The opinion
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NOT FOR PUBLICATION
In the
United States Court of Appeals
For the Eleventh Circuit
____________________
No. 24-14206
Non-Argument Calendar
____________________
ALAN R. ZIBELMAN,
ZIBELMAN LEGAL ASSOCIATES, PC,
Interested Parties-Appellants,
STEPHEN LAMPF,
LAMPF, LIPKIND, PRUPIS & PETIGROW, P.A.,
Plaintiffs,
versus
WARREN R. TRANZENFELD,
GLADIOLUS SURGERY CENTER, LLC,
a Florida limited liability company,
IRA A ZUCKER,
SURGICAL CARE AFFILIATES, INC.,
a Delaware corporation,
HUSNI A CHARARA,
Defendants-Appellees,
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2 Opinion of the Court 24-14206
JAMES C. SAWRAN, et al.,
Defendants.
____________________
Appeals from the United States District Court
for the Southern District of Florida
D.C. Docket No. 9:24-cv-80357-DMM
____________________
____________________
No. 24-14208
Non-Argument Calendar
____________________
STEPHEN LAMPF,
LAMPF, LIPKIND, PRUPIS & PETIGROW, P.A.,
Plaintiffs-Appellants,
versus
WARREN R. TRANZENFELD, et al.,
Defendants,
GLADIOLUS SURGERY CENTER, LLC,
a Florida limited liability company,
IRA A ZUCKER,
SURGICAL CARE AFFILIATES, INC.,
a Delaware corporation,
HUSNI A CHARARA,
Defendants-Appellees.
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24-14206 Opinion of the Court 3
____________________
Appeals from the United States District Court
for the Southern District of Florida
D.C. Docket No. 9:24-cv-80357-DMM
____________________
Before WILLIAM PRYOR, Chief Judge, and BRANCH and ANDERSON,
Circuit Judges.
PER CURIAM:
In these consolidated appeals, attorney Stephen Lampf and
his firm, Lampf, Lipkind, Prupis & Petigrow, P.A., appeal the judg-
ment on the pleadings in favor of Gladiolus Surgery Center, LLC,
Husni Charara, and Ira Zucker, and attorney Alan Zibelman and
his firm, Zibelman Legal Associates, P.C., appeal the sanctions and
attorney’s fees awarded to Surgical Care Affiliates, Inc. No reversi-
ble error occurred. We affirm.
I. BACKGROUND
In 2015, Gladiolus sued Lampf and his firm in a Florida
court, and Zibelman represented Lampf and his firm. Gladiolus al-
leged that Lampf and his firm sued United Healthcare Services,
Inc., and United Healthcare Insurance Company on its behalf in
federal court in 2010 to collect receivables allegedly owed to Glad-
iolus but that Lampf and his firm did so without its knowledge and
consent. United Healthcare filed a counterclaim against Gladiolus
and others in that litigation. The state complaint alleged that Lampf
contacted Gladiolus for the first time in 2013, revealed that he was
representing Gladiolus in the federal litigation, alerted Gladiolus to
a potential conflict of interest, and asked Gladiolus to waive the
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4 Opinion of the Court 24-14206
conflict. After Gladiolus retained other counsel and settled with
United Healthcare, the federal court dismissed the suit.
Gladiolus sued Lampf and his firm for professional negli-
gence and alleged that they had sued United Healthcare on its be-
half without its knowledge or consent. Lampf and his firm filed a
counterclaim. They alleged that Charara and Zucker partially
owned Gladiolus and that Surgical Care had acquired an interest in
Gladiolus in April 2016, after Gladiolus had filed its state lawsuit.
They also alleged that Gladiolus had given them authority to sue
on its behalf. The state court granted summary judgment against
the counterclaim and ruled that no one on behalf of Gladiolus had
contracted with Lampf and his firm. Gladiolus then voluntarily dis-
missed its complaint against Lampf and his firm without prejudice.
The state court entered final judgment for Gladiolus, and a state
appellate court affirmed.
Lampf and his firm, still represented by Zibelman, then filed
this action in the district court based on diversity jurisdiction and
alleged claims of malicious prosecution against Gladiolus, Charara,
Zucker, and Surgical Care. Lampf and his firm alleged that they had
Gladiolus’s consent to file the federal suit against United
Healthcare and that the state action by Gladiolus was instituted
against them with malice and in bad faith. Gladiolus, Charara, and
Zucker moved for judgment on the pleadings and argued that
Lampf and his firm had based their complaint of malicious prose-
cution on matters decided against them in state court.
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24-14206 Opinion of the Court 5
The district court granted judgment on the pleadings in fa-
vor of Gladiolus, Charara, and Zucker. It ruled that Lampf and his
firm had failed to establish that the state action had led to a bona
fide termination in their favor. It explained that Lampf and his
firm’s allegation—that Gladiolus had given them the authority to
file the federal lawsuit—had been rejected in a ruling by the state
courts.
Surgical Care moved to dismiss the malicious prosecution
claims against it and for sanctions against Lampf and his firm under
Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 11. FED. R. CIV. P. 11. The district
court granted the motion to dismiss and awarded sanctions of
$25,000 and attorney’s fees in an agreed upon amount of $17,000.
The district court explained that Rule 11 sanctions and attorney’s
fees were warranted because the claim of malicious prosecution
against Surgical Care had no reasonable chance of success.
