City of Los Angeles v. Pricewaterhousecoopers, LLP

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF

CALIFORNIA

CITY OF LOS ANGELES,

Plaintiff and Appellant,

v.

PRICEWATERHOUSECOOPERS, LLP,

Defendant and Respondent.

S277211

Second Appellate District, Division Five

B310118

Los Angeles County Superior Court

BC574690

August 22, 2024

Justice Kruger authored the opinion of the Court, in which

Chief Justice Guerrero and Justices Corrigan, Liu, Jenkins,

Evans, and Snauffer* concurred.

*

Associate Justice of the Court of Appeal, Fifth Appellate

District, assigned by the Chief Justice pursuant to article VI,

section 6 of the California Constitution.

CITY OF LOS ANGELES v.

PRICEWATERHOUSECOOPERS, LLP

S277211

Opinion of the Court by Kruger, J.

The City of Los Angeles filed a lawsuit against a private

contractor. The contractor sought discovery relevant to the

claims and defenses. After years of stonewalling, the City

eventually turned over information revealing serious

misconduct in the initiation and prosecution of the lawsuit. The

trial court found that the City had been engaging in an

egregious pattern of discovery abuse as part of a campaign to

cover up this misconduct. The court ordered the City to pay $2.5

million in discovery sanctions.

The central question before us is whether the trial court

had the authority to issue the order under the general provisions

of the Civil Discovery Act concerning discovery sanctions, Code

of Civil Procedure sections 2023.010 and 2023.030. The Court

of Appeal in this case answered no. Bucking the long-prevailing

understanding of these provisions, the appellate court read the

Civil Discovery Act as conferring authority to sanction the

misuse of certain discovery methods, such as depositions or

interrogatories, but as conferring no general authority to

sanction other kinds of discovery misconduct, including the

pattern of discovery abuse at issue here.

We now conclude the prevailing understanding of the Civil

Discovery Act was, in fact, correct: Under the general sanctions

provisions of the Civil Discovery Act, Code of Civil Procedure

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sections 2023.010 and 2023.030, the trial court had the

authority to impose monetary sanctions for the City’s pattern of

discovery abuse. The court was not limited to imposing

sanctions for each individual violation of the rules governing

depositions or other methods of discovery. We reverse the Court

of Appeal’s judgment to the contrary.

I.

A.

In 2010, the City of Los Angeles contracted with

PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) to modernize the billing system

for the City’s Department of Water and Power (LADWP). The

rollout of the new billing system did not go smoothly. When the

system went live in 2013, it sent inaccurate or delayed bills to a

significant portion of the City’s population.

In March 2015, following the botched rollout, the City filed

suit against PwC. In a complaint filed by the City’s attorneys

and special counsel Paul Paradis, Gina Tufaro, and Paul Kiesel,

the City alleged that PwC had fraudulently misrepresented its

qualifications to undertake the LADWP billing modernization

project. Then, about a month later, in April 2015, attorney Jack

Landskroner, representing Los Angeles resident Antwon Jones,

filed a putative class action against the City on behalf of

overbilled LADWP customers (Jones v. City of Los Angeles). The

two lawsuits were assigned to the same trial judge. (City of Los

Angeles v. PricewaterhouseCoopers, LLC (2022) 84 Cal.App.5th

466, 477 (City of L.A.).)

Instead of filing an answer to the Jones v. City of Los

Angeles complaint, the City quickly entered into negotiations

with Landskroner. On August 7, 2015, the parties arrived at a

preliminary settlement agreement, which provided that the City

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Opinion of the Court by Kruger, J.

would reimburse 1.6 million LADWP customers the full amount

by which they were overcharged; that it would implement

“remedial and corrective measures” that the City valued at

approximately $20 million; and that it would award up to $19

million in attorney’s fees to plaintiffs’ counsel. In the end, the

settlement resulted in a payment of $10.3 million in attorney’s

fees to Landskroner. The City publicly announced its intent to

recover the full cost of the Jones v. City of Los Angeles settlement

in its lawsuit against PwC.

Meanwhile, over the next five years, pretrial discovery in

the PwC case would gradually reveal a more substantial

connection between the two lawsuits: Counsel for the City had

been behind the Jones v. City of Los Angeles lawsuit, and they

had sought to engineer the litigation so that the City could

definitively settle all of the claims brought by overbilled

customers while passing the costs of the settlement in a suit

against PwC.

This story, which would ultimately result in federal

criminal charges for some of the actors involved, was not

immediately — or willingly — revealed. At the outset of the

litigation, PwC served discovery requests for production relating

to the merits of the City’s claims. In January 2017, the City

served a privilege log to PwC with over 19,000 entries, almost

all of which were described in identical terms: as “concerning

investigation performed at the direction of counsel to assist in

analyzing and preparing advice concerning attorney-directed

remediation and LADWP’s legal rights and remedies.” The vast

majority of these documents did not, however, appear to be

communications to or from a lawyer. More than 17,000

documents were marked as attorney work product but appeared

to have no attorney involvement, and more than 1,100

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Opinion of the Court by Kruger, J.

documents were marked as protected by attorney-client

privilege but did not show an attorney as the sender or recipient.

Despite the fact that the City was the plaintiff in this action and

the defendant in the suit brought by Jones, one of the documents

that the City had labeled as attorney work product was titled

“Jones v. PwC – Initial Complaint – FINAL.DOC,” with a date

of January 24, 2015. No author was listed.

PwC responded by filing a motion to compel production of

documents improperly withheld as privileged. It sought

production of the more than 18,000 documents that had been

withheld on grounds of attorney work product or attorney-client

privilege despite having no apparent attorney involvement. The

court ordered production of the documents withheld based on

attorney work product and denied the motion as to the

documents withheld on the basis of attorney-client privilege, but

it also ordered the City to produce a refined privilege log with

descriptions that would allow the court to determine whether

the documents were in fact privileged. In response, the City

produced an updated privilege log with 1,547 entries, including

the draft Jones v. PwC complaint listed on the previous privilege

log. The City described the complaint as “Document created by

counsel containing legal advice and work product concerning the

claims asserted in this action.”

In May 2017, PwC served another set of requests for

production seeking all communications between the LADWP

and Jones’s counsel before August 7, 2015. In response, the City

claimed that the LADWP had not sent any documents to Jones’s

counsel before the day of the settlement agreement. It also

asserted that the only responsive document to the requests for

production was the comprehensive settlement demand from

Jones, which it claimed was protected by a

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“settlement/mediation” privilege. After counsel for PwC

observed that the settlement demand did not appear on any

privilege log, the City produced a revised privilege log in

September 2017, where it continued to list the draft Jones v.

PwC complaint as privileged.

PwC filed another motion to compel production. In

response, the City claimed for the first time that the draft Jones

v. PwC complaint was protected by the attorney-client privilege

as well as attorney work product protection. At a hearing on the

motion to compel in December 2017, Paradis stated that he

drafted the complaint, and the court asked him why he drafted

“a complaint for a plaintiff that’s not the City.” Paradis claimed

that the complaint was “drafted . . . for the City” as part of an

effort to explore “different legal strategies, different legal

theories.” When the court asked Paradis how Antwon Jones’s

name ended up on the complaint, Paradis stated that Jones’s

name had been chosen out of the group of people who had been

complaining to the department. Paradis averred that the draft

complaint had never been provided to anyone other than the

City.

The court reserved decision on the motion to compel, but

in January 2018 it issued an order instructing the City to

produce the person most qualified (PMQ) to testify about the

creation of the Jones v. PwC draft complaint. The City, however,

did not produce a PMQ witness until after PwC filed a motion

for compliance with the court’s order. Eventually, in September

2018 — more than eight months after the court had originally

issued its order on the PMQ deposition — the City produced

then-Chief Assistant City Attorney Thomas Peters, with

Paradis acting as his attorney. Peters, however, produced none

of the documents called for by PwC’s deposition notice, despite

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the fact that the City had not objected to the requests listed in

the notice. He also admitted that he did not prepare for the

deposition and did not do any investigation into whether the

City had any documents responsive to the deposition notice.

