certain conduct of counsel for the plaintiffs which had occurred subsequent to his [prior remand] order ... and indicated that the attorneys were using the state litigation to "harass the defendants.” Having divested itself of jurisdiction by the original remand order, the district court had no continuing supervisory authority over the conduct of counsel, nor was any such conduct an appropriate basis for vacation of the remand. We might add that if, in fact, the plaintiffs were using the state litigation in an improper manner, we have every confidence that the South Carolina Court has the authority and judicial resourcefulness to deal with such a problem.
Id.
Dissenting Opinion
dissenting:
Every now and again, a case comes аlong that leaves the careful reader scratching her head in puzzlement. This is one of those cases. It could not be more clear that the author of the panel dissent, who now authors the majority for the en banc court, disagrees, and vigorously so, with the district court’s decision to remand this case to state court. That is not surprising; judges disagree all the time, and a good thing that. “What is surprising here is that the disagreement has led to this bizarre rehearing in which a subset of the judges in regular active service on this court feel constrained to order the district judge, in effect, to redo his “mid-term exam” on removal jurisprudence and sanctions law. District judges (including me, when I was a member of that hardworking guild) have long accepted the fact that appellate judges “ ‘grade [their] papers’ on appeal.” See Robert Bruce King, Robert C. Byrd and the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, 108 W. Va. L.Rev. 607, 609 (2006) (quoting the Honorable Joseph Robert Goodwin, United States District Judge for the Southern District of West Virginia). But the instant grading of papers takes that aphorism to new heights (or, if you will, a new low).
In the recurring, decades-old, ■ hand-to-hand combat which characterizes removal/remand litigation in federal district courts, this case does not stand out. Defendants (virtually) always want to be in federal court whenever they can because: (1) discovery practice is more orderly, predictable, and, generally, more expensive for plaintiffs; (2) summary judgment practice is more defendant-friendly;
Thus, it was strange to hear, at oral argument before the panel in this case, Colgate’s attorney repeatedly insist that Appellees’ counsel had engaged in “jurisdictional manipulation” (as if that were some kind of cardinal sin) in their efforts to persuade the district judge to remand the case through invocation of our longstanding “glimmer of hope” test. See Mayes v. Rapoport,
Back in federal сourt, Colgate filed a belated motion under Rule 60(b)(3) seeking to “vacate” (but, according to the majority, through a feat of linguistic jiu-jitsu, not “review”) the order of remand. The distinguished district judge, who will shortly mark his twenty-fifth anniversary on the federal trial bench (commenced after five years on the Maryland state trial bench), rejected Colgate’s attempts to slime the plaintiffs’ lawyers in these cases. He found there was no “misconduct” (to say nothing of “misrepresentation”), and he further found that, in any event, the sole relief sought by Colgate for counsel’s “misconduct,” restoration of federal jurisdiction, was beyond the court’s power to grant, citing, correctly in my view, 28 U.S.C. § 1447(d). See Ellenburg v. Spartan Motors. Chassis, Inc.,
All agree that Rule 11 is the reddest of red herrings in this case. Ante at 1009, 1009-10 n. 8 (“As these cases demonstrate — and as we reiterate here — district courts have jurisdiction to decide Rule 11 sanctions motions on the merits, even when they are filed after the underlying action is remanded to state court”; “there is no basis in using Rule 11 as a means to vacate a remand order and to return a case to federal court.”). Unlike the majority, I have no doubt that the district court knew full well, after more than twenty years of service as a federal trial judge, it had post-remand authority to impose sanctions on ethically challenged attorneys under Rule 11. The contrary insinuation is flatly insulting to the district court.
