## Facts

- After Michigan certified the 2020 presidential election for Joseph Biden by 154,188 votes, three voters and three Republican presidential-elector nominees filed a federal suit seeking extraordinary relief, including decertification and an independent audit.
- The complaint asserted both (a) mistreatment of Republican election challengers during Detroit vote-counting at the TCF Center and (b) an alleged interstate and international conspiracy involving Dominion voting systems and foreign actors that supposedly generated hundreds of thousands of fraudulent votes.
- Michigan’s election results were certified on November 23, 2020; Michigan’s electors cast Electoral College votes for Biden on December 14, 2020.
- After certification and the Electoral College vote, Detroit served plaintiffs’ counsel with a Rule 11 safe-harbor notice requesting withdrawal or amendment; counsel did not dismiss or amend.
- The district court found Rule 11 violations for improper purpose and inadequate prefiling inquiry, ordered payment of defendants’ reasonable attorney’s fees, required continuing legal education, and referred counsel to disciplinary authorities.
- Several attorneys subject to the sanctions order appealed.

## Issues

1. Whether the district court abused its discretion in finding Rule 11 violations based on lack of evidentiary and legal support, inadequate prefiling investigation, and pursuit of litigation for an improper purpose.
2. Whether specific claims in the complaint were sanctionable, including allegations tied to Dominion systems and foreign interference.
3. Whether the scope of sanctions, including fee-shifting and collateral sanctions (education requirements and referrals), was proper, and what time period of fees was recoverable.

## Decision

- The Sixth Circuit affirmed in part and reversed in part the sanctions order.
- The court held that most claims were sanctionable under Rule 11, particularly allegations of a broad conspiracy and Dominion-based vote manipulation that lacked a sufficient factual basis and were contradicted by the complaint itself.
- The court held that a federal selective-enforcement claim under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and a related state-law claim grounded in allegedly credible mistreatment of Republican challengers were not sanctionable.
- The court limited fee-shifting to reasonable attorney’s fees incurred after December 14, 2020, because the case was then indisputably moot and counsel nevertheless continued litigating.

## Legal Principles

- Rule 11 requires that legal contentions be warranted by existing law (or a nonfrivolous argument for change) and that factual contentions have evidentiary support or a likelihood of support after reasonable investigation.
- A failure to conduct a reasonable prefiling inquiry can support Rule 11 sanctions when counsel relies on speculation, conjecture, or internally inconsistent materials for central factual allegations.
- Continuing to litigate after claims have become moot, particularly after a safe-harbor warning, may support an inference of improper purpose under Rule 11 and justify sanctions.
- Courts must separate unsupported or frivolous claims from claims supported by credible factual allegations, even if those supported claims ultimately fail on the merits.
- Fee awards as Rule 11 sanctions may be temporally limited to the period when sanctionable conduct caused compensable litigation costs.

## Conclusion

The Sixth Circuit held that Rule 11 applied with full force to election-related litigation, largely sustained sanctions for unsupported conspiracy and Dominion-based fraud allegations and for persisting after mootness, but reversed as to claims supported by credible allegations of disparate treatment of election challengers and narrowed fee liability to post–Electoral College litigation.


King v. Whitmer, 71 F.4th 511 (6th Cir. 2023)