Gregory Haynes v. City of San Francisco

MEMORANDUM

Attorney Gregory Haynes appeals the district court’s imposition of sanctions in an amount exceeding $360,000. In the published opinion filed concurrently with this memorandum disposition, we remand for the district court to reconsider its sanctions award in light of our holding that it has the discretion to reduce the award because of Haynes’s inability to pay. We affirm the district court’s order in all other respects.

The district court did not abuse its discretion in determining that Haynes had “unreasonably and vexatiously” multiplied the proceedings below, and that his unreasonable conduct had caused the defendants to incur $362,545.61 in excess costs. See 28 U.S.C. § 1927 . After the depositions of hearing officer Julian Sapirstein and psychiatric nurse Alice Asher had been taken, it was clear that none of the plaintiffs remaining claims against any of the defendants had any merit. The continued pursuit of these frivolous claims after this point was at the very least reckless, and thus the costs subsequently incurred by the defendants may properly be awarded as sanctions pursuant to § 1927. See B.K.B. v. Maui Police Dept., 276 F.3d 1091, 1107 (9th…