The opinion
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
EASTERN DISTRICT OF LOUISIANA
AMY HAMM, CIVIL DOCKET
Plaintiff
VERSUS NO. 20-1515
ACADIA HEALTHCARE SECTION: “E”
CO., INC., ET AL.,
Defendants
ORDER AND REASONS
Before the Court is a motion for sanctions against Plaintiff’s counsel under FRCP
11 filed by Defendants Acadia LaPlace Holdings, LLC and Ochsner-Acadia LLC.1 Plaintiff
Amy Hamm opposes,2 and Defendants filed a reply.3 Following a reopened deposition of
the Plaintiff, Defendants filed a sur-reply,4 and Plaintiff was permitted to file a response
to the sur-reply.5 For the reasons that follow, the motion is DENIED. Nonetheless,
counsel for the Plaintiff should be mindful of their obligations under Rule 11 and carefully
consider the veracity of any information contained in future filings.
I. Background
Amy Hamm was a nurse supervisor at Red River Hospital in Wichita Falls, Texas,
for roughly eight years. She then served as a nurse supervisor at River Place Behavioral
Health in LaPlace, Louisiana for eight months before voluntarily resigning.6 At both of
these locations, she alleges, the parent companies (who are the defendants in this lawsuit)
1 R. Doc. 98.
2 R. Doc. 102. Although this motion for sanctions against Plaintiff’s counsel and primarily regards the
conduct of Plaintiff’s counsel, rather than the Plaintiff herself, the Court will refer to counsel as “Plaintiff”
throughout for simplicity’s sake.
3 R. Doc. 109.
4 R. Doc. 126
5 R. Doc. 127
6 R. Doc. 98-2 at 3.
violated the Fair Labor Standards Act (“FLSA”) and various state laws by failing to
compensate nurses and other staff for work done during off-the-clock meal breaks.7 She
states that Defendants “employ a payroll policy and practice of not compensating hourly-
paid nurses for work performed during their meal periods, subjecting them to
interruptions and requiring them to remain on duty during those unpaid meal periods.”8
She seeks to have this action certified as a collective action to be brought on behalf of
similarly situated employees who she claims have suffered the same injury.9
This motion, however, concerns her counsel’s behavior in pursuing these claims.
Specifically, defense counsel alleges that, “[d]espite now indisputably knowing that this
lawsuit is meritless, Plaintiff’s counsel are continuing to pursue … baseless claims.”10 The
genesis of this motion for sanctions under Rule 11 is in Hamm’s deposition. During her
deposition, defendants say, she “affirmatively den[ied] every single claim that Plaintiff’s
counsel … asserted on her behalf” and testified that two documents served in discovery
“contained false sworn statements that [Hamm] never reviewed or approved before they
were served.”11
It is clear that Hamm’s initial deposition was, at the very least, problematic. Hamm
was initially deposed on January 24, 2022.12 On March 2, 2022, Plaintiff submitted a
signed errata sheet to the court reporter pursuant to Rule 30(e).13 Plaintiff made thirteen
corrections to her deposition testimony.14 Nearly all of these corrections were substantive,
7 See R. Doc. 69.
8 R. Doc. 69 at 7.
9 R. Doc. 101.
10 R. Doc. 98 at 1.
11 R. Doc. 98-2 at 2.
12 R. Doc. 103-4 at 1.
13 R. Doc. 103-3.
14 Id.
such as changing “no” to “yes,” and the reasons given for these changes were short,
generally just “Clarification” or “Correction.”15 Defendants moved to strike the errata
sheet from the record or, alternatively, to reopen the Plaintiff’s deposition because her
changes were substantive.16 Noting that “Plaintiff’s original answers will remain on the
record and may be used as impeachment evidence at trial,”17 the Court denied Defendants’
request to strike the deposition but granted their request to reopen the deposition at
Plaintiff’s cost.18
In the meantime, however, Defendants filed this motion for sanctions.19 The Court,
recognizing that the reopened deposition may well impact Defendant’s claim for
sanctions, permitted Defendants to seek leave to file a sur-reply to this motion following
the reopened deposition.20 Defendants now having done so,21 the Court considers their
arguments.
