Citing Legal Precedent, Dissenting Justice Would Have Affirmed – Seeing No Basis For “The Majority’s Unprecedented Statutory Analysis.”
Nine months after plaintiff dismissed with prejudice its case in City of Los Angeles v. PricewaterhouseCoopers, LLC, Case No. B310118 (2d Dist., Div. 5 October 20, 2022) (published), PricewaterhouseCoopers (“PWC”) moved for monetary sanctions pursuant to Code Civ. Proc. §§ 2023.010 and 2023.030 for the ongoing discovery abuses committed by City of Los Angeles. The trial court awarded PWC $2.5 million of the $8,356,852 it sought as a baseline amount – apparently declining PWC’s suggestion that an increase of $1 million or more over the baseline amount would be an appropriate exercise of the trial court’s discretion based on the egregious nature of City’s discovery abuse. City appealed.
The appellate panel concurred in its disagreement as to two of City’s contentions – that the trial court had no jurisdiction to rule on the sanctions motion after the case was dismissed with prejudice, and that the sanctions motion was untimely. First, when the trial court is authorized to impose monetary sanctions, it retains jurisdiction after the lawsuit is dismissed to rule on the issue as a collateral matter. Second, City showed no abuse of discretion as to the trial court’s implicit finding that PWC’s sanctions motion was timely.
However, it was with City’s third contention that there was a split in the panel’s conclusion. The majority agreed with City – that §§ 2023.010 and 2023.030 are definitional statutes that, standing alone or read together, do not authorize the trial court to impose sanctions. Finding that the trial court abused its discretion by awarding monetary sanctions outside its statutory authority, the majority reversed and remanded for the trial court to enter a new order on the monetary sanctions under provisions of the Discovery Act other than sections 2023.010 and 2023.030. Specifically, the majority concluded that section 2023.010 merely describes general categories of discovery abuse, but does not authorize the trial court to impose sanctions for discovery abuse, and that section 2023.030 describes the type of sanctions available under the Discovery Act when another provision authorizes a sanction, but does not independently authorize the trial court to impose monetary sanctions for discovery abuse.
Justice Grimes (Division 8 justice sitting by assignment) dissented from Presiding Justice Rubin’s and Justice Moor’s conclusion on this issue – finding no basis “in statutory law, case law, or common sense” for “the majority’s unprecedented statutory analysis.” Citing legal precedent, Justice Grimes concluded that the “[t]o the extent authorized” language of section 2023.030 relates to type of sanction – giving authority to impose the type of sanction in question, and that legal precedent supports the imposition of various types of sanctions under section 2023.030 for discovery abuse without regard to the requirements of other Discovery Act provisions. (Kwan Software Engineering, Inc. v. Hennings, 58 Cal.App.5th 57 (2020) [discussed in our December 3, 2020 post]; London v. Dri-Honing Corp., 117 Cal.App.4th 999 (2004).) Additionally, Justice Grimes found no principle of appellate review to require a trial court to recite the specific statutes it found were violated – so long as the trial court adequately explains its analysis and findings in support of an order. Given that the trial court described at length the discovery abuses for which sanctions were imposed – which Justice Grimes described as being “egregious discovery abuse that is unmatched in my experience” – remanding the case back to the trial court for the purpose of fleshing out the separate discovery statute for each particular discovery violation was adverse to the Legislative intent.
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