Peters also claimed that he had directed Paradis to draft the

Jones v. PwC complaint as a “thought experiment,” and he

represented that he did not know who Jones’s counsel was at the

time the draft complaint was prepared. When PwC asked about

the City’s knowledge of a preexisting relationship between

Paradis and Landskroner — the lawyer who had represented

Jones in the Jones v. City of Los Angeles matter — Paradis

ended the deposition. Several weeks later, the City filed a

motion for a protective order with respect to the PMQ

deposition, and PwC responded by filing a motion to compel the

PMQ deposition and for monetary sanctions.

The court held a hearing on PwC’s motion on December 5,

2018, and a hearing on the City’s motion for a protective order

on December 12, 2018. In the first hearing, special counsel Paul

Kiesel repeated the claim that the City Attorney’s Office had

instructed counsel to prepare the Jones v. PwC complaint. But

upon further questioning by the court, Kiesel eventually

admitted that members of the City’s special counsel had been

retained by Jones. He stated that the special counsel’s

relationship with Jones was not adverse to the City until Jones

decided he wanted to pursue an action against the City, at which

point the relationship with Jones ended. After the hearing, the

City filed multiple requests for extensions of time and a never-

before-raised “common interest privilege” objection to the

deposition notice, but the court ultimately granted PwC’s

motion to compel the City’s continued PMQ deposition, ordered

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PwC to depose Jones and Landskroner, and ordered the City to

produce all documents called for in the PMQ deposition notice.

The City finally produced a copy of the caption and

signature pages of the draft Jones v. PwC complaint, which

listed the City’s special counsel — Paradis, Kiesel, and

Tufaro — as counsel for Antwon Jones. The City, however,

continued to refuse to provide responsive documents to the other

requests for production in the PMQ deposition notice.

Meanwhile, PwC’s deposition of Jones revealed that, contrary to

Kiesel’s representations, Jones had intended to file a suit

against the City from the beginning. The deposition also

revealed that Paradis never disclosed to Jones that he had been

retained as special counsel to the City, and Jones had believed

that Paradis and Landskroner were acting as cocounsel on his

behalf throughout the class action.

On February 26, 2019, PwC continued its PMQ deposition

with Chief Deputy City Attorney James Clark, who had been

substituted for Peters as the person most qualified to testify

about the Jones v. PwC draft complaint. Peters, meanwhile,

defended the deposition as counsel to the City. Although Clark

had prepared for the deposition and interviewed other

attorneys, he threw away his notes from those interviews,

saying, “I didn’t need them. I use it as a method to remember

things.”

Clark’s testimony nonetheless revealed the City

Attorney’s Office’s involvement in a scheme by special counsel

to collude with plaintiffs’ counsel. During the deposition, Clark

admitted that he and other members of the City Attorney’s

Office had been aware of Paradis’s attorney-client relationship

with Jones before the Jones v. City of Los Angeles complaint was

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filed. During questioning, Clark also initially admitted that

Paradis had drafted the Jones v. PwC complaint and given it to

Landskroner, that Paradis had recruited Landskroner to sue the

City on Jones’s behalf because he would settle the case on terms

more favorable to the City, and that Clark had known all along

that Landskroner would initiate a favorable settlement

negotiation with the City. Clark also testified that he had

personally reviewed the draft Jones v. PwC complaint, and that

the President of the LADWP Board of Commissioners and

multiple in-house attorneys were involved in the ultimate

decision not to bring the Jones v. PwC action. Later on in the

deposition, however, Clark attempted to backtrack on several of

these statements, stating that he had a “memory lapse” and did

not “have reason to believe Mr. Paradis had any role in the

actual drafting [of] the Complaint.”

At a March 2019 hearing on the remaining privilege issues

in the lawsuit, the court asked Landskroner about the attorney’s

fees that he had recovered in the Jones v. City of Los Angeles

settlement, but Landskroner invoked his Fifth Amendment

right against self-incrimination. During the same hearing, the

City waived its claims of privilege over the draft Jones v. PwC

complaint, but it did not waive its claims of privilege with

respect to all communications regarding the class action.

Several days later, Paradis, Tufaro, and Kiesel withdrew as

special counsel for the City, and shortly thereafter, Peters

turned over the full draft Jones v. PwC complaint to PwC

counsel.

After the draft Jones v. PwC complaint was produced, the

City and PwC continued to engage in protracted discovery

disputes over the extent of the City’s knowledge and

involvement in the collusive litigation scheme. In April 2019,

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the City produced a file titled “Emails Responsive to PMQ

(1).pst,” which contained 131 files that Kiesel had given to

Peters in advance of the February 26 PMQ deposition. The file

metadata revealed that Peters had downloaded the file to his

hard drive before the deposition occurred but had failed to

disclose these documents to PwC.

Several weeks after Clark’s deposition, the City provided

an errata sheet that attempted to qualify several of his most

significant admissions. These recantations prompted a flurry of

additional depositions and document requests. PwC took 18

additional fact witness depositions, and it filed a motion to

compel documents and answers to deposition questions that the

City had previously withheld on the basis of mediation privilege.

The City opposed the motion and claimed, inter alia, that it was

not aware of special counsel’s actions in the collusive litigation

scheme. PwC further filed a motion to compel documents

related to special counsel’s simultaneous representation of

Jones and the City. The City also objected to this motion on the

basis of attorney-client privilege, and it argued that the crime-

fraud exception did not apply because Paradis and Kiesel acted

alone.

The trial court granted both of PwC’s motions to compel

production. It found that the purported mediation was not

legitimate and that PwC had established a prima facie case of

fraud in which the City was complicit. Additionally, with

respect to the second motion to compel, it concluded that any

attorney-client privilege had been waived because an attorney

could not simultaneously represent two clients who are adverse

to each other in related litigation without destroying the duties

of confidentiality and undivided loyalty and trust owed to both

clients. The City filed a petition for writ of mandate to appeal

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the court’s determination that the attorney-client privilege did

not apply. But before the Court of Appeal could review the writ

petition, the City voluntarily dismissed with prejudice its case

against PwC. As a result of the dismissal, the City did not

complete its production of documents responsive to PwC’s

discovery requests.

After the dismissal, federal prosecutors announced that

Paul Paradis, Thomas Peters, and two other City officials had

pleaded guilty to criminal charges. Paradis and Peters admitted

that the City had pursued a collusive litigation strategy wherein

Paradis and Kiesel would represent both Jones and the City in

parallel lawsuits against PwC. The City later abandoned the

parallel litigation strategy and sought outside counsel that

would “represent” Jones against the City while remaining

amenable to the City’s litigation goals. The objective was to use

Jones’s class action lawsuit in Jones v. City of Los Angeles to

settle all of the outstanding claims arising out of LADWP billing

discrepancies, and to recover the costs of the settlement in a

subsequent suit against PwC. Paradis pleaded guilty to a

bribery charge and admitted to accepting $2.175 million in

kickbacks from Landskroner after Landskroner had been

awarded $10.3 million in attorney’s fees. Peters pleaded guilty

to aiding and abetting extortion by directing Kiesel to make

hush money payments to a former employee who had threatened

to release documents revealing the fraudulent nature of the

Jones settlement.

B.

Throughout the pretrial proceedings, PwC had raised the

possibility of discovery sanctions, but the trial court had

instructed PwC to wait until the close of discovery to move for

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sanctions so the court could address the motions on a complete

record. After the City voluntarily dismissed its suit against

PwC and the court declined to order further discovery, PwC

proceeded to file a motion for monetary sanctions for the City’s

discovery misconduct under Code of Civil Procedure sections

2023.010 (section 2023.010) and 2023.030 (section 2023.030). In

its motion, PwC argued that the City had engaged in numerous

misuses of the discovery process, by:

(1) asserting privileges in bad faith to prevent discovery of

the Jones v. PwC draft complaint, in violation of

section 2023.010, subdivision (e);

(2) misrepresenting and concealing facts at the December

2017 hearing to avoid production of the draft

complaint (§ 2023.010, subds. (e), (f), (h));

(3) refusing to comply with the January 2018 order

directing production of a PMQ witness and filing a motion to

quash the PMQ deposition notice (§ 2023.010, subds. (d), (e), (g),

(h));

(4) giving false and incomplete responses to PwC’s

requests for documents transmitted between LADWP and

Jones’s counsel before August 7, 2015 (§ 2023.010, subds. (d)–

(f));

(5) failing to produce responsive, nonprivileged documents

to PwC’s April 2018 deposition notice for the PMQ (§ 2023.010,

subds. (d), (g));

(6) providing false testimony and leaving the September

2018 PMQ deposition without substantial justification

(§ 2023.010, subds. (d)–(g));

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(7) bringing a motion for a protective order without

substantial justification to prevent further PMQ testimony and

without trying to resolve the dispute informally (§ 2023.010,

subds. (e), (h), (i));

(8) asserting a right to withhold the draft complaint under

a “common interest privilege” (§ 2023.010, subds. (e), (f), (h));

(9) failing to produce relevant documents from Peters’s

computer hard drive (§ 2023.010, subds. (d), (g));

(10) spoliating evidence through Clark’s destruction of

notes of interviews he conducted to prepare for his PMQ

deposition (§ 2023.010, subds. (d), (g)); and

(11) testifying evasively about the City’s knowledge of the

collusive nature of the class action (§ 2023.010, subd. (f)). (City

of L.A., supra, 84 Cal.App.5th at p. 491.)