II. Law
In pertinent part, Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 11 provides:
By presenting to the court a pleading, written motion, or other paper … an attorney
or unrepresented party certifies that to the best of the person's knowledge,
information, and belief, formed after an inquiry reasonable under the
circumstances: (1) it is not being presented for any improper purpose, such as to
harass, cause unnecessary delay, or needlessly increase the cost of litigation; (2)
the claims, defenses, and other legal contentions are warranted by existing law or
by a nonfrivolous argument for extending, modifying, or reversing existing law or
for establishing new law; [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.22
15 Id.
16 R. Doc. 103-2 at 9-10.
17 R. Doc. 119 at 2.
18 Id.
19 R. Doc. 98.
20 R. Doc. 119 at 3.
21 R. Doc. 126.
22 Fed. R. Civ. Pro. 11(b).
The purpose of Rule 11 is to deter baseless filings in the district court and to spare innocent
litigants and overburdened courts from the filing of frivolous lawsuits.23 Under Fifth
Circuit precedent, attorneys and litigants who sign a pleading, written motion, or other
paper certify that they have complied with these three affirmative duties: (1) the duty to
conduct a reasonable investigation into the facts supporting the document; (2) the duty
to conduct a reasonable inquiry into the law to ensure the document "embodies existing
legal principles or a good faith argument for extension, modification or reversal of existing
law"; and (3) the duty to certify that a document is not filed or interposed merely for
purposes of delay, harassment, or increasing litigation costs.24 Courts judge compliance
with Rule 11's standards under an objective reasonableness standard, evaluating the
circumstances as they existed at the time the challenged filing was signed by the lawyer
or litigant.25 In light of the objective standard of reasonableness applied under Rule 11, an
attorney's subjective good faith is not in itself sufficient to immunize him or her from
sanctions based on a Rule 11 violation.26 In deciding a motion under Rule 11, courts within
the Fifth Circuit are required to determine whether the signatory has complied with the
affirmative duties imposed under the rule.27 District courts have wide latitude to impose
sanctions under Rule 11 as district court rulings under Rule 11 are reviewed for abuse of
discretion.28 District courts possess discretion in determining the nature of the
appropriate sanction.29
23 See Cooter & Gell v. Hartmarx Corp., 496 U.S. 384, 393 (1990).
24 Childs v. State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co., 29 F.3d 1018, 1023-24 (5th Cir. 1994).
25 See id. at 1024.
26 See Thomas v. Cap. Sec. Servs., Inc., 836 F.2d 866, 873 (5th Cir. 1988).
27 See id. at 875.
28 See Whitehead v. Food Max of Miss., Inc., 332 F.3d 796, 802 (5th Cir. 2003).
29 See Thomas, 836 F.2d at 876-77.
III. Analysis
Defendants’ motion for sanctions, reply in support of its motion, and sur-reply in
support of its motion, advance many different theories as to why sanctions are warranted
in this case. In fact, the Court found itself wondering, at times, what defendants’ primary
arguments are. Nonetheless, the Court has narrowed the claims to three distinct
categories of allegedly sanctionable conduct, namely: a lack of diligence in ensuring the
veracity and viability of the initial claims, falsified signatures on documents, and counsel’s
refusal to voluntarily dismiss the lawsuit.
A. Lack of Diligence
The Court first reviews the allegation that Plaintiff’s counsel failed to conduct a
reasonable investigation into the facts supporting the claims in the initial and amended
complaints, the opposition to the motion to dismiss, and the Plaintiff’s interrogatory
responses. Defendants claim there are “numerous false and frivolous filings and
submissions in this case,” including in the above-mentioned documents.30 Among the
false and frivolous claims made, they say, are the claims that the auto deduction practice
was consistent at both Red River (in Texas) and River Place (in Louisiana) – claims which
were stated in the original complaint31 and, more explicitly, in an affidavit sworn to by
Amy Hamm in opposition to a prior motion to dismiss.32 In her deposition, however,
Hamm stated that “I’ve been pretty consistent with the problems that I was having at Red
River did not happen at River Place.”33 Likewise, Hamm testified that, at River Place, she
30 R. Doc. 98-2 at 14.
31 See R. Doc. 1 at 2 (“Defendants deduct 30 minutes from patient care workers’ shifts for a meal period,
when in fact they remain on duty and subject to interruption during that time.”). Notably, this sentence was
removed in the amended complaint. See R. Doc. 69 at 1-2.
32 See R. Doc. 43-6 at 2 (“Both at Red River and River Place, the wage-and-hour policies and practices are
consistent and universal.”).
