IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FIFTH CIRCUIT
No. 95-10520
(Summary Calendar)
ARTHUR A. COLLINS, INC.,
Plaintiff-Appellant,
versus
AMERICAN TELEPHONE AND TELEGRAPH
COMPANY,
Defendant-Appellee.
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Northern District of Texas
(3:94-CV-2842)
November 15, 1996
Before WIENER, PARKER and DENNIS, Circuit Judges.
OPINION ON REHEARING REGARDING SANCTIONS
WIENER, Circuit Judge:*
In our original opinion, we assessed sanctions against
Plaintiff-Appellant Arthur A. Collins, Inc. (Collins) for filing
*
Pursuant to Local Rule 47.5, the court has determined that
this opinion should not be published and is not precedent except
under the limited circumstances set forth in Local Rule 47.5.4.
and prosecuting a frivolous appeal. We did not specify that our
sanctions were levied under Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 38,
but Collins assumed that we had and claimed that adequate notice
and opportunity to respond, as provided for under that Rule, had
not been given. Out of an abundance of concern, we scheduled and
subsequently held a “show cause” hearing at which Collins’ CEO was
present together with counsel who had represented Collins in this
and prior litigation. Also present were Louisiana counsel retained
by Collins for purposes of the show cause hearing, and counsel for
Defendant-Appellee American Telephone and Telegraph Company (AT&T).
Our show cause hearing and the pleadings and exhibits filed in
connection therewith have convinced us that sanctions were
providently assessed, albeit in an amount that we now determine to
have been inadequate and are therefore increased. Finding the
activities of Collins and its counsel to have been not merely
frivolous and unmeritorious, but objectively vexatious and
harassing as well, we let stand the sanctions heretofore assessed
but augment the quantum thereof as hereafter specified.
I
FACTS AND PROCEEDINGS
A. Collins I
In December 1990, Collins filed a patent infringement suit
against AT&T in the district court for the Western District of
Texas (Collins I). Collins obtained a favorable jury verdict, and
the court awarded a judgment exceeding $34 million.
2
As that case involved issues of patent law, AT&T appealed to
the Federal Circuit, which exercises exclusive appellate
jurisdiction over patent disputes. The Federal Circuit reversed,
holding that Collins’ patent was invalid, and overturning the jury
award. The court rested its holding on two alternative legal
determinations: (1) A “prior art” article written by Guido Granello
(the Granello Article) had anticipated Collins’ patent, and (2) the
patent was invalid as “obvious” in light of two additional prior
art articles (“Mack & Patrusky” and the “Final Technical Report”).1
Collins filed motions for rehearing and for rehearing en banc
before the Federal Circuit, claiming that AT&T had fraudulently
misled the court into misinterpreting the technical data presented
in the Granello Article. In obvious disagreement with, inter alia,
Collins’ attempt to characterize AT&T’s legal and factual arguments
as “fraud on the court,” the Federal Circuit denied Collins’
motions for panel and en banc rehearings.
Collins then sought a writ of certiorari from the Supreme
Court, but it denied Collins’ application for writs. This was in
May 1994. At that juncture Collins had reached the point at which
even the most aggressive reasonable litigant should have accepted
the finality of an adverse result. But Collins pressed on.
1
Collins has never taken issue with the Federal Circuit’s
alternative holding that Mack & Patrusky and the Final Technical
Report rendered Collins’ patent invalid as obvious.
3
B. Collins II - “A Rose by Any Other Name . . . .”2
Collins elected to continue its assault on AT&T’s citadel, but
did so obliquely. Forsaking the Western District of Texas for the
Northern District, Collins filed a suit that it creatively
characterized as a state-law tort claim (Collins II). When reduced
to its essentials, however, that second action was purely and
simply a collateral attack on the Federal Circuit’s mandate in
Collins I. The principal thrust of the pleadings in Collins II was
not that the fraud was perpetrated on Collins, the plaintiff, but
on the Federal Circuit court itself. Even so, the amount of
damages that Collins sought for itself for this purportedly
tortious act of fraud on the appellate court was, not so
coincidentally, essentially the same sum it had “lost” when the
Federal Circuit reversed Collins’ patent infringement judgment from
the Western District of Texas.
