Eleventh Circuit Benchslaps Biglaw Partner And District Court For Not Following Order

They made the panel MAD.

When the Eleventh Circuit makes a ruling and remands the case for application of said decision, the judges pretty much expect that ruling to be followed. And if the holding is ignored, as it was in Winn-Dixie Stores Inc. et al. v. Dolgencorp LLC et al., well, they’re gonna get pissed.

The dispute dates back to 2011, when Winn-Dixie (that’s a grocery store, for our fellow Northerners) sued over 100 dollar stores for violating exclusivity provisions in their lease agreements which limit the amount of groceries neighboring stores can sell. In the original Eleventh Circuit decision, the court found the definitions of “groceries” and “sales area” from a separate case should be applied and sent the case back to the district court for application.

But that isn’t what happened.

Attorneys for Big Lots and Dollar General somehow convinced District Court Judge Donald M. Middlebrooks to *not* apply the ruling to 14 of the stores in question. And… yeah… they’re mad.

“Needless to say (or maybe not), a district court cannot amend, alter or refuse to apply an appellate court’s mandate simply because an attorney persuades the court that the decision giving rise to the mandate is wrong, misguided or unjust,” the panel said. “A district court can, of course, wax eloquent about how wrong the appellate court is, but after the waxing wanes the mandate must be followed.”

As reported by Law360, the panel also specifically called out Troutman Sanders partner Brian Watt for convincing the district court not to follow their ruling:

The judges called out Brian P. Watt of Troutman Sanders LLP specifically for statements urging the lower court not to follow the Eleventh Circuit’s mandate, saying they “do not want an unfair inference to be drawn that any of those statements and misstatements were made by other attorneys who represented Big Lots and Dollar General in the district court.”

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Yikes. Hope he doesn’t have any other cases before the Eleventh Circuit any time soon.

Let’s hope the district court properly applies the caselaw this time around, because their decision makes it clear — the Eleventh Circuit is not playing:

We don’t know what else we could have said other than, perhaps, ‘and we really mean it.’

Well, we really did mean it. And we still do.

Best to not make the panel any madder than they already are.


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headshotKathryn Rubino is an editor at Above the Law. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email her with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter (@Kathryn1).