In the
United States Court of Appeals
For the Seventh Circuit
No. 08-1506
B RUCE P. G OLDEN , individually and as
Next Friend of Dale Michelle Golden,
Plaintiff-Appellant,
v.
H ELEN S IGMAN & A SSOCIATES, L TD., et al.,
Defendants-Appellees.
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division.
No. 05 C 0283—Joan B. Gottschall, Judge.
A RGUED S EPTEMBER 16, 2009—D ECIDED JULY 2, 2010
Before C UDAHY, W OOD , and SYKES, Circuit Judges.
W OOD , Circuit Judge. In 2004, Bruce Golden’s wife
Jody Rosenbaum filed for divorce in Illinois state court.
The proceedings that followed were fraught with
hostility as the parties engaged in a bitter dispute over
division of assets and custody of Dale, their only child.
After a year of setbacks in state court, Golden filed a multi-
2 No. 08-1506
count federal lawsuit. He seems to have named anyone
who advocated for Rosenbaum in state court as a defen-
dant, including Nancy Thomas, Rosenbaum’s friend and
neighbor; Helen Sigman, the court-appointed representa-
tive for the child; Rosenbaum’s counsel; and two of
Rosenbaum’s business associates.
The district court abstained with respect to Golden’s
claim that he owned certain copyrights, on the theory
that the ownership of assets in general would be
resolved in the state divorce proceedings; it granted
defendants’ motions to dismiss on all other counts. A
couple of years later, the district court sanctioned Golden
pursuant to F ED. R. C IV. P. 11(b)(2), requiring him to
pay defendants’ attorneys’ fees and expenses. Golden
has now appealed, and we affirm.
I
On January 18, 2005, Golden sued the defendants in
federal court, raising claims under federal copyright law,
17 U.S.C. §§ 501 et seq., civil RICO, 18 U.S.C. §§ 1962(c)
and (d), and 42 U.S.C. § 1983, as well as a variety of state-
law theories. Golden’s allegations revolve around his
stormy divorce. He is convinced that the defendants
have acted in concert to damage his relationship with
his daughter Dale, impugn his reputation, and destroy
his financial well-being.
Golden’s complaint alleges that Rosenbaum’s attorneys
at Nadler, Pritikin & Mirabelli, LLC (collectively “Nadler”)
wrote letters defaming him and sought to disrupt his
No. 08-1506 3
business relationships. He also accused Nadler, along with
two of Rosenbaum’s business associates, of deliberately
infringing his copyright to a real estate listing system.
Sigman, Golden asserts, maligned his reputation and
abdicated her duty of neutrality by favoring Rosenbaum
in the custody proceedings. Finally, he believes that
Thomas violated his rights when, in an effort to assist
Rosenbaum’s claim for child custody, she called 911 to
report (falsely, he says) that Golden had abused his
daughter.
After Golden amended his complaint, the defendants
filed motions to dismiss for failure to state a claim upon
which relief may be granted. See FED. R. C IV. P. 12(b)(6).
On November 1, 2005, the district court granted these
motions with one exception: it stayed proceedings for
Count I, which alleged copyright infringement. For
that claim, the court decided to abstain and to stay the
federal action pending the resolution of ongoing state
proceedings. In dismissing Golden’s civil RICO claim,
the court concluded that he had not properly pleaded
the requisite predicate acts and pattern of racketeering
activity necessary to state a claim. Golden was not
entitled to relief under § 1983, the court found, because
Sigman had not acted under color of state law and
she enjoyed absolute immunity from suit. As Golden’s
state-law claims were unrelated to the remaining copy-
right count, the district court relinquished supplemental
jurisdiction over them.
