Second District, Division 2 Affirms And Awards $5,000 For a Frivolous Appeal.
In our category “Requests for Admissions,” we have discussed numerous cases examining the “costs of proof” sanctions under Code of Civil Procedure section 2033.420 for litigants that unreasonably deny RFAs for matters later proven true at trial. (The most potent sanction is that attorney’s fees are within the ambit of what can be recovered.) In the next case, we report on one that really stung two defendants, with the appellate court reminding us that the status of the primary litigant—in this case, an individual defendant who was assistant general counsel for Toyota Motor Sales USA, Inc.—does carry weight in the ultimate result reached by the court.
Grant v. Toyota Motor Sales USA, Inc., Case No. B220766 (2d Dist., Div. 2 Sept. 20, 2010) (unpublished) involved a pedestrian who was hit by an assistant general counsel of Toyota, who denied fault-based RFAs even after he (the defendant driver) admitted during his deposition that he struck defendant in a crosswalk and failed to yield to the pedestrian. Yikes! The matter proceeded to trial, with the jury awarding plaintiff $623,990 for medical expenses, economic losses, and pain/suffering.
That was hardly the conclusion of the litigation. Plaintiff then moved for $139,610 in attorney’s fees, expert witness fees and other expenses under the RFA “costs of proof” provision. The trial court granted her sanctions of $123,455 ($84,875 of which constituted of attorney’s fees).
Defendants, driver and Toyota (with the company owning the vehicle driven by assistant general counsel), appealed.
They must be seriously disappointed with what happened upon review.
The appellate court found no abuse of discretion in the RFA “costs of proof” award, especially given that the RFAs on fault were central to the case and that assistant general counsel/Toyota certainly knew about the importance of the answering such RFAs.
The main problem was that there were independent witnesses and police reports suggesting that driver was clearly at fault in striking pedestrian, not to mention driver’s deposition admissions that may have established negligence outright. The appellate court found that “[t]he only issue that should have been tried was the extent of [plaintiff’s] damages.” (Slip Opn., p. 9.) Ouch!
Defendants argued that section 2033.420 was a constitutionally impermissible penalty, but that argument was rejected given that it was designed to reimburse reasonable expenses incurred by a party in proving the truth of a requested admission—put another way, compensatory, not penal in nature, was the object of the statute.
Then, the appellate panel considered a request for sanctions against the defense in bringing a frivolous appeal. It agreed, finding the legal and factual record was not close at all. Appellate verdict: RFA sanctions affirmed, and $5,000 frivolous appeal sanctions assessed against defendants and their appellate counsel, jointly and severally.
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