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Attorney Hit With Rule 11 Sanctions For Campaign To Recuse Catholic Judge

By Howard M. Friedman

A Florida federal district court judge has imposed extensive Rule 11 sanctions on attorney Loring Spotler who turned motions to force the judge to recuse himself into a "dogged and relentless" campaign against the judge when the motions were denied. In a group of cases captioned Bettis v. Toys "R" Us, (SD FL, Sept. 30, 2009), Judge William J. Zloch recounted the beginnings of the controversy:

Two years ago, in Sabatier and Bettis, Mr. Spolter claimed that I was a Catholic zealot bent on ruling against women who returned to work after giving birth. He extrapolated as much from the facts that I am Catholic, some of the law clerks I have hired attended Catholic law schools, and I have affiliations with the Federalist Society. Based on these facts, he moved for my recusal from both cases.

A 2007 ABA Journal article explained that the charges grew out of Judge Zloch's ties to Ave Maria Law School and his hiring three law clerks from the school. However they escalated into charges that the Clerk's Office was engaged in a conspiracy to undercut the random assignment of cases to different judges. Judge Zloch concluded in his opinion:

In these collected cases there is no question that Mr. Spolter acted in bad faith, both objective and subjective, when he filed his Motions To Recuse. He filed these Motions knowing they had no basis in fact or law and he continued to defend them in the face of overwhelming evidence of their baselessness.... He did this for an improper purpose: to defame and cast a cloud over the Federal judiciary in relentless pursuit of recusal.

The court imposed $99,140 of defendants' attorneys fees and on Spotler, and fined Spotler an additional $10,000. In addition he suspended Spotler from practice before the federal court for 42 months and referred Spotler to the Florida bar. The ABA Journal yesterday reported on the decision.

Full post as published by Religion Clause on January 05, 2010 (boomark / email).