Defendant Simply Having Contradictory Version Of Events Does Not Negate Costs-Of-Proof Sanctions.
Grace v. Mansourian, Case No. G049590 (4th Dist., Div. 3 Aug. 17, 2015) (unpublished) is interesting because our local Santa Ana court, in a 3-0 opinion authored by Justice Thompson, reversed the denial of costs-of-proof sanctions under CCP § 2033.420 for a defendant denying certain liability, injury, and medical treatment RFAS in a personal injury action by a prevailing plaintiff given that his denials were not reasonable in nature. (Defendant was alleged to have “ran” a red light—something he denied, because it was yellow and he “made it” in effect—but the jury awarded plaintiff over $410,000, with plaintiff seeking almost $170,000 in fees and $29,000 in costs under the RFA shifting provision.)
On the liability RFA, the Court of Appeal rejected the notion that a defendant can simply deny the RFA based on a dubious perception he did not run the red light when plaintiff and an independent witness testified otherwise. His denial was not reasonable, because reasonableness is not judged on subjective belief but on whether he reasonably “would prevail on that issue at trial.” (This reasoning was magnified by the fact that the defense designated no liability expert for trial.)
The defense also should have admitted that plaintiff injured his ankle in the accident and this required medical treatment. That, too, was reasonably undisputed. However, the appellate court did find that the defense might dodge some significant costs-of-proof expenses given he did “stipulate in” plaintiff’s medical bills such that some of the RFAs were reasonably denied in light of disputes over the reasonableness of certain treatments. For example, because the defense did stipulate to ankle treatment medical bills, this certainly mitigated any exposure to RFA costs-of-proof sanctions on the ankle injury issue. So, in the end, the matter was remanded for a more refined hearing on what should be awarded under CCP § 2033.420.
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