We Care Transp. Inc. v. Branch Banking Trust Co.

The Court, sua sponte, imposed sanctions against the appellants' attorney after finding that the appeal was frivolous and reflected a recurring pattern of misconduct.

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On the eve of a foreclosure sale, borrower We Care Transportation, Inc. We Care and guarantor Gregory Hadley Hadley brought an action for various claims against lender Branch Bank and Trust Company BBT and its lawyers, Quirk Quirk, LLC Quirk. On appeal from the trial court’s grant of summary judgment to BBT and Quirk, We Care and Hadley filed an initial, untimely appellate brief containing only two arguments: that summary judgment was improper because discovery would have shown genuine issues of material fact despite the fact that the discovery period had ended and that accepting the allegations of the complaint as true . . . the trial court could not say definitely that no set of facts establishing a claim . . . could not be proven. These arguments are frivolous. They provide no basis for reversing a grant of summary judgment.

Indeed those arguments reflect a recurring pattern of misconduct on the part of appellants’ counsel, Grady Roberts: misuse of notice pleading. From this case and from other appeals filed with this court, it appears that Roberts has adopted a practice of deploying boilerplate claims and arguments with little or no effort to adjust them to the evidence or to the procedural posture of the case and little or no effort to investigate or support them. Efforts by opposing counsel to test or challenge them are met either with a bald assertion that the claim should be allowed to go forward on the basis of the possibility that – at some future time – supporting evidence or analysis might be forthcoming or with substitution of new and different unsubstantiated boilerplate claims and arguments. These tactics put an undue burden on the courts and on opposing counsel. And they offer no possible benefit to his clients, other than the illicit benefit of delay and harassment.

We Care Transp. Inc. v. Branch Banking Trust Co.

The Court, sua sponte, imposed sanctions against the appellants' attorney after finding that the appeal was frivolous and reflected a recurring pattern of misconduct.

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