“Not Only Is [the Race Discrimination Plaintiff] a Perpetual Claimant, He Is a Holdup Artist”

From Saturday’s decision in Rogers v. Low Income Investment Fund, decided by Judge William Alsup (N.D. Cal.):

In this employment-discrimination action, a non-profit community development organization and its then-employees move for summary judgment against a job applicant’s claims that they did not hire him for a job monitoring grants in low-income communities because he is black. The head of human resources who communicated the denial and bore the brunt of his accusations now also moves for summary judgment. Both motions are GRANTED. A motion for sanctions is GRANTED….

The whole opinion is long (over 8700 words), so I just thought I’d excerpt the sanctions section, which also discusses some of the facts and some of the bases the court gave for granting summary judgment; for more, see the full opinion:

As a result, the merits of this action have been decided against Rogers, as have the merits of every one of Rogers’s previous discrimination actions brought and concluded in this district. Now, LIIF moves for sanctions.

Rogers is a perpetual claimant. Over ten years ago, a state court [in San Diego County] found Rogers vexatious. Recently, after Rogers had not requested to file a new action in that county for more than five years, Rogers’s repeated application for the order to be vacated was finally granted. {The form order does not provide a reasoned decision, but the five-year threshold for filings in the county may have been decisive ….} Rogers by then had relocated to the Bay Area, and the record shows his litigation energies are now directed here.

Rogers has abused the right to come to court by pursuing an unmeritorious cause and by trying to extort a settlement by threat of defamation. The sanctions motion explains that such conduct could amount to criminal extortion, and plainly amounts to bad faith. The motion also identifies attorney’s fees that but for Rogers’s improper conduct LIIF and its employees would not have incurred.

As examples of the conduct:

• When LIIF wrote asking for a time Rogers could sit for his deposition, Rogers did not respond. Instead, the next day, he emailed one of LIIF’s donors to assert that on “numerous occasions” LIIF “has refused to hire African Americans” and that it should defund LIIF. His sworn deposition revealed that he did not then have even one example of another black applicant having been rejected. Defense counsel prepared a cease-and-desist letter[.]
• With three days to go before his Court-ordered deposition, Rogers publicly filed LIIF’s insurance policy and his demand they settle his claims for an amount under its limits. Eight minutes later, he emailed LIIF’s counsel to state that “I won’t rule out [contacting donors again] in the future depending on how you respond.” Defense counsel responded.
• With two days to go before close of discovery, Rogers emailed defense counsel, asserting among other things that “a failure to respond will cause me to contact your donors and supporters which could financially jeopardize your organization,” that “[i]n furtherance, I just may notify certain press release agencies such as BUSINESS WIRE,” and that “Things will escalate. I promise.”

Notably, Rogers’s emails and letters broadly alleged gross discrimination while attaching no documentation for those claims. He later admitted that

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