Word To The Wise—Both Losing Plaintiff And Plaintiff’s Counsel Should Appeal The Sanctions Award.
The Inland Oversight Comm. v. Yates, Case No. E064787 (4th Dist., Div. 2 Dec. 8, 2016) (unpublished) is a decision having a good cautionary lesson for a nonprevailing plaintiff and its counsel when plaintiff’s attorney is hit with CCP § 128.7 after involuntary dismissal of the lawsuit. It teaches both should file a notice of appeal if they want to challenge the sanctions ruling against the attorney.
Here, defendant won a demurrer without leave, later filing a section 128.7 motions for sanctions. The lower court granted $15,000 in sanctions against plaintiff’s counsel, prompting an appeal by plaintiff (but not plaintiff’s sanctioned counsel).
That was a mistake. The appellate court dismissed the appeal after finding that plaintiff had no standing to appeal because it was not aggrieved. Plaintiff tried to rely on Eichenbaum v. Alan, 106 Cal.App.4th 967, 974 (2003) and Kane v. Hurley, 30 Cal.App.4th 859, 861 fn. 4 (1994) to drive a contrary result, but the 4/2 DCA panel found them distinguishable—involving sanctions jointly imposed (such that the notice of appeal by plaintiff sufficed) and/or resting on shaky analytical ground with respect to Eichenbaum. Appeal dismissed.