Sanctions Against Counsel Before They Appeared In The Action Had To Be Carved Out.
Alanic International Corp. v. Wilson Trial Group, Case No. B334512 (2d Dist., Div. 3 July 23, 2025) (unpublished) is a good refresher for litigants and their counsel to remember that as litigation progresses and there are admissions that there are problems with a case, parties and their counsel need to heed CCP § 128.7 sanctions requests and abandon non-meritorious claims.
Although the case is procedurally convoluted, litigants basically made deposition admissions which compromised their claims after the pleadings were filed. They did not make any corrective actions after section 128.7 safe harbor pleadings were filed, which resulted in the other side moving for about $335,000 in sanction fees, but with the lower court awarding $105,000.
The appeal by one set of attorneys was successful, although the appellate court reiterated that litigants/counsel need to “throw in the towel” if faced with a sanctions request where the case has been compromised (although us bloggers would argue this should be done voluntarily). That means that there is a monitoring effort by litigants/counsel to avoid sanctions where further prosecution of the case is not viable. However, the appellate panel did send back for a remand based on some attorneys only appearing at a certain stage such that sanctions could not be justified until their involvement.