33 R. Doc. 98-5 at 65.
was not discouraged from reporting missed or interrupted meal periods.34 These claims,
among others, contradicted the language in her initial complaint, and therefore merit
further investigation by the Court.
The Fifth Circuit has identified six factors by which it may be evaluated whether or
not a signatory has conducted a reasonable investigation:
1. the time available to the signer for investigation; 2. the extent of the attorney's
reliance upon his client for the factual support for the document; 3. the feasibility
of pre-filing investigation; 4. whether the signing attorney accepted the case from
another member of the bar or forwarding attorney; 5. the complexity of the factual
and legal issues; and 6. the extent to which development of the factual
circumstances underlying the claim requires discovery.35
Defendants argue all of these factors weigh in favor of sanctions. It is certainly true that
counsel had ample time for investigation – at the time the complaint was filed,
Defendants submit (and Plaintiff does not dispute) that at least 10 and as many as 32
months remained on the statute of limitations for all of Plaintiff’s claims.
As to the second factor, Defendants assert that, based on Plaintiff’s deposition
testimony, her counsel “did not even inquire into whether Plaintiff would factually
support many of the false statements and allegations to which they signed their names.”36
Instead, Defendants claim, “it appears … they got the ‘basis’ for the claims here by copying
those that they have previously alleged in other unrelated cases – and their apparently
unrestrained desire to assert and obtain the fees from a nationwide collective against
Acadia.”37 Putting aside the needless personal attack accusing Plaintiff’s counsel of greed
or malice, the Court notes this conclusion is neither supported by the deposition nor a
good-faith reading of the complaint. Yes, it does appear that Plaintiff’s counsel uses
34 Id. at 66.
35 Childs, 29 F.3d at 1026 (citations omitted).
36 R. Doc. 98-2 at 16.
37 Id.
similar language in various complaints nationwide,38 but reuse alone is not sanctionable
conduct. Re-use may be possible because there are industry-wide issues, and what
matters is not that language is re-used but whether the language is supported by the
particular facts of this case. Defendants state: “Plaintiff testified that she did not speak to
her attorneys before the various fraudulent and false documents were filed or submitted
on her behalf.”39 This is simply untrue. Hamm testified that she reviewed the complaint
before it was filed and ensured it was true and accurate.40 She likewise testified she
remembered reviewing the amended complaint and ensuring that it too was accurate.41
That she also testified in her deposition that some of the statements in the complaint were
false may be used against her at trial but does not suggest that she did not speak with her
lawyers prior to the filing of the lawsuit.
Further, the Court is cognizant of the difficulties of a deposition for a non-lawyer.
Depositions are long, difficult sessions in which it is easy for the deponent to be confused.
This does not excuse falsehoods or reduce the probity of deposition testimony at trial, but
it does merit a good-faith reading of certain answers. Clearly, Hamm was confused about
the claims in this lawsuit, perhaps because of the dual track on which her claims are
proceeding between this district and the Middle District of Tennessee.42 Hamm also
consistently stated that the complained-of injuries took place at Red River, even if not all
of them occurred at River Place. Once this Court dismissed Red River from this lawsuit,43
and once it became clear that certain practices were not present at River Place, Plaintiff
38 See R. Doc. 98-2 at 4 n.3.
39 R. Doc. 98-2 at 16.
40 R. Doc. 98-5 at 63-64.
41 Id. at 68.
42 See R. Doc. 98-5 at 68-69 (“Q: So you believe that Red River is still part of this lawsuit? A: Yes. … Q: Not
a part of your other lawsuit in Tennessee?” … [A:] I have no idea.”).
43 R. Doc. 50.
amended her complaint. At the time the complaint was filed, Hamm had only been
working at River Place for a few months. She stated in her deposition that, at the time the
complaint was filed, she believed that all wage-and-hour policies were universal because
she was told so by an authority figure at Red River.44 The Court sees no reason to believe
Plaintiff’s counsel failed to communicate with Hamm concerning the allegations in
question prior to the filing of the initial complaint.