PwC sought $2,801,946.49 in attorney’s fees and costs

incurred in connection with its efforts to compel production of

the draft Jones v. PwC complaint, $4,259,529.14 in fees

resulting from the City’s attempt to conceal its participation in

the collusive litigation scheme, and $1,149,907.90 in fees for the

time spent preparing the sanctions motion. (City of L.A., supra,

84 Cal.App.5th at p. 495.)

After a hearing, the trial court granted PwC’s motion for

sanctions. The court concluded that “Code of Civil Procedure

section 2023.030 authorizes a trial court to direct any party or

attorney who has engaged in the misuse of the discovery process

to pay the reasonable expenses, including attorneys’ fees

incurred, as a result of that conduct.” “Misuses of the discovery

process include, among other things, failing to respond or to

submit to an authorized method of discovery, making without

substantial justification an unmeritorious objection to

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discovery, making an evasive response to discovery, disobeying

a court order to provide discovery, and making or opposing

unsuccessfully and without substantial justification a motion to

compel to limit discovery. Code Civ. Proc., section 2023.010.”

The court also concluded that sanctions could be imposed under

its “inherent power to deal with litigation abuse.” Finding a

“serious abuse of discovery by the City and its counsel,” the court

awarded PwC $2.5 million in sanctions against the City.

C.

The City appealed the sanctions award on two grounds:

that the trial court lost jurisdiction to issue the order once the

case was dismissed and that PwC’s sanctions motion was

untimely. (City of L.A., supra, 84 Cal.App.5th at pp. 511, 513.)

The Court of Appeal unanimously rejected both arguments. But

the court ordered additional briefing on an issue the City had

not previously raised, namely, whether the trial court had

authority to impose the sanctions award under sections

2023.010 and 2023.030. By a divided vote, the court concluded

that the trial court lacked such authority. (City of L.A., supra,

84 Cal.App.5th 466.)

The majority concluded that sections 2023.010 and

2023.030 do not independently authorize trial courts to impose

monetary sanctions for discovery misuse, but instead supply

definitions relevant to other provisions of the Civil Discovery Act

(Act) that authorize imposing sanctions for specified abuses of

enumerated discovery methods, such as making an

unmeritorious motion for a protective order or failing to serve a

timely response to a demand for inspection. (City of L.A., supra,

84 Cal.App.5th at p. 504; see Code Civ. Proc., §§ 2031.060,

2031.300.) The court reasoned that while section 2023.030

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contains language stating that courts “may impose” various

types of sanctions (including monetary sanctions) for discovery

misuse, the provision also specifies that courts may impose such

sanctions only “[t]o the extent authorized by” other provisions of

the Act. (§ 2023.030; see City of L.A., at p. 498.) The majority

acknowledged that several appellate cases had appeared to

award sanctions based solely on sections 2023.010 and

2023.030, but it declined to follow them, explaining that none of

the cases had carefully considered the meaning of the “[t]o the

extent authorized” language in section 2023.030. (City of L.A.,

at pp. 505, 506, 510.)

The majority considered in the alternative whether the

trial court had the inherent authority to impose the sanctions

order. It answered no. The majority cited this court’s decision

in Bauguess v. Paine (1978) 22 Cal.3d 626, 634–638 (Bauguess),

which had held that a trial court lacked inherent authority to

impose monetary sanctions in lieu of contempt sanctions, in the

absence of statutory authority guiding the exercise of the power.

(City of L.A., supra, 84 Cal.App.5th at p. 511.) The majority

concluded that a party seeking monetary sanctions for discovery

misuse therefore must rely on the discovery-method-specific

sanctions provisions of the Civil Discovery Act alone. It reversed

and remanded the sanctions order “to allow the trial court to

award PWC’s reasonable expenses incurred as a result of

sanctionable conduct under provisions of the Discovery Act

other than sections 2023.010 and 2023.030.” (City of L.A., at

p. 514.)

Justice Grimes dissented. She criticized “the majority’s

novel conclusion” that sections 2023.010 and 2023.030 do not

confer general authority to impose sanctions for discovery

abuse. (City of L.A., supra, 84 Cal.App.5th at p. 528 (conc. & dis.

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opn. of Grimes, J.).) In her view, the majority’s reading of the

Civil Discovery Act — “that the only way a trial court can deal

with an egregious pattern of stonewalling and falsity in

discovery responses is by adhering to the procedural

prerequisites of each separate discovery statute for each

particular discovery violation” — “does not . . . comport with

Legislative intent, much less with decades of precedent.” (City

of L.A., at p. 536 (conc. & dis. opn. of Grimes, J.).)

We granted PwC’s petition for review to clarify the scope

of a trial court’s authority to award monetary sanctions for

abuses of the discovery process. We now hold that the trial court

had the authority to impose monetary sanctions under sections

2023.010 and 2023.030.

II.

Sections 2023.010 and 2023.030 were enacted as part of

the Civil Discovery Act of 1986 (1986 Act), a “ ‘comprehensive

revision of the statutes governing discovery’ ” in California

courts. (Emerson Electric Co. v. Superior Court (1997) 16

Cal.4th 1101, 1108; see Stats. 1986, ch. 1334, § 2, pp. 4700–

4743.)1 Before 1986, discovery in civil cases was governed by the

1

“Effective July 1, 2005, the Civil Discovery Act of 1986

(Code Civ. Proc., §§ 2016–2036) was repealed and reenacted

without substantive changes by the Civil Discovery Act of 2004

(Code Civ. Proc., § 2016.010 et seq.).” (People v. Buenrostro

(2018) 6 Cal.5th 367, 397, fn. 16, citing Stats. 2004, ch. 182, § 61

[“Nothing in this act is intended to substantively change the law

of civil discovery.”].) As relevant here, the Civil Discovery Act of

2004 renumbered what was formerly section 2023, subdivision

(a) as section 2023.010, and what was formerly section 2023,

subdivision (b) as section 2023.030. (Discovery Act Correlation

Tables, reprinted in 2 Hogan & Weber, Cal. Civil Discovery (2d

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Discovery Act of 1957 (1957 Act), which had been “the California

Legislature’s first attempt to codify a comprehensive system of

discovery procedures in California.” (Mares, The California

Civil Discovery Act of 1986: Discovery the New-Fashioned Way!

(1989) 18 Sw.U. L.Rev. 233, 233 (Mares).) To curtail surprises

and enhance efficient trial preparation, the 1957 Act provided

for new methods of discovery and “liberalized” each method “as

to person, scope, and situation.” (Greyhound Corp. v. Superior

Court (1961) 56 Cal.2d 355, 375 (Greyhound).) But “[t]o protect

against the abuses of the liberality thus created, safeguards

were provided unknown to the old California procedures.” (Id.

at pp. 375–376.)

One such safeguard was found in Code of Civil Procedure

section 2034, which for the first time conferred statutory

authority on trial courts to impose sanctions for certain abuses

of the discovery process. (See Greyhound, supra, 56 Cal.2d at

pp. 376–377; see generally Louisell, Discovery Today (1957) 45

Cal. L.Rev. 486, 508–512 [discussing Code Civ. Proc., § 2034].)