A month later, Nadler filed a motion for Rule 11 sanc-
tions. The magistrate judge issued a report on July 15, 2008,
4 No. 08-1506
recommending that Nadler’s motion be granted. The
following week, Sigman and Thomas jumped on the
bandwagon and filed their own motions for sanctions;
their motions were also endorsed by the magistrate
judge. Concluding that many of Golden’s positions
were wholly devoid of legal support, the district court
decided to impose sanctions against him pursuant to
F ED. R. C IV. P. 11(b)(2), in the form of attorneys’ fees. But
because the sanctions related only to certain parts of the
complaint, the district court reviewed the defendants’
billing records and ordered Golden to pay just the fees
related to the offending claims. Soon thereafter, Golden
settled with Nadler, which was voluntarily dismissed
from the case. At that point, the district court granted
Golden’s motion for a final judgment under F ED. R. C IV.
P. 54(b). This timely appeal followed.
II
Golden has abandoned his civil RICO theory on appeal
and instead has concentrated on the district court’s dis-
missal of his § 1983 claim against Sigman. This court
reviews a dismissal pursuant to Rule 12(b)(6) de novo.
Justice v. Town of Cicero, 577 F.3d 768, 771 (7th Cir. 2009).
In assessing whether the plaintiff has stated a valid
claim for relief, we “construe the complaint in the light
most favorable to the plaintiff, accepting as true all
well-pleaded facts alleged, and drawing all possible
inferences in her favor.” Tamayo v. Blagojevich, 526 F.3d
1074, 1081 (7th Cir. 2008). The district court concluded
that Golden’s § 1983 claim against Sigman was a nonstarter
No. 08-1506 5
for two independent reasons: Sigman was not a state
actor, and she was absolutely immune from suit. While
Golden challenges this decision on appeal, in the district
court he repeatedly said that his acceptance of “[the
district court judge’s] ruling without seeking further
relief before her or elsewhere” should weigh against
the imposition of sanctions. Sigman interprets Golden’s
words as a waiver of his argument against dismissal of
his § 1983 claim. “[O]nce a position is announced” in
district court, Sigman contends, “backpedaling on ap-
peal cannot be allowed.” Miller v. Willow Creek Homes, Inc.,
249 F.3d 629, 631 (7th Cir. 2001).
In our view, Golden’s statement falls short of a waiver.
See United States v. Parker, 469 F.3d 1074, 1079 (7th Cir.
2006). This court has found waiver only when an at-
torney has unambiguously taken a position irreconcilable
with that presented on appeal. Miller illustrates the
point well. There the court found that the appellants had
waived their right to appeal by: (1) withdrawing a
motion for reconsideration; (2) notifying the court that
“[they were] not going to be appealing” summary judg-
ment; and (3) requesting that any related claims be
stricken from the amended complaint. See Miller, 249
F.3d at 631 (emphasizing appellants’ “clear statements
of their intent” to waive appeal). In contrast, by framing
his statement in the past tense (he “accepted” the
dismissal order), Golden did not explicitly forswear the
possibility of an appeal. Furthermore, noting that the
court dismissed his state-law claims for lack of supple-
mental jurisdiction, Golden points out that referring to
“further relief . . . elsewhere” might allude to pursuing
6 No. 08-1506
these claims in state court. We are satisfied that he
avoided waiver of appellate review.