Alas, although the panel dissent would have found as a matter of law that there was misconduct by Appellees’ counsel and that federal jurisdiction must be restored as a remedy for that misconduct,
To be sure, however, this is not all that the majority achieves. It is now the law of the Fourth Circuit that a Rule 60(b)(3) motion must be entertained by every district judge in the circuit in any remanded case, and the district judge is required to write a convincing opinion showing why “vacatur ” of the remand order is inappropriate. The majority rejects out-of-hand, as lacking thoughtfulness and serious attention by the rendering courts, the unpublished opinions of three of our sister circuits that have explicitly refused to carve out Rule 60(b) exceptions to the clear mandate of 28 U.S.C. § 1447(d). Ante at 1011-12 (dismissing from consideration Wachovia Mortg. FSB v. Marquez,
Of more salience, none of the principal pillars of the majority’s handiwork in eviscerating § 1447(d) will bear the weight assigned to them. Gonzalez v. Crosby,
Nor is Aquamar S.A. v. Del Monte Fresh Produce N.A., Inc.,
The Waco doctrine allows us to review district court orders that lead to, but are separate from, orders of remand and have a conclusive effect upon the ensuing state court actiоn. See, e.g., Beauclerc Lakes Condominium Ass’n v. City of Jacksonville,115 F.3d 934 , 935 (11th Cir.1997) (reviewing dismissal of federal claim that led to remand); Armstrong v. Alabama Power Co.,667 F.2d 1385 , 1387 (11th Cir.1982) (relying on Waco to review district court’s dismissal of United States as party prior to remand)____ Similarly, vacating a remand to give effect to a judgment on another matter is an “essentially ministerial task,” rather than a review. This circuit has held that a court of appeals may vacate an order of remand when necessary to give effect to its judgments. In Flohr v. Mackovjak, 84 F.3d 386 , 392 (11th Cir.1996), this court reversed the district court’s denial of the defendant’s motion to substitute the United States as the party-defendant in a negligence action, a denial that led to remand to state court.
Aquamar S.A.,
Here, in contrast, the majority’s elevation of Rule 60(b)(3), so that it trumps the statutory prohibition on review of remand orders, serves no other purpose than a needless decisional do-over by the district court. Simply put, vacatur contravenes the mandate of § 1447(d). I have little doubt that when it gets around to it (should any sister circuit blindly follow ours, an unlikely eventuality), the Supreme Court will reject such a blatant evasion of 28 U.S.C. § 1447(d).
Indeed, this case is a first-round draft choice for summary reversal should plaintiffs choose not to go back to the district court to achieve the preordained results of the do-over unwisely ordered by the majority and instead file a petition for certiorari.
Despite the district court’s abbreviated discourse on a matter that most federal judges would regard as obvious, I do not believe there is any reason to think the district court did not fully comprehend and appreciate sanctions jurisprudence; Judge Nickerson has encountered it many times. See, e.g., Watkins v. Trans Union LLC, No. WMN-10-838,
Nor is there any reason to think that Judge Nickerson is unfamiliar with this Circuit’s abundant removal jurisprudence; to the contrary, he has lots of experience with it. See, e.g., Hammonds v. Baltimore Cnty. Bd. of Educ., No. WMN-11-3348,
The remand here is unwarranted on many levels, and represents an “inefficient use of scarce judicial resources,” indeed. Ellenburg v. Tom Johnson Camping Ctr., Inc., No. 8:06-cv-1606,
Accordingly, I respectfully dissent.
. Compare Felty v. Graves-Humphreys Co.,
. See Barlow v. Colgate Palmolive Co.,
Because the law is clear that remand does not deprive a court of jurisdiction to sanction a party pursuant to Rule 11, I would reverse the district court’s denial of Colgate’s Rule 11 motion. And because it would have been an abuse of discretion to not sanction plaintiffs and their counsel, I would sanction plaintiffs and their counsel as set forth above in Part III.A. Furthermore, because vacatur of the remand orders does not require “review” of the merits of those orders, I would reverse the district court’s denial of Colgate’s Rule 60(b)(3) motion for Accordingly, I lack of jurisdiction. And because I think that Colgate has met the criteria to obtain relief under Rule 60(b)(3) and that it would havebeen an abuse of discretion to not grant relief to Colgate, I would vacate the remand orders and remand the cases with instructions as set forth above in Part III.B.
. Tramonte v. Chrysler Corp.,