explaining that a district court abuses its discretion if it “based its ruling on an erroneous view of the law or on a clearly erroneous assessment of the evidence” (citation omitted)
How later courts described this case
- explaining that a district court abuses its discretion if it “based its ruling on an erroneous view of the law or on a clearly erroneous assessment of the evidence” (citation omitted)
- reversing sua sponte sanctions three months after final judgment was entered
- party is entitled to notice of the legal rule on which sanction would be based; the reason for sanction; and the form of sanction
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
FULLAM, J.,
concurring
Because the practice of issuing prospective rulings in the purported exercise of “supervisory power” is firmly entrenched, I agree that this court’s decision in Mary Ann Pensiero, Inc. v. Lingle, 847 F.2d 90 (3rd Cir.1988), compels reversal of the sanction order involved in this appeal. I do not agree, however, that Pensiero does more than require that motions for sanctions be filed before final judgment; the Pensiero court did not purport to ‘supervise’ the timing of the district court’s ruling on such motions, except perhaps to the extent of urging that the ruling be made with sufficient speed to enable consolidation of the sanction appeal with the appeal on the merits. In the present ease, there was no motion for sanctions; and the issue was first raised some three months after judgment. Under any view of the matter, I agree that this was too late.
I join in Part III(C) of the majority opinion.