II. STANDARDS OF REVIEW
Two standards govern our review. First, we review a judg-
ment on the pleadings de novo. Samara v. Taylor, 38 F.4th 141, 149
(11th Cir. 2022). We accept the allegations of the complaint as true
and construe them in the light most favorable to the nonmoving
parties. Id. Judgment on the pleadings is appropriate when there
are no material facts in dispute and the moving parties are entitled
to judgment as a matter of law. Id. Second, we review an award of
sanctions under Rule 11 for abuse of discretion. Smith v. Psychiatric
Sols., Inc., 750 F.3d 1253, 1260 (11th Cir. 2014). We will affirm
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6 Opinion of the Court 24-14206
unless the district court applied an erroneous legal standard or
based its ruling on “clearly erroneous factual findings.” Id. at 1259.
III. DISCUSSION
We divide our discussion into two parts. First, we explain
that the district court did not err in granting judgment on the plead-
ings in favor of Gladiolus, Charara, and Zucker because the state
action did not lead to a bona fide termination in favor of Lampf and
his firm. Second, we explain that the district court did not abuse its
discretion when it imposed Rule 11 sanctions and awarded attor-
ney’s fees because the claim against Surgical Care was not war-
ranted by existing law.
A. The District Court Did Not Err in Granting Judgment on the Plead-
ings in Favor of Gladiolus, Charara, and Zucker
To state a cause of action for malicious prosecution under
Florida law, Lampf and his firm had to establish that Gladiolus,
Charara, and Zucker had, with “malice” and “an absence of proba-
ble cause,” “commenced or continued” a civil proceeding that re-
sulted in “a bona fide termination” in their favor and that they “suf-
fered damage as a result of the original proceeding.” Alamo Rent-A-
Car, Inc. v. Mancusi, 632 So. 2d 1352, 1355 (Fla. 1994). A bona fide
termination is one in which a court, faced with a claim of malicious
prosecution, can “conclude with confidence[] that the termination
of the first suit was not only favorable to the defendant in that suit,
but also that it demonstrated the first suit’s lack of merit.” Doss v.
Bank Of Am., N.A., 857 So. 2d 991, 994 (Fla. Dist. Ct. App. 2003).
Although a voluntary dismissal can qualify as a bona fide
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24-14206 Opinion of the Court 7
termination, whether it does so “depends upon the reasons and cir-
cumstances underlying the dismissal.” Cohen v. Corwin, 980 So. 2d
1153, 1156 (Fla. Dist. Ct. App. 2008).
Lampf and his firm alleged that Gladiolus had given them
authority to sue on its behalf and knew of and benefited from their
representation, but the state court ruled that no one on behalf of
Gladiolus entered into an agreement with Lampf and his firm and
there was no evidence that Gladiolus knowingly accepted the ben-
efit of their representation. “[W]hen resolving a . . . motion for
judgment on the pleadings, a court may properly consider a docu-
ment not referred to or attached to a complaint under the incorpo-
ration-by-reference doctrine if the document is (1) central to the
plaintiff's claims; and (2) undisputed, meaning that its authenticity
is not challenged.” Johnson v. City of Atlanta, 107 F.4th 1292, 1300
(11th Cir. 2024). The district court could consider the state-court
records because they concerned issues central to the claim of mali-
cious prosecution, and Lampf and his firm failed to challenge their
authenticity. Because the state-court records establish that the pro-
ceeding did not lead to a bona fide termination in favor of Lampf
and his firm, the district court did not err in granting judgment on
the pleadings in favor of Gladiolus, Charara, and Zucker.
B. The District Court Did Not Abuse Its Discretion in Awarding Sanc-
tions in Favor of Surgical Care and Against Zibelman and His Firm.
A district court may award sanctions under Rule 11 when a
party files a legal action based on a legal theory that has no reason-
able chance of success. Silva v. Pro Transp., Inc., 898 F.3d 1335, 1340
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8 Opinion of the Court 24-14206
(11th Cir. 2018); see also FED. R. CIV. P. 11(b) (“By presenting to the
court a pleading, written motion, or other paper . . . an attor-
ney . . . certifies that . . . the claims, defenses, and other legal con-
tentions are warranted by existing law or by a nonfrivolous argu-
ment for extending, modifying, or reversing existing law or for es-
tablishing new law”). The district court may also “award to the pre-
vailing party the reasonable expenses, including attorney’s fees, in-
curred for the motion” for sanctions. FED. R. CIV. P. 11(c)(2).
Zibelman failed to establish that Surgical Care commenced
the civil proceeding in state court against Lampf and his firm be-
cause he alleged in the operative complaint that Surgical Care did
not acquire its alleged interest in Gladiolus until April 2016—more
than a year after Gladiolus filed the original proceeding in state
court. The district court also ruled that Zibelman presented no
facts that would otherwise establish that Surgical Care otherwise
participated in the proceeding to maintain or continue it. Zibelman
fails to explain any error in that ruling.
We discern no abuse of discretion in the assessment of a
$25,000 sanction and an award of $17,000 in attorney’s fees to Sur-
gical Care. Evidence established that Surgical Care had incurred
over $25,000 in prosecuting the Rule 11 sanctions motion. And the
$17,000 award of attorney’s fees was not excessive. Zibelman
agreed to this amount, and the fees Surgical Care incurred in pros-
ecuting its Rule 11 motion totaled over $25,000.
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IV. CONCLUSION
We AFFIRM the orders granting judgment on the pleadings
in favor of Gladiolus, Charara, and Zucker, and awarding sanctions
and attorney’s fees against Zibelman and his firm. We DENY Sur-
gical Care’s motion for sanctions.