Matthew Lockary v. Paul Kayfetz Victor Amoroso Mary Lowry Diana Lopez Fransworth Frederick B. McClellan Peter Warshall v. Pacific Legal Foundation

Pacific Legal Foundation (“PLF”) appeals sanctions imposed on it by the district court for its conduct while “representing” owners of undeveloped land in Bolinas, California in their suit against the Bolinas Community Public Utility District. PLF argues that the court erred in imposing sanctions against it rather than against the individual attorneys who signed the offending pleadings and other papers, that the sanctions violated its and “its clients’ ” First Amendment rights, that sanctions were imposed for conduct that was not sanctionable, and that the court erred in calculating the amount of sanctions. We affirm in part, reverse in part and remand.

FACTS

Bolinas is a small community in northern California. In 1982, as the nominal plaintiffs, owners of undeveloped land in Boli-nas filed suit against the Bolinas Community Public Utility District (“BCPUD”), against present and former BCPUD directors and against private individuals. The focus of the suit was a moratorium on water hookups BCPUD originally imposed in 1971 and essentially reenacted in 1973 and 1977; the thrust of the plaintiffs’ claims was that the defendants had prevented them from developing their land. The…