A federal appeals panel was asked Friday to award nearly $73,000 in legal fees and costs as a sanction against a Chicago-area lawyer who submitted a "monstrosity" of a court brief in a case the presiding judges described as a "shameful waste of judicial resources."

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit last month said the lawyer, Jordan T. Hoffman, would be required to pay "reasonable" legal fees for letting a client file a brief that the judges called "bizarre" and "incoherent." In November, Judge Diane Sykes declared in a rare admonition: "Bad writing does not normally warrant sanctions, but we draw the line at gibberish."

Attorneys who represented the corporate defendants in the labor and employment case—the candy maker Mars Inc. and Kenco Logistics Services LLC, which managed a Mars warehouse in Illinois—on Friday filed declarations and invoices showing legal services in the case cost about $73,000.