Reason: One Claim Was Not Worthy Of Sanctions, Requiring A Remand.
For you readers wanting a primer of the scope of the res judicata doctrine, this one may be worth reading.
In Zone Sports Center LLC v. Red Head, Inc., Case No. F068984 (5th Dist. July 23, 2015) (unpublished), plaintiffs’ attorney was sanctioned for filing a frivolous complaint in state court after plaintiffs did not have much success at the federal level. The sanctions were levied under CCP § 128.7 against attorney to the tune of $13,685.44 involving a failed restaurant venture called Cabo Wabo Cantina.
The sanctions order was reversed because the entire complaint was not frivolous. Rather, one claim for duress based on death threats was dismissed by the federal court for lack of subject matter jurisdiction, which is not a “merits” ruling for res judicata purposes. So this one was remanded to determine the appropriate sanctions to be imposed on the other claims which were found to be frivolous based on federal “merits” rulings.
BLOG UNDERVIEW—This one brings a smile to co-contributors Marc and Mike. Jim DeMarco, founding partner of Jackson DeMarco Tidus & Peckenpaugh in Irvine, had a dispute where an opposing attorney wrote Jim a letter arguing that a pending lawsuit lacked merit based on the doctrine of “restituticati.” That provoked Mr. DeMarco to write a response letter asking whether that doctrine involved a “red or white sauce.” There you go!
Author: Giovanni JL from Singapore. Wikipedia. Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license.
Department of Corrections: Mr. DeMarco informs us that the correct reference should be to the doctrine of “restitutacata,” but that otherwise the story is correct.