The district court for the Northern District of Texas
apparently had no difficulty in seeing through Collins’ ruse. The
court ruled that it lacked subject matter jurisdiction to hear such
a collateral attack on the Federal Circuit’s mandate, absent leave
from that court to do so. Then, assuming arguendo that it did have
jurisdiction over the case, the district court ruled in the
alternative that Collins II was barred by collateral estoppel.
Although the court then dismissed the case, it did so “without
2
William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet, act 2, sc. 2.
4
prejudice” so as to preserve for Collins the opportunity to do what
it should have done in the first place (if it were not willing to
throw in the towel after the Supreme Court denied writs), i.e., to
entreat the Federal Circuit to set aside its own mandate and grant
leave to Collins to bring an action in district court.
But Collins both ignored the district court’s implicit
invitation to return to the Federal Circuit for such orders and
opted not to drop the matter altogether in light of the district
court’s unassailable ferreting out of the true nature of Collins’
bogus tort suit. It chose instead to file the instant appeal
directly with us, ostensibly seeking reversal of both of the
district court’s alternative holdings. Like the district court
before us, though, we had no difficulty in concluding that Collins
II was indeed a “wolf in sheep’s clothing,” and affirmed the
judgment of the district court. In addition, though, we imposed
sanctions against Collins for taking a frivolous appeal. As
Collins had not been given notice and an opportunity to respond,
however, we granted its request for such an opportunity by ordering
a “show cause” hearing —— which was ultimately conducted by this
writer on behalf of the panel —— so that all of the panel members
could reconsider the imposition of sanctions vel non and the type
and quantum if imposed.
II
ANALYSIS
A. Standard for the Imposition of Sanctions
5
Attorneys and litigants are afforded a “broad umbrella” of
protection against the imposition of sanctions for arguing novel or
aggressive legal positions, as long as any such position is
arguably supported by existing law or by any reasonably based
suggestion for its extension, modification, or reversal.3 On the
other hand, sanctions can and should be imposed against litigants
who burden our limited judicial resources and the financial
resources of their opponents with frivolous appeals. An appeal is
frivolous if the claim advanced is unreasonable or not brought with
a reasonably good faith belief that it is justified.4 We hasten to
add, in light of the protestations of Collins’ counsel, that the
test is an objective one: “Ill purpose is in no way a necessary
element for imposition of sanctions under Rule 38.”5
In like manner, sanctions may be levied against an attorney
pursuant to § 1927. As this court has previously noted, bad faith
is not a necessary element for the imposition of such a sanction:
While the language of § 1927 suggests deliberate
misbehavior, subjective bad faith is not necessary;
attorneys have been held accountable for decisions that
reflect a reckless indifference to the merits of a
claim.6
3
Farguson v. Mbank Houston, N.A., 808 F.2d 358, 359 (5th
Cir. 1986).
4
Clark v. Green, 814 F.2d 221, 223 (5th Cir. 1987); Stelly
v. Commissioner, 761 F.2d 1113, 1116 (5th Cir. 1985).
5
Coghlan v. Starkey, 852 F.2d 806, 808 (5th Cir. 1988).
6
Id. at 814, quoting Reliance Ins. Co. v. Sweeney Corp., 792
F.2d 1137, 1138 (D.C. Cir. 1986). (emphasis added).
6
We need not concern ourselves with the standard for imposing
sanctions under § 1927, however, because the attorneys for Collins
have stipulated in open court that if we remain convinced that
sanctions are appropriate, we should render them jointly and
severally against both Collins and its attorneys, and the latter
will indemnify their client. Certainly, an attorney may
voluntarily assume a client’s obligation to pay sanctions that have
been assessed for a frivolous appeal.7
B. Collateral Estoppel
1. A Fifth Bite at the Apple
Collins notes in its brief that the primary basis articulated
in our original opinion for imposing sanctions was that Collins had
already had “four bites at the apple” on its fraud claims, making
those claims clearly subject to collateral estoppel. Collins
contends that collateral estoppel does not apply, and that its
appeal cannot be characterized as frivolous, because Collins has
not yet received a “full and fair opportunity” to litigate its
fraud claim. Collins argues that AT&T did not commit the “fraud”
of which Collins complains until Collins I was on appeal before the
Federal Circuit, and that, because Collins was caught off guard, it
was unable to expose AT&T’s wrongdoing to that court on appeal.
