Justin K. Ayers, et al., Respondents,

This opinion will be unpublished and
may not be cited except as provided by
Minn. Stat. § 480A.08, subd. 3 (2018).

STATE OF MINNESOTA
IN COURT OF APPEALS
A19-1292

Justin K. Ayers, et al.,
Respondents,

vs.

John William Kalal, et al.,
Appellants.

Filed April 6, 2020
Affirmed
Bryan, Judge

Dakota County District Court
File No. 19HA-CV-14-2487

Christopher L. Goodman, Brian M. Hansen, Thompson, Coe, Cousins & Irons, L.L.P., St.
Paul, Minnesota (for respondents)

Dyan J. Ebert, Cally Kjellberg -Nelson, Quinlivan & Hughes, P.A., St. Cloud, Minne sota;
and

Patrick L. Arneson, League of Minnesota Cities, St. Paul, Minnesota (for appellants)

Considered and decided by Bratvold, Presiding Judge; Reyes, Judge; and Bryan,
Judge.
U N P U B L I S H E D O P I N I O N
BRYAN, Judge
Appellants challenge the district court’s decision to a ward attorney fees as a
sanction, arguing that the district court abused its discretion in its choice to exercise its

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inherent authority and in deciding that the conduct in this case merited an award of attorney
fees. Because the district court did not abuse its discretion when it awarded attorney fees
under its inherent authority, we affirm.
FACTS
A. Background and First Appeal
Appellant City of Burnsville employed appellant John William Kalal to conduct
snow removal. In January 2011, a snowplow driven by Kalal collided with a motor vehicle
driven by respondent Justin K. Ayers. At the time of the accident, Kalal was driving the
snowplow across an intersection , but Kalal was not plowing snow . It is undisputed that
Ayers had the right-of-way. Ayers sued Kalal and the city (together, appellants), alleging
that Kalal negligent ly operated the snowplow and that the city was vicariously liable for
Kalal’s negligence.
Appellants raised various immunity defenses in their motion for summary judgment.
At the summary-judgment hearing, the district court expressed concern about appellants’
theories of immunity, asking how a snowplow operator could be immune from a duty to
observe traffic laws. The district court noted its disagreement with such a blanket statement
of the law . At one point, the district court stated that it was problematic to argue that a
snowplow operator could run a stop sign or fail to yield the right-of-way with complete
immunity and regardless of the consequences. In response, appellants argued that because
snowplowing was inherently discretionary, snowplow operators have official immunity to
“roll through” stop signs and “blow” traffic lights in the same way that police officers and

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ambulance drivers have immunity to run red lights . The district court disagreed with this
view of the law and denied appellants’ motion for summary judgment.
Appellants brought an interlocutory appeal, and we affirmed the district court’s
decision. Ayers v. Kalal, No. A15-0694, 2015 WL 9264116, at *1, 3 (Minn. App. Dec. 21,
2015) ( Ayers I ). We concluded that appellants’ claims of immunity were contrary to
established law, which require “[e]very driver crossing a highway on a city street” to
exercise “some judgment as to when it is safe to cross a highwa y.” Id. at *2 (citing
Schroeder v. St. Louis C ty., 708 N.W.2d 497, 506 -08 (Minn. 2006) and Shariss v. City of
Bloomington, 852 N.W.2d 278, 281-82 (Minn. App. 2104)).
B. Jury Trials, Motion for Costs and Disbursements, and Second Appeal
The case proceeded to a jury trial, and the district court ultimately rejected
appellants’ request to include questions regarding snow and ice immunity on the special
verdict form. At the trial, Ayers presented testimony from a medical expert who concluded
that Ayers suffered permanent injuries. Appellants did not obtain a medical expert, procure
any independent medical examination, produce expert testimony at trial, or challenge
through their own evidence Ayers’s medical expert’s opinion that the injury was
permanent. In addition, appellants presented no evidence that something other than Kalal’s
driving conduct caused the injuries to Ayers and did not raise any comparative fault claims.
The jury found that Kalal’s negligence was the direct and only cause of Ayers’s injuries
and determined that Ayers had not suffered a permanent injury as a direct result of the
collision. The jury calculated Ayers’s damages to be $42,178.07.