Turning to the merits, we begin by observing that we
recently held that child representatives in Illinois are
entitled to absolute immunity. Cooney v. Rossiter, 583 F.3d
967, 970 (7th Cir. 2009) (analogizing child representatives
to guardians ad litem and court-appointed experts). But
Cooney left the door open a crack for some suits against
representatives. Immunity extends, it acknowledged,
only with respect to conduct that “occurred within the
course of [a child representative’s] court-appointed du-
ties.” Id. At the time Golden filed his lawsuit, Illinois law
made child representatives responsible for acting as the
child’s attorney, pursuing investigations into the facts,
and offering recommendations to the court. 750 ILCS
5/506(a)(3); Cooney, 583 F.3d at 969 (explaining that a
“child’s representative is a hybrid of a child’s attorney,
750 ILCS 5/506(a)(1), and a child’s guardian ad litem”).
Golden asserts that he raised allegations in his com-
plaint that Sigman engaged in misconduct that fell
outside the scope of her statutorily defined role. He
focuses on Sigman’s allegedly false and misleading com-
munications with the parties on matters related to the
custody dispute. According to Golden, Sigman falsely
told Dale that Golden was dangerous and misrepresented
facts about the proceedings to Golden. Even assuming
that this were true, however, Sigman was still carrying
out her responsibilities as a child representative; those
duties centrally include speaking with the relevant
actors about the custody proceedings and investigating
No. 08-1506 7
the facts. Id. (concluding that child representative
could not be sued based upon his conversations with a
psychiatrist regarding the children in the custody dis-
pute). In this limited capacity, her actions closely resemble
those of a guardian ad litem. Thus, she functioned as an
“arm[] of the court” and “deserve[s] protection from
harassment by disappointed litigants, just as judges do.” Id.
More problematic are Golden’s allegations that relate
to Sigman’s acts as an advocate, such as her preparation
of court orders and her efforts to eliminate the role of the
court-appointed psychiatrist. Though these tasks are
part and parcel of a child representative’s statutory
duties, they involve a form of advocacy that more
closely resembles the work carried out by a public
defender than that of a guardian ad litem. See Gardner by
Gardner v. Parson, 874 F.2d 131, 145-46 & n.21 (3d Cir. 1989)
(distinguishing guardian ad litem’s advocacy role from
her reporting function). Since public defenders are not
absolutely immune from suit, Tower v. Glover, 467 U.S.
914, 921-23 (1984), child representatives may not be
protected when they function as a child’s attorney. See
Parson, 874 F.2d at 145-46 (adopting a functional ap-
proach to determining the scope of a guardian ad litem’s
absolute immunity). As the court in Cooney did not con-
front allegations implicating a child representative’s
actions as an advocate, it did not have the opportunity
to comment on this issue.
We, too, can lay it aside for another day, for a dif-
ferent reason. In our case, the Rooker-Feldman doctrine
bars us from reviewing the question whether Sigman
8 No. 08-1506
violated Golden’s rights when she acted as Dale’s advo-
cate. See Rooker v. Fidelity Trust Co., 263 U.S. 413, 415-16
(1923); District of Columbia Ct. of App. v. Feldman, 460
U.S. 462, 486 (1983). The doctrine prevents a party “com-
plaining of an injury caused by [a] state-court judg-
ment” from seeking redress in a lower federal court. See
Exxon Mobil Corp. v. Saudi Indus. Corp., 544 U.S. 280, 291-92
(2005). Although we recognize that the Supreme Court
has warned against a broad reading of this doctrine, see
Lance v. Dennis, 546 U.S. 459 (2006), our case does not
present the risk of expansion that was present in
Lance. There, the Court disapproved the use of Rooker-
Feldman “where the party against whom the doctrine is
invoked was not a party to the underlying state-court
proceeding.” 546 U.S. at 464. In our case, the parties are
identical, and the only injury that Golden alleges that
he has suffered from Sigman’s supposedly biased
advocacy is the alienation of Dale’s affections and a re-
duction in his custodial rights. These harms flow directly
from the fruit of Sigman’s efforts: state-court custody
orders favorable to Rosenbaum. Golden has not alleged
a procedural harm that is separate and independent
from the state court’s custody determination. See, e.g.,
Nesses v. Shepard, 68 F.3d 1003, 1005 (7th Cir. 1995) (ex-
plaining that plaintiff’s claim that his state trial
was tainted by politics was distinct from a claim that the
state-court judgment was erroneous). As Golden’s allega-
tions cannot be separated from the state court’s judg-
ment, Rooker-Feldman acts as a jurisdictional bar. We add
for the sake of completeness that even if some aspect
of these orders escapes Rooker-Feldman, after Lance, we
No. 08-1506 9
would reject Golden’s claims on the merits. The federal
court would be obliged to give full faith and credit to the
state-court judgment, see 28 U.S.C. § 1738, and we see
no reason why Golden should be entitled to reopen
matters that the state court actually resolved or could
have resolved.
