Third District Rejects Other Challenges to $1,000 Sanctions Award.
Code of Civil Procedure section 177.5 provides that a judicial officer has discretion to impose reasonable monetary sanctions, not to exceed $1.500, payable to the court for any violation of a lawful court order by a witness, party, or party’s attorney if the violation is done without good cause or substantial justification (although the sanction does not apply to advocacy of counsel before the court). This sanctions provision was in play and showcased in the next case we examine.
Virata v. Superior Court, Case No. C060521 (3d Dist. Aug. 19, 2009) (unpublished) involved a criminal attorney who was sanctioned under section 177.5 for violating a court order when she presented evidence that the trial judge had excluded under Evidence Code section 352. The facts are ugly. The judge had earlier chastised the same attorney for disobeying another court order before imposing the sanction on the same attorney who admitted she may have “misspoken” in addressing the court and had “diarrhea of the mouth.” She persisted in trying to get a prior incident into evidence, eventually getting replaced as counsel and being sanctioned $1,000.
Attorney sought mandate, raising a host of errors. None of them succeeded.
She primarily argued that section 177.5 did not apply to criminal proceedings. That lost, because there was abundant authority to the contrary. (People v. Tabb, 228 Cal.App.3d 1300, 1307-1310 (1991).)
The appellate panel especially did not like attorney’s argument that section 177.5 should not apply to criminal in limine orders because, in her experience, such orders are commonly and frequently violated by criminal practitioners. Aside from finding that this argument was “astonishing,” the Court of Appeal noted that “[i]f it is true that some attorneys routinely violate in limine orders in criminal cases, this is a reason to apply, not brush off, section 177.5” (Slip Opn., pp. 7-8 n.3.)