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Both sides filed post -trial motions. Ayers contested the jury verdict regarding
permanency and moved for judgment as a matter of law for damages greater than those
awarded by the jury or, in the alternative, for a new trial. The district court granted Ayers’s
motion for a new trial because the jury’s verdict was not justified by any reasonable
interpretation of the evidence. The motion for new trial was granted only with respect to
the amount of damages to be awarded for Ayers’s injuries. For their part, appellants also
challenged the verdi ct. Appellants moved the district court to red uce the amount of the
judgment corresponding to the amount of economic loss benefits paid to or on behalf of
Ayers by his no-fault benefits insurer. The district court denied appellants’ offset request.
At the second jury trial, Ayers again presented expert medical testimony regarding
his injuries. Appellants again did not obtain a medical expert, procure any independent
medical examination, produce expert testimony at trial, or challenge Ayers’s medical
expert’s opinion through their own evidence. The second jury awarded damages of
$152,810.07. After the second trial, appellants again moved the district court to deduct
economic loss benefits from the judgment, specifically requesting a reduction in the
amount of $23,000. Ayers moved the district court for entry of final judgment and applied
for costs and disbursements in the amount of $34, 704.03.1 Appellants raised numerous
objections to the disbursements, including objections to the following: a motion filing fee
cost of $107 ; a medical overcharge of $27.82 ; delivery cha rges of $16, $11, and $24 ;
service costs throughout the case totaling $416.32; a medical evaluation charge of $2,500;

1 Ayers initially requested $37,437.03, but amended the request to $34,704.03.

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costs associated with printing and copying approximately 10,000 pages of deposition and
trial exhibits for $2,523.66; Ayers’s mediation fee of $675 ; witness fees of $75 and
$180.44; and $2,835 in costs to prepare transcripts for the summary judgment hearing, a
pretrial hearing, and the first jury trial.
On October 31, 2017, the district court held a hearing regarding the posttrial issues
and appellants’ objections to Ayers’s request for costs and disbursements. During the
hearing, the judicial officer expressed frustration and disbelief. In his 20 years of dealin g
with car accident cases, the judge remarked that he had never seen a lawyer contest these
types of disbursements. The district court criticized the manner in which appellants
litigated, saying that it was unfair to Ayers, the district court, and the Sta te of Minnesota.
The district court characterized appellants’ conduct as outrageous, told Ayers’s counsel to
add up the time spent addressing the objections , and told appellants that “costs are
coming.”2 In the ensuing order, the district court also denied appellants’ motion to offset
damages by $23,000, finding that because the insurer could still assert a subrogation claim
to recover this amount, it was properly included in the judgment . The district court also
awarded Ayers costs and disbursements of $34,602.03.3
Appellants filed a second appeal, seeking review of several issues. Ayers v. Kalal,
925 N.W.2d 291 (Minn. App. 2019) (Ayers II). They contested the district court’s decision

2 Ayers argues that appellants were, therefore, given notice of potential sanctions as of
October 2017.
3 This award was $102 less than the amended amount requested. The district court did not
explain why it denied the full amended amount requested , but presumably it related to
appellants’ objection that a jury fee of $102 was included twice.

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not to ask the first jury for special fi ndings regarding snow and ice immunity. Id. at 295.
In addition, appellants challenged the district court’s decision s to grant a new trial and to
deny appellants’ motion to offset damages by $23,000. Id. at 297, 300. Last, even though
appellants initially objected to a wide variety of disbursements before the district court, on
appeal, appellants only sought review of the pertinent date for calculating prejudgment
interest and the district court’s decision to award one specific cost : a $2,500 cost for
medical evaluation. Id. at 303.
Appellants also moved the district court to stay the execution of proceedings to
enforce judgment pending disposition of the second appeal. The district court held a
hearing, and again criticized the way appellants continued to defend the case. The district
court categorized appellants’ position on immunity as “outrageous” and also pointed out
that appellants had inconsistently applied this defense. It also referenced appellants’ failure
to pay reasonable disbursements and noted that appellants did not retain a medical expert
for the second trial. The district court also focused on appellants’ tactics, their alleged
failure to make a settlement offer at mediation, and their strategy to use this case to deter
future plaintiffs on other cases. The district court stayed enforcement of the judgment
pending this court’s consideration of Ayers II.
We affirmed in part, reversed in part, and remanded in part. Ayers II, 925 N.W.2d
at 303. We affirmed the district court’s decision not to include questions concerning snow
and ice immunity in the special verdict form because Ayers alleged a claim of negligent
driving, not a claim that appellants negligently maintained the roadway:

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Although Kalal was driving a snowplow and th e city is
responsible for maintaining the road, [Ayers’s] claim is not
based on the city’s failure to maintain the roads resulting in
snow or ice accumulation (conduct which the stat ute would
protect). [Ayers’ s] claim is that Kalal negligently failed to
yield the right-of-way to [Ayers] (conduct to which the statute
does not speak).