Furthermore, Collins notes that no precedential authority attaches
to the denials of its motions to the Federal Circuit for panel
7
Coghlan, 852 F.2d at 818 n. 23.
7
rehearing or for rehearing en banc, or to the refusal by the
Supreme Court to grant certiorari. Therefore, contends Collins, it
has not yet received even one of what it has termed “the phantom
four bites at the apple.”
Indeed, Collins continues passionately and self-righteously to
insist that the merits of its fraud claim have yet to be heard, and
that both the district court and this court erred in determining
that its fraud claim has been finally decided. But, as discerned
correctly by the district court, Collins’ so-called “fraud claim”
is not a new and different claim at all. Even granting to Collins
the full benefit of the doubt with regard to its fervently declared
subjective belief in the validity and separateness of the claim,
Collins cannot make the proverbial silk purse out of this sow’s
ear: The mis-labeled tort suit is truly nothing but an attempt to
re-assert that the Federal Circuit incorrectly interpreted the
Granello Article as a matter of law. Notwithstanding Collins’
attempt to shift the focus away from the Federal Circuit’s decision
and onto the purported impropriety of AT&T’s representation to that
court regarding the Granello Article, there is not and there could
not have been a separate fraud claim of that stripe. More
importantly, it was and remains patently unreasonable for Collins
genuinely to believe otherwise.
The invalidity of Collins’ patent was decided with finality in
8
Collins I,8 in which Collins had a full and fair opportunity to
argue in support of its interpretation —— and in opposition to
AT&T’s supposedly fraudulent and erroneous characterization of the
Granello Article to the Federal Circuit. AT&T advanced its
argument concerning the Granello Article in its brief to the
Federal Circuit, so Collins had more than ample opportunity to
prepare and articulate a counterargument, either in its reply brief
or during oral argument. Additionally, the Patent Office had
recently invalidated Collins’ patent on the basis of the same
argument made to it by AT&T that AT&T was making to the Federal
Circuit.9 Collins has only itself to blame for failing to take
issue with AT&T’s arguments, particularly the characterization of
the Granello Article, until after the Federal Circuit issued its
opinion. That Collins failed fully to advocate its position before
the Federal Circuit does not give rise to a subsequent fraud claim
against AT&T.
8
The Federal Circuit invalidated Collins’ patent based on
two alternative legal determinations: that the Granello Article is
anticipatory prior art, and that the patent was obvious in light of
two additional prior art articles with which Collins has never
taken issue. See Collins Licensing, L.P. v. American Tel. & Tel.
Co., 11 F.3d 1072, reported in full at 28 U.S.P.Q.2d (BNA) 1847
(Fed. Cir. 1993).
9
We are fully aware, as was the Federal Circuit, that the
Patent Office subsequently found on rehearing that the patent was
valid. Nevertheless, given the initial effectiveness of AT&T’s
arguments to the Patent Office and the fact that AT&T presented the
same argument to the Federal Circuit in its appellate brief,
Collins could have and should have attempted to dispel AT&T’s
purportedly erroneous characterization of the Granello Article to
the Federal Circuit.
9
Furthermore, Collins did fully articulate a counterargument to
AT&T’s interpretation of the Granello Article in its motion for
rehearing. As this court has noted previously under analogous
circumstances, when “[t]he argument . . . before [a subsequent
panel] was before the original panel, that panel must be presumed
to have considered it on motion for rehearing.”10 The fact that the
Federal Circuit refused to permit Collins to append new expert
affidavits supporting Collins’ explanation of the court’s error is
of no consequence.
Once Collins’ motion for rehearing and suggestion for
rehearing en banc were denied by the Federal Circuit and its
application for a writ of certiorari was denied by the Supreme
Court, the case was over. This finality applied to all issues of
fact and law that were raised or could have been raised, including
the allegedly fraudulent argument made by AT&T to the Federal
Circuit. We are satisfied that the Federal Circuit was perfectly
capable of recognizing the difference between an attempt to commit
fraud on the court and mere differences between the litigants’
respective positions as to the proper interpretation of a highly
technical learned treatise and the legal effects thereof. Thus, as
made clear by the district court, the only avenue remaining open to
10
Fine v. Bellefonte Underwriters Ins. Co., 758 F.2d 50, 53
(5th Cir. 1985) (holding that the original panel’s misstatement of
the legal elements of an established cause of action had become law
of the case and therefore could not be revisited when the appellant
had filed a motion for rehearing in which it pointed out the
panel’s error, but the motion was denied).