But over time, section 2034 increasingly came under criticism

for failing to adequately respond to the problem of discovery

abuse. (See Tonegato, The Decline and Fall of Sanctions in

California Discovery: Time to Modernize California Code of

Civil Procedure Section 2034 (1974) 9 U.S.F. L.Rev. 360, 361–

362; Mares, supra, 18 Sw.U. L.Rev. at pp. 240–241; Donovan,

The Sanction Provision of the New California Civil Discovery

ed. 2005) appen. B.) Throughout this opinion, we refer to the

provisions of the Act as they appear following the 2004

legislation. All citations are to the present version of the Act

unless otherwise indicated.

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Act, Section 2023: Will It Make a Difference or Is It Just Another

“Paper Tiger”? (1988) 15 Pepperdine L.Rev. 401, 402.) “[C]ase

law increasingly was required to fill in the gaps.” (Weil &

Brown, Cal. Practice Guide: Civil Procedure Before Trial (The

Rutter Group 2023) ¶ 8:3, p. 8A-2.)

In Fairfield v. Superior Court (1966) 246 Cal.App.2d 113

(Fairfield), for example, the trial court exercised its inherent

power to control the litigation to impose an award of attorney’s

fees against a party that had refused to obey an order compelling

further answers to interrogatories. Although no section of the

1957 Act expressly provided for monetary sanctions in this

circumstance, the Court of Appeal held that the court was

nonetheless empowered to “impose appropriate sanctions of the

nature provided in” the sanctions provision of the 1957 Act.

(Fairfield, at p. 120.) It reasoned that “[e]very court has power

‘To compel obedience to its judgments, orders and process’ in an

action or proceeding pending before it, and to use all necessary

means to carry its jurisdiction into effect, even if those means

are not specifically pointed out in the code.” (Ibid.)

After decades of experience under the 1957 Act revealed

similar gaps in the statute’s coverage, “a Joint Commission on

Discovery of the State Bar and Judicial Council began a top-to-

bottom reexamination of California’s system [of] civil discovery.”

(1 Hogan & Weber, Cal. Civil Discovery (2d ed. 2005)

Introduction to Civil Discovery, § 1.3, p. 1-6.) As part of this

effort, “[t]he Commission identified discovery abuses under the

1956 [sic] Act” and “developed proposals to eliminate or

ameliorate those abuses. In addition, it codified much of the

extensive case law that had settled issues arising under the

1956 [sic] Act.” (Ibid.) It then made recommendations that were

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Opinion of the Court by Kruger, J.

ultimately enacted, with some amendments, as part of the 1986

Act. (1 Hogan & Weber, supra, § 1.3, p. 1-6.)

The Civil Discovery Act sets out six methods by which

litigants can obtain pretrial disclosure of relevant information:

(a) depositions; (b) interrogatories; (c) inspections of documents,

things, and places; (d) physical and mental examinations;

(e) requests for admissions; and (f) exchanges of expert trial

witness information. (Code Civ. Proc., § 2019.010.) The

procedures relevant to discovery under each of these six

methods are outlined in different chapters of the Act. For

example, Chapters 9 through 11 govern oral and written

depositions (Code Civ. Proc., §§ 2025.010–2028.080), while

Chapter 13 governs interrogatories (id., §§ 2030.010–2030.410).

Each chapter authorizes sanctions for certain conduct

constituting misuse or abuse of different discovery methods. For

example, a provision in the chapter on oral depositions, Code of

Civil Procedure section 2025.450, sets out a scheme of escalating

sanctions for a party that refuses to comply with a deposition

notice. Subdivision (a) provides that a party who serves a

deposition notice “may move for an order compelling the

deponent’s attendance and testimony, and the production for

inspection of any document . . . described in the deposition

notice,” if the deponent “fails to appear for examination, or to

proceed with it, or to produce for inspection any document . . .

described in the deposition notice,” “without having served a

valid objection.” (Code Civ. Proc., § 2025.450, subd. (a).)

Subdivision (g)(1) then states: “If a motion under subdivision

(a) is granted, the court shall impose a monetary sanction under

Chapter 7 (commencing with Section 2023.010) in favor of the

party who noticed the deposition,” unless the court finds that

the opposing party acted with substantial justification or that

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sanctions would be unjust under the circumstances. (Id.,

§ 2025.450, subd. (g)(1).) If the opposing party fails to obey the

court’s order, “the court may make those orders that are just,

including the imposition of an issue sanction, an evidence

sanction, or a terminating sanction under Chapter 7

(commencing with Section 2023.010) . . . .” (Id., § 2025.450,

subd. (h).)

Each of the provisions that authorizes a court to impose

sanctions states that such sanctions may (or shall) be imposed

“under Chapter 7 (commencing with Section 2023.010).” ( Code

Civ. Proc., §§ 2028.050, subd. (c), 2030.090, subd. (d), 2033.080,

subd. (d), among others.)

The referenced chapter, titled “Sanctions,” contains the

provisions central to the question presented in this case. The

first of these provisions, section 2023.010, states: “Misuses of

the discovery process include, but are not limited to, the

following: [¶] (a) Persisting, over objection and without

substantial justification, in an attempt to obtain information or

materials that are outside the scope of permissible discovery. [¶]

(b) Using a discovery method in a manner that does not comply

with its specified procedures. [¶] (c) Employing a discovery

method in a manner or to an extent that causes unwarranted

annoyance, embarrassment, or oppression, or undue burden and

expense. [¶] (d) Failing to respond or to submit to an authorized

method of discovery. [¶] (e) Making, without substantial

justification, an unmeritorious objection to discovery. [¶]

(f) Making an evasive response to discovery. [¶] (g) Disobeying

a court order to provide discovery. [¶] (h) Making or opposing,

unsuccessfully and without substantial justification, a motion to

compel or to limit discovery. [¶] (i) Failing to confer in person,

by telephone, or by letter with an opposing party or attorney in

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a reasonable and good faith attempt to resolve informally any

dispute concerning discovery, if the section governing a

particular discovery motion requires the filing of a declaration

stating facts showing that an attempt at informal resolution has

been made.”

The second provision, section 2023.030, states, as relevant

here: “To the extent authorized by the chapter governing any

particular discovery method or any other provision of this title,

the court, after notice to any affected party, person, or attorney,

and after opportunity for hearing, may impose the following

sanctions against anyone engaging in conduct that is a misuse

of the discovery process: [¶] (a) The court may impose a

monetary sanction ordering that one engaging in the misuse of

the discovery process, or any attorney advising that conduct, or

both pay the reasonable expenses, including attorney’s fees,

incurred by anyone as a result of that conduct. The court may

also impose this sanction on one unsuccessfully asserting that

another has engaged in the misuse of the discovery process, or

on any attorney who advised that assertion, or on both. If a

monetary sanction is authorized by any provision of this title,

the court shall impose that sanction unless it finds that the one

subject to the sanction acted with substantial justification or

that other circumstances make the imposition of the sanction

unjust.” (§ 2023.030, subd. (a).)

Section 2023.030, subdivisions (b) through (e) similarly

provide that a “court may impose” issue sanctions, evidence

sanctions, terminating sanctions, and contempt sanctions,

respectively, but none mandates imposition of these various

nonmonetary sanctions in the same manner as subdivision (a).

(See, e.g., id., subd. (b) [“The court may impose an issue sanction

ordering that designated facts shall be taken as established in

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the action in accordance with the claim of the party adversely

affected by the misuse of the discovery process. The court may

also impose an issue sanction by an order prohibiting any party

engaging in the misuse of the discovery process from supporting

or opposing designated claims or defenses.”].)

Courts have articulated two major guidelines for imposing

sanctions under both the current Civil Discovery Act and its

predecessor. First, because the very purpose of discovery is to

promote the efficient and effective conduct of trial, discovery

sanctions are not to be used “to provide a weapon for

punishment, forfeiture and the avoidance of a trial on the

merits.” (Crummer v. Beeler (1960) 185 Cal.App.2d 851, 858.)

Second, a more severe sanction is disfavored if a lesser sanction

is available. (In re De La Parra (1986) 184 Cal.App.3d 139, 144–

145 [reversing a contempt sanction imposed for refusing to

answer interrogatories as “unnecessary and overbearing” in

light of “alternative solutions”].) This means that a court

ordinarily must consider monetary sanctions — the form of

sanctions ordered here — before it proceeds to consider whether

other nonmonetary sanctions are appropriate to address the

misconduct at issue.

Much as they had done under the 1957 Act, courts have

sometimes invoked their inherent authority to impose discovery

sanctions not inconsistent with the current version of the Act.

