Case Citator › Cooter & Gell v. Hartmarx Corp.

Cooter & Gell v. Hartmarx Corp.

Is it still good law? What later courts have actually done to this case.

Superseded by statute
Court
Supreme Court of the United States
Citation
496 U.S. 384
Decided
Confirmed treatments
2
Flagged citations read
193 of 193
Citing cases (total)
4,459
Treatment dates
1996–2021
Superseded by statute
A reviewed court treats this case as superseded by later legislation. Cooter & Gell v. Hartmarx Corp. has been superseded by the 1993 amendment to Rule 11 in part; all 193 flagged citations have been read, and the 2 confirmed treatments are listed below. The amendment added a 21-day safe harbor that prevents a party from waiting until after voluntary dismissal to serve a sanctions motion, changing the result on Cooter & Gell's facts, and replaced mandatory sanctions with discretionary sanctions.
More on how this was screened

Cooter & Gell's distinct holdings that a court retains authority over collateral sanctions issues after dismissal and that Rule 11 decisions receive abuse-of-discretion review remain repeatedly followed. The other reviewed opinions applied those surviving rules, reported Cooter & Gell's own treatment of older circuit precedent, or directed the nearby treatment language at unrelated authorities.

Every treatment on this page is written from the citing opinion itself, with a verbatim quote, never copied from a commercial citator. A citation flagged by our screen but not shown here was read and found not to weaken this case.

4,459 later cases cite Cooter & Gell v. Hartmarx Corp.; 193 of those citations sat close to treatment language and were flagged for reading, and all of them have been read. Citations that did not sit near treatment language were not flagged and were not read one by one, so a court that weakened this case without using any of that language would not appear here.

Relying on Cooter & Gell v. Hartmarx Corp.?

This page shows what later courts did to it. Ask about your specific facts and see whether it still carries your argument, with citations you can check.

Treatments

Superseded by Statute

  • The court held that Rule 11's 1993 safe-harbor amendment displaced Cooter & Gell to the extent it had permitted a party to wait until after voluntary dismissal to seek sanctions based on the withdrawn complaint.

    Morroni v. Gunderson · M.D. Florida · filed

    Defendants cite the Supreme Court case of Cooter and Gell v. Hartmarx Corp., 496 U.S. 384, 110 S.Ct. 2447, 110 L.Ed.2d 359 (1990) for the proposition that district courts retain the authority after a case has been voluntarily dismissed to impose Rule 11 sanctions for violations that occur prior to the voluntary dismissal of an action. However, Cooter and Gell v. Hartmarx Corp. was decided in 1990, three years prior to the 1993 amendments, including the addition of the 21 day “safe harbor” period to Rule 11. Thus, the 1993 amendments to Rule 11 had the effect of overruling Cooter and Gell v. Hartmarx to the extent that under the 1993 version of Rule 11, a party who seeks Rule 11 sanctions based upon allegations in a complaint, cannot wait until the action has been voluntarily dismissed by the opposing party because the party who voluntarily dismisses a case has withdrawn the offending pleading by dismissing the case.
    Read the full opinion on CourtListener →

  • The bankruptcy court held that the 1993 amendment displaced Cooter & Gell's statement that sanctions were mandatory once a Rule 11 violation was found, making sanctions discretionary instead.

    In re J & J Pizza, Inc. · U.S. Bankruptcy Court, District of New Jersey · filed

    Significantly, the cases that Mr. D’Agostino cites in support of his argument that this Court “must” impose sanctions pre-date the 1993 amendments to Rule 11. See Cooter & Gell v. Hartmarx Corp., 496 U.S. 384, 110 S. Ct. 2447, 110 L. Ed. 2d 359 (1990); Robinson v. Nat'l Cash Reg. Co., 808 F.2d 1119 (5th Cir. 1987). Indeed, under the pre-1993 version of Rule 11, courts were required to impose sanctions if a Rule 11(b) violation was found. However, the 1993 amendments changed the language from a mandatory directive—“shall impose sanctions”—to a permissive one—“may impose sanctions.” Thus, the amendment explicitly made the decision of whether or not to impose sanctions discretionary.
    Read the full opinion on CourtListener →

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