No “Aggrieved Party” Appealed.
Attorneys in complex litigation involving a family corporation were assessed with CCP § 128.7 sanctions for filing a frivolous summary judgment motion on defendant’s behalf. Although the sanctions were originally requested against defendant and the law firm, only the law firm got hit with sanctions, and only the defendant appealed—not the law firm.
You can probably see where this is going in Dohr v. Lintz, Case No. G049660 (4th Dist., Div. 3 July 31, 2014) (unpublished).
Drum roll, if you cannot guess it, if you please. Appeal dismissed.
Reason is pretty basic. An aggrieved party has to appeal, and that happened to be the defense attorneys. (Calhoun v. Vallejo City Unified School Dist., 20 Cal.App.4th 39, 42 (1993).) Although the statute in Calhoun was amended and renumbered, no substantive change took place as far as the issue under consideration. (Code Civ. Proc., § 904.1(b).) Client did not contend she had to personally pay the sanctions under a retention agreement, which—by the way—may be a very important issue in a future case, given many retention agreements say that sanctions have to be paid by the client. (We say maybe, because this sanction was only assessed against the attorneys, not client or not client/attorney—so this may not work anyway.) Attorney did not appeal, so farewell.
This “By the Court” opinion was decided by Justices O’Leary, Fybel, and Ikola.