Appellate Court Found Basis Existed For Sanctions, But Required Greater Clarity Especially Given That Bar Discipline Could Be At Issue.
An attorney in American Express Bank FSB v. Singh (Abdeljawad), Case No. E074042 (4th Dist., Div. 2 Dec. 30, 2020) (unpublished) violated a court order to personally appear at a Fall 2019 hearing to address a possible forgery of a substitution of attorney. Instead, the attorney telephonically appeared because he was in Chicago on a family visit, eschewing the option to come back one day earlier to comply with the lower court’s order. The lower court was not impressed, setting a later hearing to impose sanction not to exceed $1,500 under “all remedies available to the court pursuant to CCP §§ 128.6, 177.5, 575.2, CRCs and Riverside Local Rules of Court, and/or other statute or existing case precedent.” At the subsequent hearing, the lower court sanctioned attorney $1,000 for not making a personal appearance, payable to the clerk of the court, but did not specify the specific statute or the conduct giving rise to the sanctions in its written order.
The 4/2 DCA reversed and remanded for a do-over on due process grounds. Although it was inferable that the sanctions were imposed under CCP § 177.5 and there was cause for imposition of them, the failure to explain the conduct or circumstances justifying the order required a re-do—especially given that the explanation may be valuable in determining whether additional discipline was warranted (given that the sanction was reportable to the State Bar). (See Caldwell v. Samuels Jewelers, 222 Cal.App.3d 970, 977 (1990).)
The moral of the story here is to make sure you, as attorney practitioners, obey an edict to personally attend a hearing or get the matter continued so that you can comply.
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