Per Curiam
After returning to work after medical leave, Walmart fired Muhammad due to a verbal outburst at managers. That same night a female coworker was hurt in a disturbance with her boyfriend. Walmart deemed her a domestic violence victim and did not fire her. Muhammad charged Walmart with bias. Despite checking the pro se complaint form’s boxes for Title VII and disability bias, he did not check boxes for race or gender discrimination. Attorney Agola—who has a long disciplinary history—represented Muhammad thereafter. Opposing summary judgment, she asserted that Muhammad pleaded a gender discrimination claim, which he had not. District court sanctioned Agola $7,500, deeming frivolous her claim that the liberal pleading standard afforded pro se complaints meant Muhammad’s complaint should be read to include a gender bias claim. Second Circuit vacated the sanction. Despite stating its application of the bad faith standard in In re Pennie & Edmonds, district court applied an objective reasonableness test. Its couching of conclusion in terms of what “any competent attorney” would have done, and its discussion of Agola’s incompetent practice in other areas were insufficient to show subjective bad faith.
