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IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FIFTH CIRCUIT

No. 91-1135

SIDAG AKTIENGESELLSCHAFT and
SICILIA DI R. BIEBOW & COMPANY,
Plaintiffs-Appellees,
versus
SMOKED FOODS PRODUCTS COMPANY, INC.
and MARCUS COX,
Defendants,
RONALD C. COX and SALES, U.S.A.,
INC.,
Defendants-Appellants.
- - - - - - - - - - - - -
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Southern District of Mississippi
- - - - - - - - - - - - -
(August 12, 1992)
BEFORE POLITZ, Chief Judge, and REYNALDO G. GARZA and WIENER,
Circuit Judges.
B Y T H E C O U R T :
The merits of the controversy between the parties to this case
was terminated years ago by a final, non-appealable executory

judgment. But the case has refused to die, remaining among the
"un-dead" of this Circuit through multiple appeals involving not
the merits but attorneys' fees, costs and sanctions.1 Today we do
all within our power to drive the stake of finality through its
heart.
Even though among counsel the smoldering coals of dislike and
resentment may well have been fanned from time to time by their
several clients, we suspect that the attorneys themselves have long
since replaced the original parties as the real adversaries here.2
This kind of unproductive and costly bickering among lawyers--whose
only legitimate role is to resolve objectively and civilly those
controversies that the parties have proved unable to resolve on
their own--justifiably subjects the legal profession as well as the
civil justice system to public distrust, derision and criticism.
But when counsel proceed to dump their own interpersonal squabbles
in the lap of the court to referee, the judiciary is wont to add
its criticism to that of the public.
This latest episode in the subject case--and, we insist, the
final one--comprises the motion of L. Dan Tucker, Esq., asking that
we sanction Roger C. Clapp, Esq. (now Chancellor Clapp) for
including false and defamatory statements about Tucker in pleadings
1
See Sidag I, 776 F.2d 1270 (5th Cir. 1985); Sidag II,
813 F.2d 81 (5th Cir. 1987); Sidag III, 854 F.2d 799 (5th Cir.
1988); and Sidag IV, 960 F.2d 564.
2
Counsel for Plaintiffs-Appellees have already been
reprimanded by the district court, and their clients have been
assessed tens of thousands of dollars in trial and appellate
costs and attorneys' fees for their unrelenting prolongation of
this litigation.
2

filed herein by Clapp. And, albeit grudgingly and in words of
minimization,
Clapp
has
conceded
to
excesses
and
mischaracterizations in at least some of the language used to
describe Tucker's professional practices and performance.
Finding those facts that are uncontroverted to be sanctionable
but seeing no proof of actual damage to Tucker's professional
reputation as a result of Clapp's conduct, we impose nominal
sanctions for the unprofessional and potentially damaging comments
admitted to by Clapp, in the amount of $1.00, payable by the check
of Roger C. Clapp, to the order of "L. Dan Tucker, Attorney at
Law," such check to reflect on its face or voucher that it is
remitted by order of this court, rendered in this case, as
sanctions for wrongly impugning the professional and ethical
quality of the payee's representation of his clients before this
court.
We now have seen and heard the attorneys in this case hurl far
more hyperbolical invectives at one another than we expect or will
countenance from those who practice before this court. We caution
therefore all counsel involved that any acts henceforth taken in
furtherance of this case, whether remotely or directly related to
those with which we deal today, will not be met with so mild and
gentle a judgment as the one we now render. To the contrary,
instigator(s) will risk exposure to the full panoply of sanctions
at our disposal. We trust that shall not prove necessary, our
trust being grounded in the assumption that each such attorney is
wise, so a word--or, more accurately in this instance, several
3