The third factor – the feasibility of pre-filing investigation – weighs against
sanctions. As Plaintiff notes in opposition to this motion, “[f]actual information regarding
the policies and practices of an employer – particularly in the healthcare sector – is
generally not publicly available.”45 It was reasonable under the circumstances for counsel
to rely on the representations and documentation provided to them by the Plaintiff. The
fourth factor weighs in favor of sanctions, as it appears that Schneider Wallace did not
accept the case from a forwarding attorney.46 The fifth factor – the complexity of the
factual and legal issues – weighs slightly in favor of sanctions, as there is no reason to
suspect that this FLSA action is any more legally complex than the many other such
actions in which Plaintiff’s counsel is involved, especially given the recycled language in
the complaint.47 The sixth factor weighs against sanctions: as Plaintiff notes, it was not
until discovery that counsel “could see … that Plaintiff clocked out on certain occasions,
but not others, while working at River Place.”48
44 See R. Doc. 98-5 at 73 “(Q: Okay. So, then, what is it that leads you to allege that the wage-and-hour
practices were consistent across all Acadia facilities? … [A:] Because Peggy told me that it was the way they
did things through Acadia.”).
45 R. Doc. 102 at 20.
46 See R. Doc. 102-1 (“Plaintiff contacted the Schneider Wallace Firm in November 2019, and signed a
retainer at that time.”).
47 See supra n.38.
48 R. Doc. 102-1 at 3.
Having considered these factors and the submissions in this case, the Court finds
that Plaintiff’s counsel did not fail to conduct a diligent investigation prior to filing the
initial complaint. The initial complaint required amendment, and it was so amended.
More concerning than the language of the initial complaint is Defendant’s assertion that
even the amended complaint “contain[s] numerous other patently false allegations whose
inclusion Plaintiff’s counsel do not even try to justify.”49 Defendants identify as false
claims that “Plaintiff and nursing staff at River Place worked off-the-clock before and after
shifts,”50 that “Plaintiff and other nursing staff raised the issue of not being paid for
interrupted meal breaks or off-the-clock work to management at River Place in order to
claim these alleged violations were willful,”51 and that “Plaintiff and nursing staff were
discouraged from reporting missed meal breaks or clocking in when they worked outside
scheduled shift times.”52 Hamm did testify to a time rounding policy at River Place, which
would match the claims made about off-the-clock work,53 but the remaining claims do
appear to have taken place largely at Red River rather than River Place. The Court is not
prepared to dismiss the whole case over these issues but will ensure that no claims will
succeed where no foundation is admitted.
B. Falsified Signatures
Defendants also submit that Plaintiff’s counsel either must have known about the
falsity of their documents prior to filing or otherwise forged their client’s signature on the
49 R. Doc. 109 at 2.
50 R. Doc. 109 at 3 (citing R. Doc. 69 at ¶¶ 2, 6, 31–33, 61, 83–91).
51 R. Doc. 109 at 3 (citing R. Doc. 69 at ¶¶ 32, 86).
52 R. Doc. 109 at 3 (citing R. Doc. 69 at ¶ 30).
53 See R. Doc. 98-5 at 52-53.
interrogatory responses presented to Defendants in discovery.54 They rest this conclusion
on testimony offered by Hamm in her deposition – testimony that even Plaintiff’s counsel
admit is “puzzling.”55 Hamm testified she did not recognize the interrogatory responses
document, testified that though her signature appeared to be present on the verification
page, she did not recall signing the document, and testified that some of the answers to
the interrogatories are not true.56 Hamm also testified, however, that she recalled
answering the questions posed in the interrogatories, and that she gave verbal responses
to those questions.57 Defendants submit this is evidence of sanctionable conduct: “it is
difficult to conceive of why Plaintiff’s counsel would forge their client’s signature on the
verification page – a forgery that they do not deny – unless they knew that the responses
were false and would not be verified.”58 Forgery of a signature would indeed constitute
sanctionable conduct. However, the evidence suggests that the signature was not forged
– it instead suggests that Hamm was less than diligent in her review of the document. The
e-verification for Hamm’s signature suggests that Hamm viewed the document on
September 9, 2021 at 09:18:59 and that she signed it less than a minute later at
09:19:50.59 Though Plaintiff’s counsel perhaps ought to have noticed this and followed up
with Hamm to ensure that she had in fact thoroughly reviewed the interrogatory
responses, the Court does not think that their failure to do so is sanctionable.60
54 Plaintiffs contend that, in any case, this is outside of the scope of a Rule 11 motion for sanctions. The
Court need not decide that at this time, as it finds no sanctionable conduct, but it is worth noting that Rule
26(g) applies a similar obligation to counsel regarding signatures on discovery responses.