All that remains of Golden’s complaint are a couple
of allegations, neither of which has merit. Golden’s
conclusory claim that Sigman helped Rosenbaum
violate court visitation orders lacks the factual specificity
required to raise it above the speculative level. See
Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 129 S. Ct. 1937, 1949-50 (2009); Brooks v.
Ross, 578 F.3d 574, 581-82 (7th Cir. 2009). Similarly there
is nothing to Golden’s allegation that Sigman had
Dale’s school deny him access to Dale unless he was
accompanied by a guard. Sigman only informed Dale’s
school that Golden’s visitation rights had to be
restricted after the state court had limited Golden to
an hour a week of supervised visitation. Sigman’s com-
munications with the school, as a practical matter,
added nothing to the state court’s order, which as we
already have explained cannot be re-examined.
Having determined that absolute immunity and Rooker-
Feldman wipe out Golden’s § 1983 claim, we conclude
that the district court properly granted defendants’
motion to dismiss. Thus, there is no reason to assess
whether the district court was correct in ruling in the
alternative that Sigman was not subject to suit under
§ 1983 because child representatives are not state actors.
10 No. 08-1506
III
Golden also takes issue with the district court’s
decision to impose Rule 11 sanctions and the methodology
the court used in calculating its award of attorneys’ fees.
We review sanction rulings under Rule 11 for an abuse
of discretion. See Fabriko Acquisition Co. v. Prokos, 536
F.3d 605, 610 (7th Cir. 2008). Golden objects to the timeli-
ness of Sigman’s and Thomas’s motions for Rule 11
sanctions; he disputes the district court’s decision to
grant Rule 11 sanctions; and he takes issue with the
amount of attorneys’ fees awarded to Sigman and
Thomas as recompense for his sanctionable conduct.
We address each argument in turn.
Sigman and Thomas delayed filing their Rule 11 motions
for approximately a year after they filed their motions
to dismiss. Golden submits that this lassitude should
have led to a dismissal of the request. Sigman and
Thomas counter that Golden forfeited this argument by
failing to raise the issue of timeliness until his motion to
reconsider the district court’s order granting Rule 11
sanctions. See Havoco of Am., Ltd. v. Sumitomo Corp. of
Am., 971 F.2d 1332, 1336 (7th Cir. 1992). We agree with
Sigman and Thomas that Golden failed to preserve this
line of argument. Nor is Golden’s misstep excusable.
The question is not a pure issue of law; rather it depends
centrally on the facts, some of which are contestable.
Cf. Matter of Reese, 91 F.3d 37, 39 (7th Cir. 1996) (acknowl-
edging that forfeiture may be forgiven for pure legal
questions). Moreover, it does not appear as though the
district court ever addressed the timeliness of Sigman’s
No. 08-1506 11
and Thomas’s motions. Cf. Alicia-Hernandez v. The Catholic
Bishop of Chicago, 320 F.3d 698, 701 (7th Cir. 2003) (con-
cluding that party had not forfeited argument when
the district court gave full consideration to the issue in
question).
Even if Golden had not forfeited his timeliness chal-
lenge, the question whether to grant sanctions would
have been one for the district court’s discretion. The
district court would not have been compelled to accept
Golden’s characterization of the delay as a full year.
Indeed, that assertion turns out to be weak upon closer
examination. In order to come up with a year, one
needs to rely on the date when Golden’s original com-
plaint was filed, in January 2005. But he amended that
complaint twice, adding claims against Thomas and
altering the claims he had brought against Sigman. The
district court would therefore have been well within its
rights to look at the time between the date when the
defendants filed their respective motions to dismiss
(May 20, 2005, for Thomas and July 5, 2005, for Sigman)
and the date of the Rule 11 motions. Viewed that way, it
appears that Thomas waited only four months to serve
her Rule 11 motion and 13 months to file it, while
Sigman delayed service for just two months and filed 11
months later. Both Rule 11 motions were filed with the
court well before the district court entered final judg-
ment in 2008.
