The Second District Court of Appeal reversed sanctions in 2022, writing in a split opinion that monetary sanctions under 2023.030 can be issued only “to the extent authorized” by another provision of the Civil Discovery Act, but doesn’t give courts independent authority to impose monetary sanctions.
The majority opinion also said that Section 2023.010 describes conduct and lists examples of misuse of the discovery process, but alone, it too doesn’t give independent authority to issue monetary sanctions.
In court papers, the city contended that PwC failed to seek sanctions under the chapters governing specific discovery methods and sanctions, like Chapter 9, which involves deposition conduct, or Chapter 14, which involves inspection demands.
On Wednesday, Poon maintained that courts cannot simply impose sanctions under Section 2023.030 “willy-nilly” and disagreed with the city’s position that courts are powerless to impose monetary sanctions unless they can find something in method-specific provisions of the Discovery Act to do so.