55 R. Doc. 102 at 2.
56 R. Doc. 98-5 at 74-85.
57 R. Doc. 98-5 at 75.
58 R. Doc. 98-2 at 20 (emphasis in original) (citation omitted).
59 R. Doc. 102-8 at 24.
60 The Court finds puzzling Defendants’ suggestion that the interrogatory response document served on the
Defendants is a different document than that presented to the Court (and, by implication, Hamm). See R.
Doc. 109 at 8 n.15. The document ID present on the signature pages of both documents (those found in R.
Doc. 98-5 and R. Doc. 102-8) are identical, and it does not surprise the Court that a document ID would be
C. Continuation of the Lawsuit
Finally, Defendants submit the very maintenance of this “frivolous” lawsuit is
sanctionable conduct. They contend that “fundamental and material parts of [Plaintiff’s]
alleged claims” are “indisputably false” and remain in the lawsuit. The Court disagrees.
Among other things, Hamm stated in her deposition testimony that she was “interrupted
when [she] did punch out” for breaks at River Place,61 which is largely the basis for her
claim. As the Court has already noted, it does not appear this lawsuit is frivolous or
unfounded. The Court is not ruling on the merits of this claim or any claim – the question
is merely whether counsel’s conduct is sanctionable. The Court, exercising its discretion,
finds that it is not.
Finally, in sur-reply in support of their motion for sanctions, Defendants argue that
Plaintiff’s counsel induced their client to commit perjury, state that the errata sheet only
makes sense as an invention of counsel, and argue that Hamm’s answers at the reopened
deposition were “wholly inconsistent with her prior sworn testimony and patently
absurd.”62 The Court will not address these claims in detail as they are not within the
scope of this Rule 11 motion, which concerns filings with this Court rather than litigation
tactics, but notes only that the record reflects Hamm’s statements that the changes were
her own.63 The Court does not consider Defendants’ motion “specious” or “sanctionable”
as Plaintiffs would have it, but nothing in the reopened deposition or the sur-reply
largely scrubbed before going to opposing counsel. In any case, the language of the interrogatory responses
does not change between the versions, which is of more importance than the formatting.
61 R. Doc. 98-5 at 81-82.
62 R. Doc. 126 at 5.
63 See R. Doc. 127-3 at 34 (in which Hamm asserts that the errata sheet contains her words and that no one
told her what to say).
thereafter filed convinces the Court that Plaintiff’s counsel has committed sanctionable
conduct under Rule 11 or any other standard.
IV. Conclusion
Defendant’s motion is not wholly without merit. In one reading of Plaintiff’s
deposition, this lawsuit could have proceeded only against Red River. Its dismissal from
this case would therefore be fatal. In another, more good-faith reading of the deposition,
Plaintiff was sometimes confused and inexact but not perjurious. Certain claims applied
only to Red River, but not all. Plaintiff did not draft her own legal documents but was
certainly involved in their creation. Based on a thorough review of the transcript and the
filings surrounding this motion, the Court takes the latter view of the whole affair.
It is certainly apparent the Plaintiff was not thorough in her review of the
documents being prepared on her behalf, and Plaintiff’s counsel perhaps ought to have
been more diligent in ensuring Plaintiff’s participation in document preparation and
review. But it is equally apparent that the role of a lawyer is in part to translate into legal
form those allegations and answers which are presented to them by non-lawyer clients;
there is no need for Hamm herself to have prepared the documents in question. Plaintiff’s
counsel are forewarned that the Court will continue to view all pleadings carefully and
will be especially attentive to these issues as the case progresses. Defendants’ counsel are
reminded of their obligation to remain civil and avoid ad hominem attacks against
opposing counsel – such as allegations that Plaintiff’s counsel is motivated by an
“unrestrained desire to assert and obtain fees from a nationwide collective against
Acadia”64 – no matter how frustrated they are by the situation. Plaintiff’s counsel likewise
64 R. Doc. 98-2 at 16.
should refrain from personal attacks. It is the Court’s role, not either counsel’s, to
admonish parties. In this instance, while circumstances were certainly not altogether tidy
and orderly, the Court has not found any sanctionable conduct.
Accordingly,
IT IS ORDERED that the motion for sanctions is DENIED.
New Orleans, Louisiana, this 28th day of June, 2022.
SUSIE monege
UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE
13