10
Collins was by way of a Rule 60(b) motion to set aside the mandate
—— assuming that some articulable reason existed for doing so.
2. A “Reasonable” Argument for the Extension of Existing Law?
Collins next argues that an “unreversed line” of three Supreme
Court cases provided reasonable support for its tort suit.11 We not
only disagree; we find that argument to be sophistry at best.
First, the line of cases Collins refers to establishes a basis for
equitable review of a final judgment, not for collaterally
attacking such a judgment by characterizing the challenge as an
independent state-law tort claim. More importantly, however,
Johnson, Arrowsmith, and Marshall all predate the creation of Rule
60, which now governs the type of review envisioned by those cases
but which Collins has studiously avoided. If anything, those cases
should have made clear to Collins that its only appropriate
recourse was to seek some sort of equitable review. Then, even
minimal additional research should have lead Collins to the
realization that equitable review of final judgments is now
governed exclusively by Rule 60.
Collins further argues that Bros Inc. v. W.E. Grace
Manufacturing Co., 320 F.2d 594 (5th Cir. 1963), established Fifth
Circuit precedent for the proposition that independent relief is
available against a wrongdoer without attacking the final judgment
11
Arrowsmith v. Gleason, 129 U.S. 86, 98, 95 S. Ct. 237, 32
L. Ed. 630 (1889); Marshall v. Holmes, 141 U.S. 589, 599-600, 12 S.
Ct. 62, 35 L. Ed. 870 (1891); Johnson v. Waters, 111 U.S. 640, 647,
45 S. Ct. 619, 28 L.Ed. 547 (1884).
11
as having been improperly obtained. Collins’ reading of Bros Inc.
is specious to say the least. For openers, that case was decided
before the creation of the Federal Circuit, which now exercises
exclusive appellate jurisdiction over patent disputes. Before that
centralization of appeals of patent disputes, it was not uncommon
for patents to be held invalid in one circuit but valid in another.
This court in Bros Inc. did not offer relief without attacking an
appellate mandate as Collins strains to argue; rather, the
Bros Inc. panel recognized that it could do nothing to alter an
incorrect result reached by the 6th Circuit. In Bros Inc. we
provided only limited relief by setting aside our own mandate and
remanding to the district court to determine whether the patent
should be validated within the 5th Circuit; and we did so by way of
a Rule 60 motion!12 So, once again, any bona fide reading of the
authority cited by Collins clearly undermines its theory and
further convinces this court of the unreasonableness —— and thus
the frivolousness —— of Collins’ appeal.
Collins seeks to assure this court that it has great respect
for the policies favoring repose and the finality of judgments,
insisting, however, that it had no choice in this instance but to
bring the underlying tort suit under the competing “maxim that
where there is a wrong there is a remedy.” But Collins also
readily concedes that “[Rule] 60(b) would give [us] a remedy, your
12
Bros Inc., 320 F.2d at 607-608.
12
Honor. We don’t dispute that.” Collins is speaking out of both
sides of its mouth: It posits that “you have to always balance
repose against the desire to see that justice is done,” yet, when
asked why it chose not to seek to have justice done by way of a
Rule 60 motion, Collins admitted in a rare moment of candor that it
had hoped to recover punitive damages by bringing a state-law based
tort action. This faux “balancing act” purportedly undertaken by
Collins troubles us deeply.
Its crocodile tears to the contrary notwithstanding, Collins’
appeal to this court was, indeed, an attempt to purloin yet another
bite at the same apple previously masticated; whether it was the
fifth or merely the third or fourth is quibbling. We find it to be
at least unreasonable to belabor the argument that Collins held a
new and unbitten “fraud” apple in its hand.
We are thus more satisfied than ever that this appeal is one
for which the imposition of sanctions is particularly appropriate:
It reeks of anger, bitterness, and spite, all of which Collins
disingenuously tries to legitimate by wrapping itself in the mantel
of zealous but permissible advocacy. But, like the glass slipper
that would not accommodate Cinderella’s stepsisters’ feet, that
mantel will not fit Collins no matter how it may wriggle to squeeze
into it. We are generally chary about imposing sanctions lest we
chill aggressive advocacy, which lies at the heart of our
adversarial system of justice. In this instance, however, we
affirmatively endeavor to chill the kinds of abusive protraction of
13
litigation that are clearly beyond the outer limits of appropriate
advocacy, as exemplified in the instant appeal of Collins II.