(See, e.g., Stephen Slesinger, Inc. v. Walt Disney Co. (2007) 155

Cal.App.4th 736, 761 (Slesinger) [imposing terminating

sanction]; Peat, Marwick, Mitchell & Co. v. Superior Court

(1988) 200 Cal.App.3d 272, 287, fn. 8, 289 (Peat) [imposing

evidentiary sanction].) The existence of such inherent authority

is not disputed here. The City contends, however, that courts’

inherent authority is limited to nonmonetary sanctions. It

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argues that the trial court therefore lacked either statutory

authority or the inherent authority to impose the monetary

sanctions award at issue in this case. Our inquiry begins — and

also ends — with the trial court’s statutory authority.

III.

Before the Court of Appeal’s decision in this case, courts

frequently cited sections 2023.010 and 2023.030 as sources of

authority to impose sanctions for discovery misuse. (See, e.g.,

Kwan Software Engineering, Inc. v. Hennings (2020) 58

Cal.App.5th 57, 73–74 [concluding that the trial court was

required to impose monetary sanctions under section 2023.030,

subd. (a) after it found that plaintiffs had engaged in repeated

discovery misuses by submitting false deposition testimony and

destroying evidence in bad faith]; Pratt v. Union Pacific

Railroad Co. (2008) 168 Cal.App.4th 165, 170 [concluding that

§§ 2023.010 and 2023.030, subd. (a) authorized the trial court to

impose monetary sanctions when the defendant made repeated

ex parte demands for the plaintiff’s medical information that

“circumvented the established procedures for civil discovery

under California law”]; cf. Cedars-Sinai Medical Center v.

Superior Court (1998) 18 Cal.4th 1, 12 (Cedars-Sinai)

[concluding it is unnecessary to create a tort cause of action for

intentional spoliation of evidence because, inter alia,

§§ 2023.010 and 2023.030 already authorize “potent” sanctions

for such discovery misuse].)2

2

Numerous other decisions have affirmed an award of

sanctions while citing section 2023.030 or its predecessor as a

source of sanctioning authority. (See Sabetian v. Exxon Mobil

Corp. (2020) 57 Cal.App.5th 1054, 1084; Department of Forestry

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The Court of Appeal in this case acknowledged cases

reflecting this prevailing understanding of sections 2023.010

and 2023.030. But as the court correctly noted, none of these

cases carefully considered the language of the provisions in their

broader statutory context. (City of L.A., supra, 84 Cal.App.5th

466.) The primary question before us is whether the Court of

Appeal was correct in concluding — contrary to the prevailing

understanding — that sections 2023.010 and 2023.030 do not

confer any independent authority to impose sanctions for

discovery abuses.

This is purely a question of statutory interpretation, and

we review it de novo. (In re E.F. (2021) 11 Cal.5th 320, 326.) We

start, as always, with the text. (In re A.N. (2020) 9 Cal.5th 343,

351.) “ ‘If we find the statutory language ambiguous or subject

to more than one interpretation, we may look to extrinsic aids,

including legislative history or purpose to inform our views.’ ”

(Id. at pp. 351–352.) Ultimately, we must “ ‘ “select the

construction that comports most closely with the apparent

intent of the Legislature, with a view to promoting rather than

& Fire Protection v. Howell (2017) 18 Cal.App.5th 154, 191–192;

Los Defensores, Inc. v. Gomez (2014) 223 Cal.App.4th 377, 390;

Ellis v. Toshiba America Information Systems, Inc. (2013) 218

Cal.App.4th 853, 877–880; Tucker v. Pacific Bell Mobile Services

(2010) 186 Cal.App.4th 1548, 1561; Clement v. Alegre (2009) 177

Cal.App.4th 1277, 1287; Karlsson v. Ford Motor Co. (2006) 140

Cal.App.4th 1202, 1214; Sherman v. Kinetic Concepts, Inc.

(1998) 67 Cal.App.4th 1152, 1162–1163; Pate v. Channel

Lumber Co. (1997) 51 Cal.App.4th 1447, 1455–1456; Vallbona v.

Springer (1996) 43 Cal.App.4th 1525, 1545–1546; Do It Urself

Moving & Storage, Inc. v. Brown, Leifer, Slatkin & Berns (1992)

7 Cal.App.4th 27, 35–36.)

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defeating the general purpose of the statute, and avoid an

interpretation that would lead to absurd consequences.”

[Citation.]’ ” (Day v. City of Fontana (2001) 25 Cal.4th 268, 272;

see also Caryl Richards, Inc. v. Superior Court (1961) 188

Cal.App.2d 300, 303 [the Civil Discovery Act “is to be liberally

interpreted so that it may accomplish its purpose”].)

A.

Section 2023.010 addresses the general subject of

“[m]isuses of the discovery process.” Such misuses, it says,

“include, but are not limited to,” failures to respond or submit to

authorized methods of discovery, making unmeritorious

objections without substantial justification, and making evasive

responses. (§ 2023.010; see id. at subds. (d)–(f).) It is

undisputed that the misconduct the trial court found in this case

qualifies as discovery misuse within the meaning of section

2023.010. It is also, however, undisputed that section 2023.010

contains no language authorizing action in response to the sorts

of discovery misuses it describes.

The focus of the dispute before us thus centers largely on

the interaction between section 2023.010 and section 2023.030.

The latter section contains language that, on its face, appears to

authorize action addressing the sort of discovery misuse

described in section 2023.010, including imposition of monetary

sanctions: “To the extent authorized by the chapter governing

any particular discovery method or any other provision of this

title, the court . . . may impose the following sanctions against

anyone engaging in conduct that is a misuse of the discovery

process: [¶] . . . The court may impose a monetary sanction.”

(§ 2023.030 & subd. (a), italics added.) The central question

concerns the meaning of the prefatory phrase indicating that a

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court may impose sanctions “[t]o the extent authorized” by other

provisions of the Civil Discovery Act, including, primarily, the

provisions governing the six different methods of discovery.3

Both parties agree that the prefatory phrase “[t]o the

extent authorized” signals a limitation on the court’s authority

to impose sanctions, but they disagree as to the scope of this

limitation. PwC reads this provision to mean simply that when

another, more specific provision of the Civil Discovery Act sets

conditions or limits on a trial court’s authority to sanction

particular forms of discovery misuse, a court may not

circumvent those limits by relying on the general authority

conferred in section 2023.030; sanctions may be ordered under

this general provision only “[t]o the extent” they may be ordered

under the other, more specific sanctions provision. But when no

other provision applies, courts may rely on the general authority

conferred in section 2023.030 to impose sanctions for any

3

We, like the litigants and many Courts of Appeal, focus

primarily on the method-specific chapters of the Civil Discovery

Act. (See, e.g., New Albertsons, Inc. v. Superior Court (2008) 168

Cal.App.4th 1403, 1422 (New Albertsons); London v. Dri-Honing

Corp. (2004) 117 Cal.App.4th 999, 1004 (London).) These are

the sanctions provisions most relevant to the issues in this case.

But section 2023.030, by its terms, refers to sanctions that may

be authorized “by the chapter governing any particular

discovery method or any other provision of this title.” (Italics

added.) Another source of sanctions authority can be found in

section 2023.030’s neighboring provision, which states:

“Notwithstanding the outcome of the particular discovery

motion, the court shall impose a monetary sanction ordering

that any party or attorney who fails to confer as required pay

the reasonable expenses, including attorney’s fees, incurred by

anyone as a result of that conduct.” (Code Civ. Proc.,

§ 2023.020.)

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“[m]isuse[] of the discovery process,” as that term is defined in

section 2023.010.

Although the City had not initially broached the

argument, it now adopts the contrary reading laid out in the

Court of Appeal majority opinion. Specifically, the City argues

that the plain meaning of the prefatory phrase instructs that the

sort of sanctions described in section 2023.030 must be

authorized by another provision of the Civil Discovery Act.

According to the City, sections 2023.010 and 2023.030 confer no

sanctions authority of their own; their primary function is to

supply the definitions relevant for authority conferred

elsewhere. So, for example, a method-specific provision might

supply authority for imposing “monetary sanctions” for failing

to allow the inspection of an item in discovery (e.g., Code Civ.