The district court did not abuse its discretion in tol-
erating this delay. Not only did Sigman and Thomas file
their motions before final judgment, they both complied
12 No. 08-1506
with Rule 11’s “safe-harbor provision” by serving Golden
with their motions before the case was dismissed. See
F ED . R. C IV. P. 11(c)(2); cf. F ED. R. C IV. P. 11 1993 Advisory
Committee’s Notes (tying the need to file Rule 11 motion
before the conclusion of the case to respect for the safe-
harbor provision). Golden had ample opportunity to
withdraw his offending pleadings, as he was served
more than a month before the district court dismissed
the complaint. Moreover, Golden’s claim of prejudicial
delay rings hollow given that he had threatened earlier
to seek sanctions against Sigman for her premature
service of a Rule 11 motion.
Even if the motions were timely, Golden contends that
the district court erred in granting Sigman’s and Thomas’s
request for sanctions. The district court concluded
that sanctions were warranted for everything in the
complaint except the § 1983 claim against Sigman and
two of the state-law claims against Thomas.
With regard to Golden’s state-law claims against
Sigman, the district court decided to impose sanctions
because Scheib v. Grant, 22 F.3d 149, 157 (7th Cir. 1994),
clearly granted Sigman absolute immunity under Illinois
law. Golden argues that his failure to abide by Scheib
should not be held against him as he did not uncover
the case during the course of his reasonable pre-filing
inquiry. Not surprisingly, the district court rejected the
idea that poor legal research could amount to an excuse,
pointing out that a simple natural language search of
“absolute immunity” and “guardian ad litem” in Westlaw
would immediately have uncovered the case. While
No. 08-1506 13
Golden might not be expected to have access to the judi-
ciary’s research tools, this does not excuse bringing a
federal lawsuit in reliance on research tools unable to
locate controlling precedent. The district court was on
firm ground when it concluded that a reasonable search
would have uncovered the Schieb decision, which
had been out for eleven years at the time Golden filed
his suit. See Mars Steel Corp. v. Continental Bank N.A., 880
F.2d 928, 933 (7th Cir. 1989) (en banc).
Nor do we have any trouble reconciling the district
court’s decision to impose sanctions for Golden’s state-
law claims with its conclusion that sanctions were not
warranted for the § 1983 claim. With respect to the latter
claim, the district court took into account the fact that
this court had not yet, at that point, granted guardians
ad litem absolute immunity from suit. This, too, was a
reasonable call. Though Scheib suggested that Golden’s
suit was probably doomed, it dealt only with the doctrine
of absolute immunity under Illinois state law.
Golden’s state-law claims against Thomas, the district
court explained, were sanctionable because well-estab-
lished Illinois case law gave her absolute immunity from
civil liability for making a 911 call. Approaching the
matter from a different perspective, Golden objects that
the district court should not have imposed sanctions
after dismissing the state-law claims for lack of supple-
mental jurisdiction. But, as the Supreme Court explained
in Cooter & Gell v. Hartmarx Corp., 496 U.S. 384 (1990), Rule
11 sanctions address a collateral issue; the violation is
complete when the offending paper is filed, and the court
14 No. 08-1506
remains empowered to address the violation even after
the action is dismissed. Id. at 395.
