John Jay Hooker v. W. Frank Crawford, et al.

This appeal involves the imposition of Tenn. R. Civ. P. 11 sanctions against a lawyer. The lawyer filed a civil rights suit in the Circuit Court for Davidson County against five state judges seeking monetary damages to punish the judges for their judicial actions in a prior case. The judges filed a Tenn. R. Civ. P. 12.02(6) motion to dismiss and a motion for sanctions under Tenn. R. Civ. P. 11. The trial court granted the motion to dismiss and later imposed monetary and other sanctions against the lawyer. The lawyer insists on this appeal that the trial court erred by imposing Tenn. R. Civ. P. 11 sanctions against him. We have determined that the Tenn. R. Civ. P. 11 sanctions fashioned by the trial court are carefully tailored and are clearly warranted by the lawyer's conduct.