Proc., § 2031.300), and section 2023.030 then tells us what the

term “monetary sanction[s]” means: an “order[] that one . . . pay

the reasonable expenses, including attorney’s fees, incurred by

anyone as a result of” a misuse of the discovery process.

(§ 2023.030, subd. (a).) But, as the City sees it, if no other

sanctions provision of the Civil Discovery Act applies, a court

has no authority to impose discovery sanctions under the Act.

To describe this as the “plain meaning” of the relevant

statutory language is something of a bold claim, given that for

decades commentators and courts — this court included — have

read the provision differently. (See, e.g., Donovan, The Sanction

Provision of the New California Civil Discovery Act, Section

2023: Will It Make a Difference or Is It Just Another ‘Paper

Tiger’?, supra, 15 Pepperdine L.Rev. at p. 411 [arguing that

§ 2023 of the 1986 Act “leaves full discretion with the courts to

decide whether acts not specifically mentioned in the new

statute do, in fact, constitute a misuse and require the

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imposition of monetary sanctions”]; Levine et al., O’Connor’s

Cal. Practice (2015 ed.) Civil Pretrial, § 5, p. 1008 [“If the

sanctions provisions for the particular discovery method do not

address the misconduct . . . the party should then explore the

possibility of sanctions under the [Civil Discovery Act’s] more

general provisions.”]; see also ante, pp. 21–22 & fn. 2 [citing

cases].) And indeed, consistent with that prevailing

understanding, the City did not initially question the trial

court’s authority to impose sanctions under sections 2023.010

and 2023.030; the Court of Appeal was the first to raise the

issue, sua sponte, when it ordered supplemental briefing to

address the meaning of these provisions.

Differences in understanding are not, of course,

dispositive. And as the Court of Appeal majority rightly noted,

none of the cases that have cited sections 2023.010 and 2023.030

as a source of sanctions authority have engaged in a close

analysis of the statutory text. But it is not surprising that courts

have generally understood the Civil Discovery Act’s sanctions

provisions as they have. Though the City insists otherwise, its

reading of section 2023.030 is far from the only plausible one.

To start, any claim that section 2023.030 is primarily a

definitional provision must contend with the fact that section

2023.030 is not written as most definitional provisions are

written. The Civil Discovery Act does contain a standard

definitional provision: Code of Civil Procedure section 2016.020

(titled “Definitions”) says, for instance, that “[a]s used in this

title,” “ ‘Document’ and ‘writing’ mean a writing, as defined in

Section 250 of the Evidence Code.” (Code of Civ. Proc.,

§ 2016.020 & subd. (c).) Had the Legislature intended for

section 2023.030 to serve a definitional function, the Legislature

presumably could have used similar phrasing. Section 2023.030

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could have said, for example, that, “as used in this title,” the

term “monetary sanctions” means “an order to pay the

reasonable expenses, including attorney’s fees, incurred by

anyone as a result of a misuse of the discovery process.” But the

Legislature instead used the sort of language conventionally

used to convey authority: The court “may impose the following

sanctions,” including monetary sanctions (§ 2023.030, subd. (a);

cf., e.g., In re Richard E. (1978) 21 Cal.3d 349, 354 [“The

ordinary import of ‘may’ is a grant of discretion.”]). It is not

unreasonable to think that this choice was deliberate.

The City’s view must also contend with the natural

inferences to be drawn from the close relationship between

section 2023.030 and its neighbor, section 2023.010, which

includes a nonexhaustive definition of discovery misuse more

encompassing than any of the more specific chapters addressing

the misuse of particular discovery methods. (§ 2023.010

[“Misuses of the discovery process include, but are not limited to,

the following . . . .”].) This broad definition thus naturally covers

forms and patterns of discovery abuse not captured elsewhere in

the statute. The scope of the conduct described in section

2023.010 as a “[m]isuse[] of the discovery process” suggests a

similar scope for section 2023.030, which provides that courts

“may impose” appropriate sanctions for “a misuse of the

discovery process.” (§§ 2023.010, 2023.030.) If section 2023.030

does not supply any mechanism for addressing the kinds of

discovery misuse described in section 2023.010, the effect is to

leave section 2023.010’s broad definition of misuse without any

real significance in the statutory scheme.

To be fair, the use of the introductory phrase “[t]o the

extent authorized by . . . any other provision of this title” does

raise questions about whether section 2023.030 means to refer

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the reader to other provisions to look for authority to impose

sanctions. (§ 2023.030.) But the introductory phrase carries

less weight than the City supposes, because when readers look

to most of these other provisions, what they will find is language

that directs them right back to section 2023.030. One provision

of the inspection chapter addressing monetary sanctions, for

instance, provides: “[E]xcept as provided in subdivision (d), the

court shall impose a monetary sanction under Chapter 7

(commencing with Section 2023.010) against any party, person,

or attorney who unsuccessfully makes or opposes a motion to

compel.” (Code Civ. Proc., § 2031.300, subd. (c), italics added.)

Other method-specific sanctions provisions are worded more or

less identically. (E.g., id., §§ 2025.480, subd. (j), 2030.300, subd.

(d).) In other words, if the “[t]o the extent authorized” language

in section 2023.030 seems to point to the sanctions authority

conferred by provisions in the method-specific chapters of the

Act, the method-specific chapters appear to point right back to

section 2023.030 and the other provisions of Chapter 7 as a

source of the authority to impose sanctions. (See London, supra,

117 Cal.App.4th at p. 1004 [observing the “circular fashion” in

which the sanctions provisions refer to each other]; cf. Key

Tronic Corp. v. United States (1994) 511 U.S. 809, 816 [a statute

referencing “a ‘civil action . . . under section 9607(a)’ ” implies

that “the statute . . . authorizes a cause of action” in that

section].) The City’s argument about the plain language of

section 2023.030 thus fails to account not only for the wording

of section 2023.030 itself, but also for the wording of the other

provisions on which the argument depends.

The City relies on appellate decisions holding that the

“ ‘[t]o the extent authorized’ ” language means that “the statutes

governing the particular discovery methods limit the

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permissible sanctions to those sanctions provided under the

applicable governing statutes.” (New Albertsons, supra, 168

Cal.App.4th at p. 1422; see also, e.g., London, supra, 117

Cal.App.4th at p. 1006; Muller v. Fresno Community Hospital &

Medical Center (2009) 172 Cal.App.4th 887, 906 (Muller).)

These cases have held that, in determining whether and what

sort of sanction to order for misuse of a particular discovery

method — monetary sanctions, issue sanctions, and so on — a

court is ordinarily limited to those sanctions authorized by the

relevant method-specific chapter. In New Albertsons, for

instance, the court held that a trial court does not have the

statutory authority under section 2023.030 to impose an issue

sanction or an evidence sanction for failure to permit inspection

of an item when, under the circumstances, the chapter on

inspections would not authorize imposing such sanctions. (See

New Albertsons, at pp. 1423–1424, 1427–1428, 1434 [concluding

that the trial court erred in imposing issue and evidence

sanctions in the absence of an order compelling the inspection,

as specified in the relevant method-specific chapter].)

The City relies on cases like New Albertsons to support its

argument that the “[t]o the extent” language means that section

2023.030 cannot be read as an independent source of sanctions

authority. But these cases stand for a different proposition, one

that is undisputed here. As we have noted, PwC agrees that the

general sanctions language in section 2023.030 does not permit

courts to override the limitations on courts’ sanctions authority

set forth in applicable method-specific provisions. This follows

from the usual interpretive rule that “ ‘more specific provisions

take precedence over more general ones.’ ” (Lopez v. Sony

Electronics, Inc. (2018) 5 Cal.5th 627, 634; see Muller, supra,

172 Cal.App.4th at p. 906.)

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As PwC rightly notes, it is one thing to read the “[t]o the

extent authorized” language to mean that the authority

recognized in section 2023.030 cannot extend farther than the

authority conferred by other applicable sanctions provisions,

assuming other sanctions provisions are applicable. It is

something else to say that section 2023.030 confers no sanctions

authority at all — even for those relatively uncommon instances

that may involve patterns of systemic abuse that transcend any

individual instance of misuse, or in situations where the conduct

undoubtedly meets section 2023.010’s definition of discovery

misuse even though there are no other applicable sanctions

provisions. The New Albertsons line of cases do not speak to this

issue, nor do they support the City’s argument that the plain

language of section 2023.030 marks it as definitional only.

