Anthony Kennedy

“ But it is a long step from this traditional judicial role to impose on a represented party the duty of reasonable inquiry prior to the filing of a lawsuit, measured by an objective standard applied in hindsight by a federal judge. Until now, it had never been supposed that citizens at large are, or ought to be, aware of the contents of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, or that those rules impose on them primary obligations for their conduct. ”

“ This ensures that every pleading, motion, or other paper filed in federal court bears at least one signature constituting a Rule 11 certification. Applying the certification requirements to those who appear on their own behalf preserves the Rule's well-understood object of imposing obligations on those who practice before the court. A pro se litigant in essence stands in the place of an attorney. By its uncritical extension of the Rule's certification provisions to represented parties, the majority's reading severs the certification requirements from their purpose and origin. ”

“ An attorney acts not only as a client's representative, but also as an officer of the court, and has a duty to serve both masters. Likewise, applying this duty of reasonable inquiry to pro se litigants, as amended Rule 11 does, can be viewed as a corollary to the courts' power to control the conduct of attorneys. Requiring pro se litigants to make the Rule 11 certification ensures that, in each case, at least one person has taken responsibility for inquiry into the relevant facts and law. ”

“ In this case, the District Court imposed sanctions on a corporation for the actions of its agents taken in reliance on business records developed to safeguard the company's property rights in its own research. The decision to impose sanctions required the court, sitting without a jury, to make judgments about the skill and care that companies of this kind must use in their business practices. We tolerate judgments about the care an attorney must use because we deem judges to know the standards appropriate for the practice of law. ”

“ This holding is an extraordinary departure from settled principles governing liability for misuse of the courts, just as it departs from the structure of the Rule itself. The result is all the less defensible in that the sanctions will apply quite often to those so uninformed that they sign a paper without necessity. Where the rules or circumstances require a verified complaint or affidavit, the majority's construction of Rule 11 affords no avenue of escape from this most troubling and chilling liability. ”

“ The majority in the last analysis can rely only upon the following sentence from the rule: "The signature of an attorney or party constitutes a certificate by the signer . . . that to the best of the signer's knowledge, information, and belief formed after reasonable inquiry it is well grounded in fact. . . ." Fed.Rule Civ.Proc. 11 (emphasis added) . From this it reasons: Business Guides is a party; agents of Business Guides signed papers submitted on the company's behalf; therefore, Business Guides assumed a duty of reasonable inquiry. ”

“ In particular, one may expect reticence to seek temporary restraining orders since the time pressures inherent in such situations create an acute risk of sanctions for unreasonable prefiling inquiry.
The majority does not tell us what standard it thinks should be applied in deciding whether to sanction a represented party who has not signed a Rule 11 paper. Ante, at 554. The chilling impact of the majority's negligence standard will be much greater if the majority applies it in that circumstance as well. This result seems a plausible consequence of the majority's reasoning. ”

“ Given the majority's holding, enlistees will be few and far between. It can be supposed that after today's decision, most represented parties who sign papers without necessity will do so unaware that they subject themselves to the risk of sanctions. If so, their conduct will not be affected by the duties assumed. If the Rule 11 certification requirements were intended to apply to represented parties, its provisions would require them to sign papers covered by the Rule, not leave it as an option. ”

“ The Lambe declaration was not itself signed by an attorney, however, and, under my analysis of the Rule, could not serve as a basis for sanctions. See also supra, at 9. Indeed, Mr. Lambe's signature was not even the signature of a party. Certainly, a corporation only acts through its agents; that does not mean that all actions by a corporation's agents are actions on behalf of the corporation. Unlike the signature of the company's president verifying the complaint, Mr. Lambe's signature was on his own behalf, and did not in any way purport to bind the corporation. ”

“ Though a law firm cannot be a "person who signed," the majority now says that a corporation may. But the gist of our rationale in Pavelic & LeFlore was that the duties imposed by Rule 11's certification requirements attach to an individual signer, rather than an entity the signer represents. ”