Sanctions

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In the case of City of L.A. v. PricewaterhouseCoopers, LLC (2024) 17 C5th 46 the California Supreme Court unanimously held that the Discovery Act gives courts independent authority to impose sanctions for discovery abuses and patterns of discovery abuse provisions. This was a complete reversal of the Court of Appeal’s decision which had limited the ability to obtain sanctions to the specific discovery device decision. In their decision, the Supreme Court stated that

Continue Reading The Court has Inherent Power to Impose Discovery Sanctions

“Under the general sanctions provisions of the Civil Discovery Act, Code of Civil Procedure sections 2023.010 and 2023.030, the trial court had the authority to impose monetary sanctions for the City’s pattern of discovery abuse. The court was not limited to imposing sanctions for each individual violation of the rules governing depositions or other methods of discovery.” at pages 50-51. 

Continue Reading The Court has Inherent Power to Impose Discovery Sanctions

I recently received an inquiry regarding Code of Civil Procedure section 2023.050, which now states that the court SHALL impose sanctions of $1000 payable to the requesting party regarding requests for production of documents in deposition notices or document demands.  These were the facts:   

Plaintiff brought a Motion to Compel Further Responses to Requests for Production of Documents.  Defendant opposed the motion and won.  The Judge then sanctioned the Defendant $1000.00 stating that he had no choice but to sanction the defendant pursuant to CCP 2023.050 as Plaintiff asked for sanctions and Defendant didn’t.  The Judge also told defense counsel that if Defendant had asked for sanctions, he would have awarded Defendant the $1000.00.  Defense counsel was bewildered with the imposition of sanctions and asked me if the Judge was correct. 

No, the Judge was not correct.  Code of Civil Procedure §2023.050 states:Continue Reading Should I have been Sanctioned?

Many motions for terminating sanctions are denied due to the papers being deficient due to a lack of a showing of abuse and prejudice.
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Continue Reading When Money is Not Enough–The Request for “Drastic Sanctions”

The greatest discovery abuses come from responses to Requests for Production of Documents.  Many responses contain a myriad of garbage objections, fail to contain a privilege log, along with producing documents that are not organized by category. Due to the responding party’s failure to comply with Codes of Civil Procedure § 2031.220, §2031.230, §2031.2400 and §2031.280, a motion to compel further responses and production of documents is the most common motion on the court’s docket. It is also the most time-consuming motion to not only prepare, but for the court to rule on.

On January 1, 2020, Code of Civil Procedure §2023.050 became effective which imposes mandatory sanctions for motions regarding Requests for Production of Documents. This new statute requires the court to impose mandatory sanctions on motions involving requests for production of documents. This sets up a party’s ability to bring issue, evidence and terminating sanctions as there will be an adjudication of prior discovery abuse.Continue Reading New Discovery Sanction Regarding Requests for Production of Documents


I have always been a strong advocate that you should be awarded sanctions if you had to bring a motion to get the relief you were entitled to even if the other side complied prior to the hearing on the motion.  However in the case of Evilsizor v. Sweeney (2014) 230 CA4th 1304, the First District Court of Appeal had an interesting take on the issue.


Continue Reading Should you withdraw your motion if the other side has complied?

W. George Wailes, a Business Trial Attorney and Director at Carr McClellan, in Burlingame, CA brings us this warning from the California Court of Appeal about what could happen to a third party that refuses to comply with a subpoena for electronically stored information.

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The California Court of Appeal recently provided rare guidance regarding a third party’s obligations to produce electronically stored information (ESI) in response to a subpoena.  In Vasquez v. California School of Culinary Arts, Inc. (Sallie Mae) (2014) 230 CA4th 35, the court defined subpoenaed parties’ obligations to extract existing data from computer systems and upheld an award of attorneys’ fees against the recalcitrant third party.  The court concluded that it is unreasonable for a third party to withhold ESI that exists in its computer systems on the basis that outputting the ESI entails creating a “new” spreadsheet.

Continue Reading A Third-Party Can Expect Sanctions for Ignoring a Subpoena for Electronically Stored Information

Nine months after the Special Interrogatories were propounded, the Discovery Referee, found that the plaintiffs had “deliberately misconstrued the question” as to economic damages and determined that “the objections and each of them to be unreasonable, evasive, lacking in legal merit and without justification”. Clement at 1284 The Referee recommended that the motion to compel further responses be granted and that plaintiffs were to reimburse defendant $4,950.00 for legal fees, $40 for filing the motions to compel and $1,642.50 for defendants portion of the Discovery Referee’s fees for a total sanction of $6,632.50. The trial court agreed with the recommendation.
Continue Reading Garbage Objections = Sanctions

When I started this blog I asked fellow attorneys what issues they would like me to address. I received this response from a lawyer in San Francisco:

Key problem – judges that won’t crack down on parties that lodge bogus objections and don’t answer interrogs, and object to discovery demands that are straight forward. Amount of sanctions awarded is usually pitiful.
Continue Reading SANCTIONS–DENIED!!!