Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, December 4, 1993 TAG: 9312040099
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MARY BISHOP STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
This week, the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure were revised because of a long campaign by Poindexter, a retired economics professor who lives in Franklin County, and Wilson, a Roanoke civil rights activist.
Lawyers and law professors say the new rules - shepherded through the legal process for the two by former Rep. Jim Olin of Roanoke - are a victory for poor clients and their lawyers, who have been stuck with steep defense costs when their lawsuits were declared frivolous.
What has changed is Rule 11, a provision enacted in 1938 to clear clogged courts and toughened in 1983. In recent years, legal scholars found it had been disproportionately applied against civil rights plaintiffs and had a chilling effect on such cases.
Under the new rules, lawyers must warn the other side they might file a Rule 11 motion, allowing time to amend or withdraw the case without penalty. Also, judges will have more freedom to impose lesser punishments than fines for unfounded cases - a stern lecture, for example.
This week's federal changes grew out of a Franklin County taxpayers' suit by Poindexter and others 10 years ago.
U.S. District Judge Jackson Kiser of Roanoke ordered Poindexter and other plaintiffs to pay opponents' legal expenses after an unsuccessful challenge of utility taxes. The professor appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, but it refused to hear him.
Poindexter, 82, said he eventually paid fines of $18,000 - "an atrocity," he called it, that was inflicted on him merely because he dared to challenge government.
He turned to Olin for help in changing the federal rules.
Wilson, president of Concerned Citizens for Justice U.S.A., a Roanoke civil rights group, got on the bandwagon when she read a newspaper piece by Poindexter in 1985.
She, too, began writing Olin about Rule 11.
Deluged with their letters and insistent phone calls, "I finally decided there must be something there," Olin said. He talked with lawyers, who told him of Rule 11 abuses all over the country.
Olin set in motion the rules approved by the American Bar Association last year and the Supreme Court in the spring. They became official Wednesday.
"I was very proud of getting that done," Olin said Friday. "Under our law and the Constitution, people have the right to complain legally about things that they think are wrong. They or their lawyers should not be penalized for having done that."
Lawyers said the old rules stymied the system.
"The fear was that it would chill advocacy by lawyers for plaintiffs and civil rights groups, that the sanctions might deter lawyers from making innovative arguments on behalf of their clients," said Con Hitchcock, a lawyer with Public Citizen, a national legal organization in Washington, D.C.
Law professors, too, hailed the changes.
"It should make lawyers more willing and able to bring civil rights cases that need to be brought without fear that they're going to be socked by sanctions," said John Levy, a professor at the Marshall Wythe School of Law at the College of William and Mary.
by CNB