Result Was That Interest Ran Much Sooner On Costs Than Judgment Debtor Wanted, And $9,087.50 In Sanctions For Boilerplate Objections To Judgment Debtor Discovery Requests Was Affirmed On Appeal Despite Paying Some Postjudgment Costs Earlier.
Max v. Shih, Case No. B344402 (2d Dist., Div. 1 June 29, 2026) (unpublished) primarily related to a situation where a lower court awarded judgment debtor sanctions to judgment creditor. After the Court of Appeal affirmed a 2019 judgment, defendants filed costs memoranda (trial and appellate levels) aggregating $13,788.02, a total never contested. A 2022 amended judgment was issued by the lower court incorporating those costs, with the previous results affirmed on appeal. In 2024, after judgment creditor received no payment, judgment creditor served judgment debtor discovery, which resulted in judgment debtor serving boilerplate objections and producing no documents. Later in 2024, judgment debtor did pay a sum to judgment creditor as “full payment” (with all interest due), but judgment creditor disputed that was the case. Judgment creditor filed motions to compel on the judgment debtor discovery, with the lower court issuing a tentative ruling to award interest for costs and $9,900 for judgment debtor’s failure to respond to discovery. Judgment debtor paid the $4,000 interest amount such that discovery sanctions of $9,087.50 were assessed against judgment debtor and some affiliates.
The 2/1 DCA affirmed.
It first determined that interest on the costs award accrued when the original judgment was entered in 2019, adopting the analysis on this issue in Felzer v. Apple Inc., 63 Cal.App.5th 406, 409-410, 415-418 (2021) [reviewed in our Apr. 28, 2021 post]. The $9,087.50 sanctions award was affirmed because the judgment debtor statute incorporates general CCP discovery misuse sections encompassing a failure to respond and even discovery requests that were mooted by subsequent responses even though the prosecuting party had to force the issue through motions to compel. The appellate court flatly rejected the notion that more general post-judgment judgment debtor discovery provisions trumped the incorporations of more specific sanctions under the Civil Discovery Act.