. . . The relevant statute unambiguously restricts immunity to
claims based on snow or ice conditions. Minn. Stat. § 466.03,
subd. 4(a). Accordingly, and unlike some immunity statutes,
there was no factual question for resolution by the jury in this
case because, regardless of whether snow or ice conditions
were present on the highway, section 466.03, subdivision 4,
does not extend immunity to claims of negligent driving.

Id. at 296 (emphasis in original and footnote omitted ) (applying Hoff v. Surman , 883
N.W.2d 631, 635 (Minn. App. 2016)).
We also affirmed the district court’s decision to grant a new trial on damages . Id.
at 297. The district court did not abuse its discretion when it concluded that the first jury’s
verdict could not stand in light of the unequivocal, unimpeached, and uncontradicted
testimony that “[Ayers] suffered a permanent injury as a result of the collision.” Id. at 300.
We reversed the district court’s decision refusing to reduce the jury’s verdict by the
$23,000 in economic loss benefits that Ayers received , concluding that no subrogation
claim existed. Id. at 302-03. Ayers conceded that the district court had included the $2,500
cost in error. Id. In addition, rather than contest th e date used to calculate prejudgment
interest, Ayers stipulated to appellants’ proposed date. Id. We remanded to the district
court to reduce the cos ts and disbursements by $2,500 and to recalculate prejudgment
interest. Id.

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C. Attorney Fees Award and Current Appeal
Ayers filed a notice of motion and motion requesting that the district court use its
inherent authority to award attorney fees as a sanction for appellants’ bad faith litigation
conduct. The district court subsequently issued an order awarding $5,000 to Ayers and
$3,000 to Ayers’s attorney. The district court listed four findings in support of its order:
In this case, taking into consideration [appellants’]
conduct throughout the nearly five years this case was litigated,
including two trials and two appeals, the Court finds that
[appellants] and their counsel have (1) engaged in bad faith,
vexatious and oppressive litigation conduct, (2) taken positions
that were non -meritorious and that lacked any reasonable
factual and legal basis, (3) unnecessarily delayed the resolution
of this case, and (4) acted with the intent to delay and disrupt
the proceedings before this Court.

These findings rest ed primarily on two general categories of sanctionable conduct
identified by the district court: persisting in meritless immunity defenses and causing
unnecessary disruption and delay throughout the litigation.
The district court noted that appellants pursued, in bad faith, immunity claims that
were contrary to well -established law. For instance, the district court observed that
appellants’ claim of official immunity not only conflicted with Kalal’s own statement s, it
also was contrary to the holdings in Hockenhull v. Strom Constr. Co., 2 N.W.2d 430, 432
(Minn. 1942) (holding that road contractors were liable for common law negligence actions
for failing to exercise due care), and Shariss, 852 N.W.2d at 281 (concluding that immunity
defense did not apply to snowplow operator’s ministerial decision to back up a snowplow
to give a school bus room to pass). The district court also rejected appellants’ claim of
statutory discretionary immunity as contrary to the holding in In re Alexandria Accident of

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Feb. 8, 1994, 561 N.W.2d 543, 549 (Minn. App. 1997) (holding that statutory discretionary
immunity applied only to planning-level policy decisions, not to the day -to-day operation
of government), review denied (Minn. June 26, 1997). Likewise, the district court also
rejected appellants’ claim of statutory snow and ice immunity based on the holding in Hoff,
883 N.W.2d at 635.4 In rejecting appellants’ argument , the district court noted that if
immunity extended to the driving conduct in this case, then “snowplow operators would
be insulated from liability for virtually any act they commit while behind the wheel.” The
district court repeatedly described such immunity theories as “outrageous” and “dubious.”
The d istrict court also based its award on the disruption and delay caused by
appellants: “Yet at every turn, the defense has found ways to delay the proceedings by
contesting issues that have greatly and unnecessarily added to the time and energy this case
required.” The district court provided several examples of this conduct throughout the
case. For instance, the district court criticized appellants for their conduct during
settlement. The district court explained that appellants “made no settlement offer at the
only mediation in this case,” and discredited appellants’ explanation to the contrary: “The
suggestion that the mediator . . . simply failed to communicate a settlement offer is dubious
at best.” In addition, the district court found that appellant s pursued summary judgment
despite questions of fact created by Kalal’s own statements. The district court also
criticized appellants for contesting liability at trial, even though they presented no evidence

4 As noted above, in Ayers I and Ayers II, we reviewed and affirmed the dis trict court’s
rejection of appellants’ various immunity defenses. The defenses were contrary to
established case law.