The City is, in short, incorrect that the plain language of

section 2023.030 means it confers no independent authority to

impose sanctions. On the contrary, section 2023.030 contains

language that, on its face, appears to confer such authority.

That reading is reinforced, rather than undermined, by the

language of other provisions in the Act relating to discovery

sanctions.

B.

All this said, we acknowledge that the City’s reading is not

wholly implausible. The City’s reading of the “[t]o the extent

authorized” phrase certainly is not compelled by the plain

language, but we cannot say that it is clearly wrong, either. In

the face of this textual ambiguity, we may turn to extrinsic aids

to “ ‘select the construction that comports most closely with the

apparent intent of the Legislature.’ ” (Wilcox v. Birtwhistle

(1999) 21 Cal.4th 973, 977.)

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The City relies heavily on legislative history to support its

reading. It relies, in particular, on the Reporter’s Notes for the

Commission that formulated the 1986 Act. The Reporter’s

Notes describe the intended roles of sections 2023.010 and

2023.030 in distinctly modest terms. Regarding section

2023.010 (former § 2023, subd. (a)), the Reporter’s Note states:

“Because of the widespread concern with abuse of the discovery

process at the present time, the Commission deems it desirable

to list in a general way the major categories of actions that it

regards as an abuse. . . . It is arguable that, in view of the

detailed regulations of the discovery process in the various

sections governing the individual methods of discovery, this

subdivision is unnecessary. However, the Commission feels that

the subdivision underscores the importance of conducting

discovery in a manner that does not abuse the methods provided

to achieve its goals.” (2 Hogan & Weber, supra, appen. D,

Proposed Cal. Civil Discovery Act of 1986, and Reporter’s Notes,

pp. AppD-19 to AppD-20 [reprint of State Bar/Judicial Council

of Cal., Jud. Com. on Discovery Reporter’s notes on former

§ 2023, subd. (a)].)

Of section 2023.030 (former § 2023, subd. (b)), the

Reporter’s Note states: “This subdivision, derived from the

present [Code of Civil Procedure] § 2034, is mainly definitional

in function. Throughout the proposed [1986] Act, the sanctions

that may be imposed for any particular discovery dereliction are

described simply as a ‘monetary sanction,’ an ‘issue sanction,’ an

‘evidence sanction,’ a ‘terminating sanction,’ or a ‘contempt

sanction,’ followed by a cross-reference to this section to

ascertain just what those terms mean. This subdivision enables

the Commission to implement in a manageable way its decision

that the sanctions available for a particular breach of a

32

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Opinion of the Court by Kruger, J.

discovery duty should be specified in any particular section of

the [1986] Act that creates that duty.” (2 Hogan & Weber,

supra, appen. D, Proposed Cal. Civil Discovery Act of 1986, and

Reporter’s Notes, p. AppD-20 [Reporter’s notes on former

§ 2023, subd. (b)].)

The City also cites the separate writings of the Reporter,

Professor James Hogan, who later wrote in his treatise on

California Civil Discovery law that “[t]he most cursory

examination of Section 2023.030 reveals that it is only a

lexicon. . . . Indeed, Section 2023.030 states that a court may

impose any of the sanctions it defines only ‘[t]o the extent

authorized by the section governing any particular discovery

method.’ ” (2 Hogan & Weber, supra, § 15.2, p. 15-3.)

The City is correct that the Reporter’s Notes, and the

Reporter’s own subsequent writings, in his personal capacity,

conform to its understanding of section 2023.030. (It is true that

the Reporter’s Notes say that § 2023.030 was meant to be

“mainly definitional,” not solely definitional, but the Reporter’s

Notes offer a reason for the adverb choice: “The proposed

subdivision makes a subtle change in the language used to

describe when a monetary sanction may be imposed,” requiring

imposition of such a sanction unless the court “ ‘finds that the

one subject to the sanction acted with substantial justification

or that other circumstances make the sanction unjust.’ ” (2

Hogan & Weber, supra, appen. D, Proposed Cal. Civil Discovery

Act of 1986, and Reporter’s Notes, p. AppD-20, italics added

[Reporter’s notes on former § 2023, subd. (b)].) The Reporter’s

Notes do not mention any other way in which § 2023.030 was

meant to serve a more-than-definitional function.)

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The Reporter’s commentary does not, however, resolve the

issue now before us. It is undoubtedly true that section

2023.030 typically does serve a primarily definitional function,

in that other provisions of the Civil Discovery Act specify the

sanctions available for the most frequently recurring types of

discovery abuse. The issue of the sanctions authority

independently conferred in sections 2023.010 and 2023.030 is

relevant only in those unusual cases in which the discovery

abuse takes a different form. Neither the Reporter’s Notes nor

Professor Hogan’s separate writings clearly address this

situation, so neither gives much reason to resolve the textual

ambiguity here in the restrictive manner the City suggests.

C.

This brings us to our final, and ultimately dispositive,

consideration, which concerns how the City’s proposed

interpretation would serve — or, as it happens, disserve — the

Legislature’s overarching purposes in enacting the sanctions

provisions of the Civil Discovery Act.

Again, in the vast majority of cases, the distinction

between the parties’ proposed interpretations of section

2023.030 makes no practical difference. The method-specific

chapters were deliberately designed to cover the most commonly

recurring forms of discovery misuse. Whether a court is to look

for statutory authority in those chapters, or to section 2023.030,

or both, the outcome is the same: The court may impose those

sanctions that are authorized by the more specific provision in

the chapter governing the relevant discovery method.

But it is not clear that every act of discovery misconduct is

covered by the discovery method chapters. As Justice Grimes

noted in her dissent in the Court of Appeal, for instance, “the

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chapters of the Discovery Act governing particular discovery

methods do not mention sanctions for spoliation of evidence”

(City of L.A., supra, 84 Cal.App.5th at p. 534 (conc. & dis. opn.

of Grimes, J.)), even though, as this court has recognized,

intentional spoliation “would surely be a misuse of discovery

within the meaning” of section 2023.010 (Cedars-Sinai, supra,

18 Cal.4th at p. 12).4

And it is undisputed that no method-specific provision of

the Act addresses pervasive patterns of discovery misconduct of

the sort that occurred in this case. This pattern of misconduct

certainly included various discrete acts of discovery misconduct

that would be individually redressable under certain chapters

governing discovery methods. (E.g., Code Civ. Proc.,

§§ 2025.450, subd. (a) [providing sanctions for failure of a party

deponent “to appear for examination, or to proceed with it, or to

produce for inspection any document . . . described in the

deposition notice”], 2031.320 [providing sanctions for a party’s

failure to produce items in response to a demand for inspection].)

But the power to sanction discrete abuses of specific discovery

4

It is for this reason that Cedars-Sinai read section

2023.030 as providing authority to sanction spoliation of

evidence. (Cedars-Sinai, supra, 18 Cal.4th at p. 12.) The Court

of Appeal majority in this case offered an alternative theory:

that spoliation cases may instead be covered under method-

specific provisions, insofar as a party’s spoliation of evidence

makes it impossible or futile to employ the usual methods for

discovering it. (City of L.A., supra, 84 Cal.App.5th at pp. 507,

509.) We express no view on this alternative theory of spoliation

sanctions. The larger point remains: The discovery method

chapters cover the most frequent acts of discovery misconduct,

but it is unclear that they can be stretched enough to cover them

all. This is a substantial point in favor of adhering to Cedars-

Sinai and the view of section 2023.030 expressed there.

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methods — for instance, the City’s initial refusal to produce a

PMQ witness and the witness’s later failure to adequately

prepare for the deposition — is not the same thing as the power

to sanction a concerted, multi-year campaign to circumvent

discovery that would have revealed serious abuses in the

initiation and prosecution of the lawsuit.

The issue in this case, at core, concerns courts’ power to

fill these sorts of gaps in the method-specific discovery chapters

to address egregious instances of discovery misconduct. As

noted, the City does not dispute that the courts generally do

have such powers. It does not dispute, for instance, the holdings

of cases that have invoked the courts’ inherent authority to

impose a variety of serious discovery sanctions, including

evidence sanctions (Peat, supra, 200 Cal.App.3d at pp. 287, fn. 8,

289), and even terminating sanctions (Department of Forestry &

Fire Protection v. Howell, supra, 18 Cal.App.5th at p. 197;

Slesinger, supra, 155 Cal.App.4th at p. 761). But the City

distinguishes these cases on grounds that they involved

sanctions other than monetary sanctions. It reads our decision

in Bauguess as precluding monetary sanctions unless they have

a statutory basis, lest trial courts “be given a power without

procedural limits” set by statute. (Bauguess, supra, 22 Cal.3d

at p. 638.)