Closer to the merits, Golden argues that Thomas does
not enjoy absolute immunity for making a false 911 call
since it was recently made a crime to make such a call
in Illinois. See 50 ILCS 750/15.2; 720 ILCS 5/26-1(a)(12);
Chicago Municipal Code § 8-4-145. Before false 911 calls
were criminalized, Illinois courts expansively interpreted
absolute immunity to protect even statements made
with malice. See Vincent v. Williams, 664 N.E.2d 650, 655
(Ill. App. Ct. 1996). He cites no Illinois authority, how-
ever, suggesting that Illinois courts would circumscribe
the scope of the immunity from civil suit in light of the
new criminal statute. Criminal sanctions can coexist
peacefully with the absence of civil liability. In
fact in this situation, Illinois courts might worry that eli-
minating immunity would open the doors to frivolous
lawsuits, which would have a chilling effect on 911 calls.
Golden contends that his claims were not frivolous
because, in his view, the Illinois and municipal statutes
criminalizing false 911 calls created an implied private
cause of action. See 50 ILCS 750/15.2; 720 ILCS 5/26-
1(a)(12); Chicago Municipal Code § 8-4-145. Thomas
counters that Golden forfeited this argument by
making only a brief reference to it in his motion to recon-
sider the judge’s order granting sanctions. See Havoco,
971 F.2d at 1336 (holding argument forfeited if raised
for the first time in a motion to reconsider). We agree
with Thomas that the point is too undeveloped to war-
rant attention here; in any event, we consider it unlikely
No. 08-1506 15
that Illinois would recognize an implied private action
under these circumstances. See Corgan v. Muehling, 574
N.E.2d 602, 609 (Ill. 1991); see also Tanya S. ex rel. Doe 1 v.
N. Cent. Behavioral Health Sys., Inc., 816 N.E.2d 4, 7-8
(Ill. App. Ct. 2004).
Finally, Golden contests the manner in which the
district court calculated the attorneys’ fees and expenses
it ordered Golden to pay. Since the district court sanc-
tioned Golden for only some of the theories he ad-
vanced, it was required to apportion the attorneys’
fees awarded so as to avoid penalizing Golden for
others that fell above the Rule 11 bar. See Divane v. Krull
Elec. Co., 319 F.3d 307, 315 (7th Cir. 2003). This is not
always an easy task. Thus, “where ‘the [movant’s] claims
of relief . . . involve a common core of facts or [are] based
on related legal theories,’ so that ‘much of counsel’s time
will be devoted generally to the litigation as a whole,
making it difficult to divide the hours expended on a
claim-by-claim basis, . . . the district court should focus on
the significance of the overall relief obtained by the
[movant] in relation to the hours reasonably expended on
the litigation.’ ” Ustrak v. Fairman, 851 F.2d 983, 988 (7th
Cir. 1988) (quoting Hensley v. Eckerhart, 461 U.S. 424, 435
(1983)). Given the fact-intensive nature of this inquiry,
district courts enjoy a great deal of discretion in formu-
lating and applying a fee calculation methodology.
Ustrak, 851 F.2d at 988.
In this case, the district court employed a simple “count-
counting” methodology to compute the amount of attor-
neys’ fees and expenses. Under this approach, it examined
16 No. 08-1506
the attorneys’ billing statements and included hours
billed for work related to sanctioned claims and excluded
time spent defending against nonsanctioned counts. The
remaining billing entries did not specify whether the
work was devoted to sanctioned or nonsanctioned counts.
For these fees, the district court divided the total dollar
amount by the number of claims brought against an
individual defendant and then multiplied the resulting
figure by the number of counts for which Golden was
sanctioned. In the end, the court ordered Golden to pay
$16,060.23 to Sigman and $10,856.00 to Thomas.
Golden criticizes the district court’s “count-counting”
methodology on the grounds that it bore too weak a
relation to the time records and resulted in an unrea-
sonably large award—seven-eighths of the total bill—even
though the six state-law claims were dismissed with
little effort. The district court, however, was not com-
pelled to accept Golden’s evaluation of the records. For
example, the court may have thought that Golden
was exaggerating the ease with which the state-law
claims were thrown out; Sigman devoted considerable
attention in her filings to the question of absolute im-
munity and the Rooker-Feldman doctrine. It also could
have reasonably rejected Golden’s contention that the
“count-counting” approach was improper because his
claims did not revolve around a “common core of facts.” Id.
at 988. Viewed more generally, Golden’s claims arose
out of a related series of events arising out of Sigman’s
involvement with the child custody proceedings in state
court.