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that something other than Kalal’s driving condu ct caused the injuries to Ayers and even
though they raised no contributory negligence claims. The district court then pointed to
appellants’ decision to contest damages, even though appellants did not offer contrary
evidence to the testimony of Ayers’s medical expert at either trial. Finally, the district
court determined that appellant s unnecessarily delayed the proceedings by raising many
objections to Ayers’s requested disbursements only to abandon all but one of these
arguments on appeal in Ayers II.
Based on this conduct, the district court determined that appellants acted in bad
faith, awarded $5,000 to Ayers, and awarded $3,000 to Ayers’s attorney. This appeal
follows.
D E C I S I O N
Appellants challenge the award of attorney fees on the following two grounds:
(1) the district court abused its discretion when it chose to use its inherent authority instead
of some other rule - or statute-based authority to award attorney fees , and (2) the district
court abused its discretion in concludi ng that appellants ’ actions warranted the award .
Because the district court did not abuse its broad discretion, we affirm the district court’s
decision to award attorney fees under its inherent authority. 5
District courts possess inherent authority to impose sanctions as necessary to protect
“their vital function —the disposition of individual cases to deliver remedies for wrongs
and justice freely and without purchase; completely and without denial; promptly and

5 Appellants do not challenge the amount or extent of the award.

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without delay, conformable to the laws.” Patton v. Newmar Corp., 538 N.W.2d 116, 118
(Minn. 1995) (quotation omitted). We review a district court’s imposition of sanctions
under its broad inherent authority for abuse of discretion, and will not reverse a district
court’s award of attorney fees absent such an abuse. Peterson v. 2004 Ford Crown
Victoria, 792 N.W.2d 454, 46 1 (Minn. App. 2010 ). State appellate courts in Minnesota
look to the analogous inherent authority held by federal district courts, adopting the same
burden and the same standard of great deference: the party challenging an award of attorney
fees under inherent authority “has the difficult burden of convincing an appellate court that
the trial court abused its discretion —‘a burden which is met only when it is clear that no
reasonable person would agree with the trial court’s assessment of what sanctions are
appropriate.’” Patton, 538 N.W.2d at 119 (quoting Marrocco v. Gen. Motors Corp., 966
F.2d 220, 223 (7th Cir. 1992 )). This deferential abuse-of-discretion standard applies to
both the district court’s choice of authority for sanctions, Patton, 538 N.W.2d at 119 (“The
task of determining what, if any, sanction is to be imposed is implicated by the broad
authority provided the trial court.”), and also to the decision to award sanctions. See, e.g.,
Becker v. Alloy Hardfacing & Eng’g Co., 401 N.W.2d 655, 661 (Minn. 1987).
Appellants initially argue that the district court abused its discretion in deciding to
use its inherent authority, as opposed to Rule 11 of the Minnesota Rules of Civil Procedure
or Minnesota Statutes section 549.211 (2018). Appellants cite to no authority 6 for the

6 Appellants offer expansive interpretation s of two unpublished opinions, but neither
supports appellants’ proposition. In each case, this court declined to adopt a new legal rule,
deciding both cases based on whether the facts supported the sanctions awarded. See
Murrin v. Mosher , No. A09-314, 2010 WL 1 029306, at *9 (Minn. App. Mar. 23, 2010)

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proposition that inherent authority must be reserved only for the most egregious of conduct,
relied on as a last resort after exhausting other available rule or statutory bases to award
attorney fees. While we recognize that statute- and rule-based authority to order sanctions
usually includes procedural limitations, such as safe-harbor provisions, we decline to read
into our inherent authority jurisprudence a new egregiousness threshold . Bad faith and
vexatious, wanton, or oppressive conduct is sufficient:
[D]istrict courts possess inherent authority to impose sanctions
as necessary to protect their “vital function—the disposition of
individual cases to deliver remedies for wrongs and justice
freely and without purchase; completely and without denial;
promptly and without delay, conformable to the laws.” Patton
v. Newmar Corp. , 538 N.W.2d 116, 118 (Minn. 1995)
(quotations omitted) (excluding expert witness testimony for
spoliation of evidence). This includes awarding attorney fees.
Frazier v. Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corp. , 788 N.W.2d
770, 783 (Minn. App. 2010), review granted (Minn. Nov. 23,
2010). Attorney fees may be an appropriate sanction when a
party has “acted in bad faith, vexatiously, wantonly, or for
oppressive reasons.” Chambers v. NASCO, Inc., 501 U.S. 32,
45–46, 111 S. Ct. 2123, 2133, 115 L.Ed.2d 27 (1991) (citation
omitted). A finding of bad faith is necessary before awarding
attorney fees under the court’s inherent power. Roadway
Express, Inc. v. Piper , 447 U.S. 752, 767, 100 S. Ct. 2455,
2465, 65 L.Ed.2d 488 (1980); see also Harlan v. Lewis , 982
F.2d 1255, 1260 (8th Cir.1993) (characterizin g Chambers and
Roadway as setting bad-faith standard for attorney fee awards,
although not for all exercises of inherent power).

