Legal Question in Civil Litigation in California

Re: Sanctions appeal??

The reply by Adam Telanoff is sound. Cannot add to it.

Re: Sanctions appeal??

Assuming that your case is in a Clifornia state (as opposed to federal) court, there may not be much you can do at the moment. A sanction award in excess of $5,000 is immediately appealable, but lesser sanctions can only be appealed as part of an appeal from the final judgment at the end of the case, or by a petition for extraordinary writ -- which would be expensive to bring and which very well might fail.

Something sounds rather odd about what happened here; there may be other facts which you did not think to mention but which would help me understand the situation better. Did the other side request sanctions in their opposition to your motion to compel? What was the basis of their opposition (aside from the sanctions issue)? Denying your motion to compel because of new counsel seems pretty strange, but to actually sanction you for bringing it makes no sense at all.

Please feel free to call me if you wish, so we can discuss this further.

Re: Sanctions appeal??

There are a number of questions that need to be answered before your question can be answered. The first is What Court are you before.

It does seem very strange. If you had previously received an order compelling responses without objection, and did not get answers; it is hard to imaging losing, much less getting sanctioned.

You cannot practically appeal the sanctions award, but you could ask for reconsideration. You might get the "good" judge again. You probably should have an attorney represent you.

Feel free to contact me for further discussion.