C. Lack of Jurisdiction
Collins argues at great length that its appeal from the
district court’s decision was not frivolous because the appellate
leave rule was supplanted by the Supreme Court’s opinion in
Standard Oil Co. v. United States, 429 U.S. 17 (1976), or that
Collins at least had a reasonable basis for believing so. We need
waste little paper and ink on Collins’ argument on this point. The
district court clearly and correctly explained in its opinion
dismissing the tort suit that Standard Oil held only that:
recall of an appellate mandate [is] not a prerequisite to
relief for subsequently discovered fraud upon the
district court where relief was sought under Fed. R. Civ.
P. 60(b) in the same district court, because “the
appellate mandate relates to the record and issues then
before the court, and does not purport to deal with
possible later events.”13
It is clear beyond cavil that the district court skewered this
argument by Collins; to have appealed that holding was
quintessential frivolousness.
In Collins I, AT&T argued its interpretation of the Granello
Article in its appellate brief to the Federal Circuit. The only
reason proffered by Collins for failing to rebut AT&T’s argument at
this juncture is that Collins believed the Federal Circuit, for
procedural reasons, could not reach the issue on appeal. Stated
13
Memorandum Opinion entered May 11, 1995 (emphasis in
original), quoting Standard Oil, 429 U.S. at 18.
14
simply, by making a tactical decision that included a calculated
risk, Collins gambled and lost. As for Collins’ efforts to recoup
that loss by pursuing Collins II, the law is settled that a
district court is without jurisdiction to alter the mandate of a
circuit court on the basis of matters included or includable in a
prior appeal.14
Collins’ reading of Standard Oil is not only unreasonable; it
is also lacking in bona fides. Sanctions would be appropriate in
this case, however, even if the appellate leave rule had been
abolished by Standard Oil, as Collins contends. On appeal Collins
has not sought the right to bring a Rule 60 motion in district
court without first obtaining appellate leave. On the contrary,
Collins has clearly and consistently demonstrated that it wants no
part of any Rule 60 motion. Collins filed its fraud-on-the-court
action in a different federal district court than the one that had
decided Collins I. In the Northern District of Texas, Collins went
to great lengths to obfuscate the true nature of what it was doing
when it filed and prosecuted Collins II in that court. Even when
that ploy was unmasked and squelched by the court in Collins II,
however, Collins nevertheless persisted in its vendetta, forging
ahead with an appeal to this court in which Collins merely
continued to belabor its defrocked fraud theory, hoping against
14
Seese v. Volkswagenwerk, A.G., 679 F.2d 336, 337 (5th Cir.
1982); Eutectic Corp. v. Metco, Inc., 597 F.2d 32, 34 (5th Cir.
1979); Tapco Products Co. v. Van Mark Products Corp., 466 F.2d 109,
110 (6th Cir. 1972).
15
hope that it might finally reach a sympathetic —— or, more
accurately, a gullible —— ear.
D. Subjective Good Faith - “The Lady Doth Protest Too Much,
Methinks.”15
Collins attempts to bolster its position by arguing vain-
gloriously that it should not be subjected to sanctions given that
its attorneys consulted with other disinterested attorneys to
assure themselves of the viability of their claims and legal
positions both before filing the tort suit and then again before
appealing to this court. Counsel for Collins collected and
submitted affidavits from each of those other attorneys in an
attempt to show that the former has acted in good faith throughout
these proceedings.
As even the most sophisticated of modern diagnostic scanning
and imaging devices do not let us probe the innermost thoughts of
the brain, we have no palpable evidence to dispute Collins’ self-
serving insistence that it acted in subjective good faith. Indeed,
on rehearing, Collins continues sanctimoniously to proclaim its
subjective belief that its fraud claim is justified under the law.
But passion and zeal are not shields against the consequences that
flow from behaving unreasonably or in objective bad faith.16
Regardless of any amount of subjective good faith an appellant
15
William Shakespeare, Hamlet, act 3, sc. 2.
16
See Dreis & Krump Mfg. Co. v. International Ass’n of
Machinists, 802 F.2d 247, 255 (7th Cir. 1986), quoted with approval
in Coghlan, 852 F.2d at 809.