(declining to define the extent or the limits of inherent authority and concluding that
“[u]nder the egregious circumstances of this case . . . the district court did not abuse its
discretion by invoking its inheren t authority to impose sanctions ”), review denied (Minn.
Aug. 10, 2010); Mahoney & Emerson v. Private Bank of Minnesota , No. A08-1571, 2009
WL 1852789, at *6-7 (Minn. App. June 30, 2009) (analyzing the conduct in the record and
concluding that the district court abused its discretion in awarding fees under section
549.211, Rule 11, and inherent authority).

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Peterson, 792 N.W.2d at 462. Because the choice of authority for sanctions does not
depend on the egregiousness of the conduc t, we conclude that t he district court did not
abuse its discretion in choosing to use its inherent authority to award sanctions.
Appellants also argue that the conduct in this case was not sanctionable. The record,
however, supports the district court’s decision. The district court identified two general
categories of sanctionable conduct : appellants’ persistent pursuit of immunity claims and
the delay resulting from appellant s’ litigation conduct. We conclude that either or both
categories of appellants’ conduct would support the $8,000 award in this case.
First, the district court did not abuse its discretion in determining that appellants
acted in bad faith, vexatiously, wantonly, or for oppressive reasons in their pursuit of
meritless immunity claims. At the summary judgment hearing, the district court criticized
appellants’ characterization of the law as providing a sweeping protection that relieved
snowplow operators from any responsibility to follow traffic laws. Throughout appellants’
pursuit of its immunity defense s, the district court repeatedly expressed concerns,
characterizing appellants’ view of the law as “dubious” and “outrageous.”
On appeal, this court confirmed that a ppellants’ various immunity claims were
contrary to the law, just as the district court had stated . In doing so, we relied on a long
line of cases regarding such immunity claims. See Ayers I , 2015 WL 9264116, at *2 -3
(common law official immunity); Ayers II, 925 N.W.2d at 296-97 (statutory snow and ice
immunity); see also, e.g. , Schroeder, 708 N.W.2d at 50 5-08 (common law official
immunity); Shariss, 852 N.W.2d at 281-84 (common law official immunity); Hockenhull,
2 N.W.2d at 432 (statutory exception to official immunity); Alexandria, 561 N.W.2d at 548

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(common law official immunity ), 549 (statutory discretionary immunity and statutory
snow and ice immunity); Hoff, 883 N.W.2d at 633-37 (statutory snow and ice immunity).
Appellants have the difficult burden of convincing this court that it is “clear that no
reasonable person would agree with the trial court’s assessment of what sanctions are
appropriate.” See Patton, 538 N.W.2d at 119 (quotation omitted). In this case, we
conclude that appellants have not satisfied this burden.
Second, the district court did not abuse its discretion by basing its award on the
disruption and delay caused by appellants “at every turn” and listing examples, including
the following: questionable tactics during mediation, pursuing summary judgment despite
questions of fact created by Kalal’s own statements , and fail ing to present any evidence
regarding the permanency of Kalal’s injuries, 7 among others. The district court was
perhaps most critical of appellants’ objections to Ayers’s requested costs and
disbursements, which included objections to a motion filing fee, the costs to prepare
necessary transcripts, costs to print and make copies of deposition and trial exhibits, and
several nominal charges for delivery, service, and witness f ees. During the hearing
regarding appellants’ objections, the district court expressed frustration and disbelief. In
his 20 years of dealing with car accident cases, the court remarked that it had never seen a
lawyer contest these ordinary costs and disbursements, characterized appellants’ conduct

7 Refusing to admit liability by itself i s not sanctionable. We conclude that the district
court’s decision found fault with appellants’ actions in light of the uncontested facts of the
case. Similarly, we conclude that the district court determined that appellants were
contesting liability in bad faith, whe n they chose not to present evidence that would
contradict Ayers’s claims of negligence or that would show comparative fault.

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as “unfair” and “outrageous,” and put appellants on notice that sanctions were coming.
After review of the costs requested and the objections, we conclude that appellants cannot
establish the difficult burden to reverse the award. On this record, we cannot agree that all
reasonable persons would disagree with the district court’s assessment.
Affirmed.