Judge Mark H. Epstein, Case Number: 19SMCV00133, Date: 2024-11-25 Tentative Ruling

Judge: Mark H. Epstein, Case: 19SMCV00133, Date: 2024-11-25 Tentative Ruling

If the parties wish to submit on the tentative ruling and avoid a court appearance on the matter, the moving party must contact the opposing party and all other parties who have appeared in the action and confirm that each will submit on the tentative ruling. Please call the court no later than 4:30 p.m. on the court day before the hearing, leave a message with the court clerk at (310) 260-3629 advising her that all parties will submit on the tentative ruling and waive hearing, and finally, serve notice of the Court's ruling on all parties entitled to receive service. If any party declines to submit on the tentative ruling, then no telephone call is necessary, and all parties should appear at the hearing.

Case Number: 19SMCV00133 Hearing Date: November 25, 2024 Dept: I

The court set this OSC re: sanctions because of the failure to follow the court’s orders regarding the prior FSC. At the prior hearings, the court was disappointed because the work had not been done and the parties were essentially blaming each other for the failure to complete the work and took essentially no responsibility (with the exception of counsel for Beverly Hills, who took some responsibility). At the most recent hearing, the court was left with the impression that essentially no one (other than counsel for Beverly Hills) really thought they had done anything wrong or problematic, but that the other parties had acted poorly such that it was their fault. That is what led the court to issue the order that it did.

Since that time, all parties have submitted supplemental declarations. In each, counsel states that she or he accepts responsibility for the failure to file appropriate FSC materials in a timely way. While all give explanations, all are also careful to state that the explanations are more for context than to say that the declarant has no responsibility for the issue. Further, counsel for WCA states that the firm has put into a place a more general system to calendar upcoming FSC’s and ensure that work begins on that hearing well in advance of the hearing.

The purpose of the OSC seems to have been accomplished. The court was, frankly, more than a little bit disappointed that at the prior hearing many counsel spent the bulk of the time explaining why the problem was the fault of the other parties and minimizing each counsel’s own role in the issue. The court did not, and does not, see it that way. Rather, for whatever reasons, no one took the court seriously when it set the trial date and warned the parties that they could not get the work done in a week or two, but rather needed to meet and confer two or three months in advance. The result was a comedy of errors in which essentially nothing was done in a timely fashion or done right. That is disrespectful to the court, but more importantly to the jury. We ask venires to spend a day or two through the voir dire process at $15/day, many of whom then get sent home. We ask jurors and alternates to sit through a trial—and this one could last for a while—again at $15/day. Jurors are entitled to respect if they are going to volunteer their time. That means making the trial as efficient as possible, and that is the point of the FSC and making sure that problems are front-loaded and resolved before the jury is called. Where the parties do not complete a good faith process regarding the FSC, the trial looks like amateur hour, with too many breaks, too many side bars, and too many problems. The jury’s precious time is wasted and the jurors are left with the feeling that this branch of government functions poorly and that our system of justice is broken. There is always room for improvement and no trial runs perfectly, this court will not allow counsel to cause jurors to view the court system in that way nor will the court allow counsel to waste the jurors’ time because they did not bother to do what the court ordered be done.

In any event, the declarations suggest that counsel now shares the court’s understanding of the importance of working to get the case ready for trial in a timely way and cooperatively.

That leaves the question of sanctions. The court will take counsel at their collective words. Assuming such to be the case, the question is whether the sanctions serve any legitimate purpose or whether they are really a form of contempt citation without the due process. Here, the court does not believe that the sanctions are needed to change behavior going forward or to ensure that the matter will be well and truly ready for trial on the new trial date of April 7, 2025. Nor did the court suffer a monetary injury that is best addressed by a monetary sanction. While the court’s calendar was affected (as it turns out, the court was available to try the case on the scheduled date), payment of money will not change that now. Rather, the sanctions would be imposed for the sole purpose of punishment. Punishment has its place, but the court is slow to issue a sanction for sanction’s sake alone. The court therefore believes that imposition of monetary sanctions, even against just the law firms generally and not individual counsel or clients, is not needed to change behavior and does not really “compensate” anyone. It might well drive home the court’s position, but the court will accept counsel for the professionals that they are and view the “drive home” justification as unnecessary.

Because it appears to the court’s satisfaction that the conduct in question will not repeat—in this case or any other—the court believes that there is no valid purpose served in imposing sanctions and the court therefore declines to do so. The OSC is DISCHARGED.