A recent the Legal Intelligencer story, “Judge Orders Rule-Breaking Lawyer to Pay Legal Fees” reports that a federal judge blasted an employment lawyer for filing frivolous lawsuits and ordered him to pay attorney fees for the opposing side in a recently tossed workplace ­discrimination case he handled.

In a scathing opinion, U.S. District Judge Matthew Brann of the Middle District of Pennsylvania chastised Allentown lawyer Donald P. Russo for prolonging a "baseless" lawsuit, and sanctioned him in the form of attorney fees in an amount to be determined.

Brann wrote in his opinion that Russo has a history of breaking Rule 11, noting that one week before he filed an opposition brief to the defendants' sanctions motions, he was sanctioned by another judge for similar conduct in a similar case.  Brann said that Russo was also reprimanded by the state Supreme Court's disciplinary board.

"Because no prior disciplinary measures have succeeded in deterring Mr. Russo from bringing frivolous employment discrimination suits in federal court while simultaneously attempting to disguise those suits' underlying weaknesses in order to prolong otherwise needless litigation," Brann said, "an award of reasonable attorney's fees is the least severe sanction needed to deter Mr. Russo's improper conduct."

The sanctions stem from a case Russo handled for Ernest Keister, who sued PPL Corp. and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, Local 1600, union for age discrimination.

Brann said the plaintiff's case lacked any evidence that the defendants discriminated against him and, "absent Mr. Russo's attempts to manufacture facts, warp the law, and utterly cloud the action's underlying allegations, this case would have disappeared long ago, saving defendants, the court, and the public significant time and money."

Brann then dug into Russo's history with Rule 11, repeating the admonitions other judges have directed at the lawyer.

U.S. District Judge Lawrence F. Stengel of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania called Russo's work "'dubious,'" "'ill-conceived,'" "'poorly presented,'" "'silly,'" and "'riddled with credibility shortcomings,'" according to Brann.

He reiterated that "just one week before he filed his briefs in opposition to defendants' summary judgment motions in this case, Mr. Russo was publicly sanctioned under Rule 11 by the Honorable Robert D. Mariani of this court for maintaining a similar ­employment discrimination claim that Judge Mariani deemed 'patently unmeritorious' and 'frivolous,'" Brann said.  "Judge Mariani would go on to criticize Mr. Russo's 'litigation history' as 'troubling.'"

Brann said Keister's allegations turned out to be untrue, but that Russo persisted in litigating them anyway.  Brann also said the plaintiff had ample opportunities to "get the facts straight," with a series of amended complaints, but all in all, the case was a weak one and "very little could have been done to alter its failing trajectory."

When the defendants filed motions for fees, Russo's papers filed in response cited employment discrimination principles that had only a "tenuous" connection to the case at hand, Brann said.  More troubling, Brann said, Russo took a "see what sticks" approach to citing law and applying it to his client's case, ultimately confusing the court and the defendants.

"Unfortunately, as the court and the defendants unraveled this case, it became patently clear that plaintiff's case was nothing more than an illusion, one supported by baseless factual contentions and inapplicable legal conclusions proffered by Mr. Russo," Brann said.  "Regrettably, it took significant time to come to that realization because Mr. Russo impeded its discovery at every juncture."

Sanctions, according to Brann, were the minimum penalty the court could impose upon Russo to "forestall Mr. Russo's ­continuously vexatious litigation tactics."  Brann also addressed Russo's concerns that sanctions would be particularly ­damaging to him as a solo practitioner.

"If Mr. Russo was concerned with the propensity of a large fee award hindering his financial circumstances, then the prudent choice would have been to review his cases with greater care and to proceed only with those that had merit," Brann said.  "The prudent choice was not to file an opposition brief in a very similar case to the one in which he was publicly reprimanded just one week earlier."

Brann noted that Mariani had already shown leniency to Russo in his ­sanctioning by considering Russo's ability to pay.  In the end, Brann said the court had a duty to impose sanctions on Russo in an effort to deter similar behavior.

"As the court instructed Mr. Russo during oral argument, now is a good time for him to retire back to his office, review any pending federal lawsuits, and put some serious thought into whether this is the kind of lawyer he wants to be," Brann said.