No. 08-1506 17
Golden also argues that Sigman’s counsel should not
have received $3,095 for litigating the Rule 11 motion
and the fee petition. In attacking the total spent on the
Rule 11 motion, however, the most that Golden can
show is that this court once found that $4,354 was too
much for the preparation of a motion for sanctions. See
Budget Rent-A-Car System, Inc. v. Consolidated Equity LLC,
428 F.3d 717, 718 (7th Cir. 2005). Nothing in the Budget
opinion, however, was intended to set $4,354 as an
outer limit for fees; these matters depend heavily on the
particular circumstances of each case. The district court’s
decision here lay well within the bounds of its discretion,
especially given the lengthy and often frivolous filings
Golden submitted.
Switching over to Thomas’s fee award, Golden con-
tends that Thomas was awarded an unreasonably large
amount of fees given that she allegedly responded to his
state-law claims only with a few brief mentions of her
immunity to suit. If that were so, he might have a point.
But the record tells a different story. Thomas produced six
substantive filings that discussed both immunity and
claim-specific defenses. Golden also asserts that Thomas
charged too much for litigating her Rule 11 motion and
her fee petition: a total of $4,892.50. Assuming that
Golden’s calculation is correct, Thomas received only
half of that amount ($2,446.25) under the district court’s
methodology. In addition, a large amount of Thomas’s
counsel’s time was spent responding to Golden’s numer-
ous objections. As for the hours spent on the fee petition,
the record reveals that Thomas’s counsel billed five-and-a-
half associate hours and a half an hour of partner time.
18 No. 08-1506
Applying the “count-counting” methodology, the district
court awarded only three hours of fees. This is nothing
like Ustrak v. Fairman, 851 F.2d 983, 987-88 (7th Cir. 1988),
in which the court rejected the plaintiff’s request for
fees where the hours spent on the fee petition constituted
a fourth of the total hours billed. Here, the number of
attorney-hours associated with Thomas’s fee petition
amounted to only six percent of the total time billed.
The district court was entitled to treat this as a rea-
sonable charge. See, e.g., Kurowski v. Krajewski, 848 F.2d
767, 777 (7th Cir. 1988).
Diving into the minutia of the billing records supplied by
Sigman’s and Thomas’s attorneys, Golden also raises a
host of minor quibbles with particular billing entries.
As “neither the stakes nor the interest in uniform deter-
mination are so great as to justify microscopic appellate
scrutiny” of attorneys’ billing records, we see no value
in explicitly addressing each of Golden’s objections.
Ustrak, 851 F.2d at 987. We have reviewed the record
thoroughly and are satisfied that the district court’s
award of attorneys’ fees accurately reflects the data
contained in the billing records. We therefore uphold
the district court’s decision ordering Golden to pay
$16,060.23 to Sigman and $10,856.00 to Thomas.
IV
Both Sigman and Thomas have asked this court to
impose sanctions on Golden for pursuing an appeal
that clearly lacked merit. Federal Rule of Appellate Pro-
cedure 38 provides that a court of appeals may impose
No. 08-1506 19
sanctions for a frivolous appeal. We have held that an
appeal qualifies as frivolous if either “the result is obvi-
ous” or “the appellant’s argument is wholly without
merit.” Wiese v. Community Bank of Cent. Wis., 552 F.3d
584, 591 (7th Cir. 2009). Although Golden raised a good
number of frivolous points on appeal, he also drew this
court’s attention to a number of issues that could not be
dismissed out of hand. While it is a closer call than it
should be, we elect not to impose Rule 38 sanctions.
***
We A FFIRM the judgment of the district court.
7-2-10