16
might profess, an appeal is frivolous if it is objectively
unreasonable.17 So, even if we were to credit the ostensible
support that Collins’ counsel drummed up from their brethren at the
Bar through the affidavits filed herein —— which we do not —— those
solicited testimonials gain counsel naught in the arena of
objectivity.
III
CONCLUSION
Now that we have conducted the rehearing requested by Collins
regarding the sanctions aspect of this case, we are more convinced
than ever that the appeal in Collins II is sanctionably frivolous.
Rule 38 sanctions for frivolous appeals may include single or
double costs as well as attorneys’ fees.18 We have stated
previously that “[e]ven greater sanctions may be imposed under
17
See Coghlan, 852 F.2d at 813, quoting Brady v. Chemical
Constr. Corp., 740 F.2d 195, 202 (2d Cir. 1984) (“[T]he Second
Circuit has held that an honest belief in the merits of a claim,
and the subjective feeling that a litigant has been denied a fair
hearing, do not excuse an appellate brief that ‘ignores significant
issues and facts while deploying a smokescreen of irrelevant and
tangential issues.”); Id. at 809, quoting Dreis & Krump Mfg. Co. v.
Int’l Ass’n of Machinists, 802 F.2d 247, 255-56 (7th Cir. 1986)
(“It is human nature to crave vindication of a passionately held
position even if the position lacks an objectively reasonable basis
in the law. Although we have no reason to believe that the company
or its counsel was acting in bad faith, ... the company’s briefs
and oral argument failed to identify any arguable error in the
district court’s decision....”).
18
See, e.g., Coghlan, 852 F.2d at 812; McDougal v.
Commissioner, 818 F.2d 453, 455 (5th Cir. 1987); Stelly, 761 F.2d
at 1115; Wright v. Commissioner, 752 F.2d 1059, 1062 (1985);
Knoblauch v. Commissioner, 752 F.2d 125, 128 n.4 (5th Cir.), cert.
denied, 474 U.S. 830, 106 S. Ct. 95, 88 L.Ed.2d 78 (1985).
17
appropriate circumstances.”19 In our original opinion we assessed
sanctions against Collins in an amount equal to all costs of the
appeal, including the reasonable attorneys’ fees of its opponent.
After the Petition for Rehearing in protest of those sanctions was
filed, we implicitly gave Collins the opportunity to re-think its
position, accept the sanctions initially imposed, and withdraw its
Petition for Rehearing, thereby sparing AT&T and this court further
unproductive expenditures of time, money, and resources. But
Collins was obviously not interested, obstinately pressing on with
its vindicatory —— and, we conclude, vindictive —— crusade.
We can discern no justification, under the banner of vigorous
advocacy or otherwise, for Collins’ filing and prosecuting this
unjustifiable appeal. Such prolongation of the case left AT&T no
real choice but to undertake additional efforts and expend
additional costs in researching, preparing for, and participating
in the appeal and the rehearing; and the time and resources of this
court were further strained in the process. Collins’ protestations
to the contrary notwithstanding, we are left with the distinct
impression that the appeal was not simply frivolous, but that it
was filed and prosecuted vindictively, vexatiously, and for
purposes of harassment as well.
We therefore amend our original imposition of sanctions
against Collins by assessing them jointly and severally against
19
Stelly, 761 F.2d at 1115-1116.
18
Collins and its trial and appellate counsel herein (but not its
additional Louisiana attorneys who were retained for purposes of
this rehearing only) as requested by said counsel, and imposing
sanctions in a sum equal to the costs of the instant appeal,
including, without limitation, AT&T’s reasonable attorneys’ fees
incurred in opposing Collins’ appeal and participating in this
sanctions rehearing. It is our conclusion that this is the
lightest sanction that we can impose and still attain the results
we seek to achieve. The amount we find to be AT&T’s reasonable
attorneys’ fees and related costs —— which we now declare to be
assessed under the aegis of FRAP 38 —— is $91,008.26. That sum,
representing the entire sanction assessed herein, shall be paid
into the registry of this court within thirty (30) days following
the filing of this opinion, in delinquency of which said sum shall
bear interest from the date of said filing until paid in full, at
the rate of 10% per annum.
AMENDED, and, as amended, AFFIRMED.
19