First District is Not Amused and Concludes Appeal Represented the “Acme of Frivolity.” You know you are in trouble when the first sentence of an appellate opinion reads like this: “The time has come to put an end to appellant Astarte Davis-Rice’s seemingly unquenchable thirst for litigation—and her egregious waste of […]
Court of Appeal Observes that $1,000 Monetary “Cap” in CCP section 473 Only Applies to 473 Awardable Sanctions. Code of Civil Procedure section 473(b) authorizes a trial court to relieve a party from judgment taken against him/her through mistake, inadvertence, surprise, or excusable neglect. The court has discretion to allow relief
Fourth District, Division Three Rejects Hitting Husband With Six Figure Sanction and Commends Lower Court for Its Restraint. Family Code section 271’s sanctions has been discussed in several previous posts: July 8, 2008—In re Marriage of MacIntyre and In re Marriage of Falcon & Fyke and July 17, 2008—In re Marriage
Fourth District, Division Three Issues Sanctions for Appeal of a Moot Issue. Under “Cases: Sanctions,” we have discussed the standards governing imposition of sanctions for frivolous appeals, with In re Marriage of Flaherty, 31 Cal.3d 637, 654 (1982) being the seminal case in the area. The next case, which had already
Second District, Division Six Affirms Sanctions Award. Code of Civil Procedure section 1008(a) is a statutory provision allowing an impacted party to move for reconsideration of an order within 10 days after service of notice of the order if there are new facts, circumstances or law that should be taken into
Fifth District Reminds Appealing Litigants and Appellate Counsel That They Should Not “Bait and Switch” or Simply “Vent Their Spleen” Before the Appellate Courts. The next case we discuss reinforces that appellate practice has different rules, with litigants needing to carefully assess whether they have some legal or factual errors of
Sixth District Affirms Fee Award Against Joined Parties. In our posts of July 7, 8, 17, and 23, 2008, we explored the attorney’s fees sanction codified in Family Code section 271. The next case involves an interesting twist: fee sanction awards against joined, nonspouse parties to a dissolution case.
Fourth District, Division Two Reverses Fee Awards Against Defendants and Their Counsel. Defendants and their counsel lost a motion to disqualify plaintiffs’ counsel in an unlawful detainer trial. The trial court ordered that losing defendants and their counsel, jointly and severally, pay plaintiffs’ attorney’s fees of $8,776.25, as sanctions, under Code
Lombardo and Qualcomm Typlify Cases Sustaining Substantial Fee Awards in E-Discovery Disputes. About a year ago, LiveOffice, an on-demand messaging security provider, released these fascinating findings based on a nationwide survey: · 53% of 400 IT managers and consumers admitted that they were not in position to meet federal
First District Reverses Fee Sanctions Award and Award to State Under Code of Civil Procedure section 1038, But Affirms 998 Award to State. This next case establishes that fee sanctions must have a firm basis in legislatively-authorized statutes (or implementing rules) that have solid due process protections. Relying only on inherent