The implication of the City’s approach is that courts could

address egregious cases involving patterns of discovery

misconduct, or other similarly rarely occurring forms of

discovery misuse, only through the exercise of their inherent

authority, with no statutory basis for the exercise. And on the

City’s reading of Bauguess, courts would retain the inherent

authority to impose only the most serious forms of discovery

sanctions, such as evidentiary or terminating sanctions; they

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could not impose monetary sanctions, which the Act treats as

the least serious form of sanctions. Of course, if the party

abusing the discovery process dismisses its claims with

prejudice, as the City has done here, then an evidentiary or

terminating sanction would be futile, and a court would be all

but powerless to address the abuse.

We see multiple difficulties with the City’s approach. As

a preliminary matter, we reject the City’s premise that our

precedent bars courts from exercising their inherent authority

to impose monetary sanctions — but only monetary sanctions —

in response to discovery abuses. The City relies on our decision

in Bauguess, but Bauguess does not support the argument.

Bauguess was not a discovery sanctions case. Rather, the trial

court in Bauguess had declared a mistrial and imposed a

monetary sanction when an attorney “looked at certain exhibits

on which the jurors had taken notes.” (Bauguess, supra, 22

Cal.3d at p. 632.) We determined that the court lacked the

inherent authority to impose the monetary sanction; to

recognize such an authority, we reasoned, would give courts the

equivalent of the statutory contempt power, but “without

procedural limits and potentially subject to abuse.” (Id. at

p. 638.) But in so holding, we expressly distinguished Fairfield,

supra, 246 Cal.App.2d 113, discussed above, in which a court

had used its inherent authority to impose monetary discovery

sanctions not expressly authorized by the 1957 Civil Discovery

Act. We explained that the discovery sanctions in Fairfield were

permissible because they were “clearly consistent with the

Legislature’s intent in enacting the [1957] Civil Discovery Act.”

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(Bauguess, at p. 637.)5 Bauguess thus does not stand for the

proposition that courts lack inherent authority to impose

monetary sanctions for discovery abuses; on the contrary, it

affirms courts’ authority to “address gaps in the law” of

discovery “by applying procedures contained in related statutory

provisions.” (Estrada v. Royalty Carpet Mills, Inc. (2024) 15

Cal.5th 582, 597.)

More fundamentally, the City’s view of how the system of

statutory discovery sanctions works to address egregious

discovery abuses is inconsistent with the overarching purposes

of the Civil Discovery Act. “One of the principal purposes of the

[1957] Act,” which the 1986 Act built upon, was “to enable a

party to obtain evidence in the control of his adversary in order

to further the efficient, economical disposition of cases according

to right and justice on the merits.” (Caryl Richards, Inc. v.

Superior Court, supra, 188 Cal.App.2d at p. 303.) The

Legislature that enacted the 1986 Act was aware of gaps in the

preexisting scheme of statutory sanctions, and it was also aware

that some courts had invoked their inherent authority to fill

those gaps. (1 Hogan & Weber, supra, § 1.3, pp. 1-5 to 1-6; see,

e.g., Fairfield, supra, 246 Cal.App.2d at p. 113.) One of the

central purposes of the 1986 Act, then, was to give courts the

tools necessary to respond to those abuses to ensure that civil

discovery can serve its central truth-seeking function. (See

2 Hogan & Weber, supra, § 15.1, p. 15-1 [“The wholesale

5

Although one Court of Appeal decision has understood

Bauguess to apply to monetary discovery sanctions, it did not

consider Bauguess’s discussion of Fairfield. (See Slesinger,

supra, 155 Cal.App.4th at p. 764, fn. 19.) We disapprove

Stephen Slesinger, Inc. v. Walt Disney Co., supra, 155

Cal.App.4th 736 on this point.

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revision of civil discovery law through the Discovery Act of 1986

was due in good part to the Legislature’s concern about

discovery misuses that had developed during the three decades

that the original [1957] Act was in operation.”].)

Against this backdrop, we can readily infer that when the

Legislature wrote section 2023.030 to provide that a court “may

impose” sanctions for discovery misuse, the choice was

deliberate. As part of its concerted response to known

deficiencies in the prior discovery sanctions statute, the

Legislature gave trial courts a statutory basis for exercising

authority to address egregious forms of misconduct not

addressed elsewhere in the Act. It seems, by contrast, unlikely

that a Legislature concerned with stemming the tide of

discovery abuse would have consigned courts confronting

patterns of egregious abuse to the choice the City’s position

would offer them: either attempt to fit the component parts of

the pattern into individual method-specific sanctions rulings, or

else rely purely on their inherent authority to control the

litigation, with no statutory guidelines relevant to that exercise.

D.

The City worries that understanding section 2023.030 as

an independent source of authority to impose sanctions would

undermine the carefully calibrated scheme of escalating

sanctions reflected in the individual method-specific chapters,

under which courts typically must consider imposing monetary

sanctions before turning to more severe sanctions such as issue

sanctions or evidence sanctions. The City’s professed worry is

doubly odd. It is odd, first, because this case concerns only

monetary sanctions, which are the least serious form of

sanctions authorized under the Act. It is odd, second, because

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the City acknowledges that courts retain the inherent authority

to impose sanctions outside the rubric of the Act (that is,

provided the sanctions are nonmonetary sanctions). It is

unclear how relegating courts to exercising nonstatutory

authority to address discovery abuses would help to shore up the

statutory policies underlying the sanctions provisions of the Act.

The straightforward answer to the City’s worry, however,

is that a court’s authority to impose sanctions under section

2023.030 is not limitless. It is already well-established that a

court may not rely on section 2023.030 to override the

limitations prescribed by any other applicable sanctions

provision in the Act. A court may invoke its independent

authority to impose sanctions under sections 2023.010 and

2023.030 only when confronted with an unusual form of

discovery abuse, or a pattern of abuse, not already addressed by

a relevant sanctions provision. And where it invokes that

authority, it is constrained by the long-settled rules generally

governing the imposition of discovery sanctions under the Act.

Consistent with the practices outlined in the Civil

Discovery Act, trial courts must afford any party or person

accused of engaging in an abuse of the discovery process “notice”

and an “opportunity for hearing,” and courts must consider

whether the party or person “acted with substantial

justification,” or whether “other circumstances make the

imposition of the sanction unjust.” (§ 2023.030 & subd. (a).)

Trial courts must also be mindful not to impose sanctions that

exceed “the reasonable expenses, including attorney’s fees,

incurred by anyone as a result of” the discovery misconduct. (Id.,

subd. (a), italics added.) These principles of causation and

reasonableness ensure fidelity to the well-established principle

that “ ‘the court may not impose sanctions which are designed

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Opinion of the Court by Kruger, J.

not to accomplish the objects of discovery but to impose

punishment.’ ” (Fairfield, supra, 246 Cal.App.2d at p. 120; see

also Bauguess, supra, 22 Cal.3d at p. 637 [“Even in the discovery

context . . . a purely punitive award of $1,000 in attorney’s fees

has not been allowed.”].)

Considered in light of these limits, the concern expressed

in Bauguess about the “unfettered and unbridled” (Bauguess,

supra, 22 Cal.3d at p. 639) power to award monetary sanctions

for attorney misconduct has no purchase in the discovery

context. Unlike the “sweeping” power contemplated in

Bauguess, which would have operated “ ‘without appropriate

safeguards and guidelines’ ” (ibid.), the power here is cabined:

it is reserved for misuses of the pretrial discovery process that

fall within the Legislature’s definition of discovery misuse (see

§ 2023.010). Moreover, this inherent authority is tempered by

the same procedural safeguards that ordinarily govern the

imposition of sanctions under the Civil Discovery Act, and by the

requirements of causation and reasonableness. Sanctions are

not to be used “to provide a weapon for punishment, forfeiture

and the avoidance of a trial on the merits” (Crummer v. Beeler,

supra, 185 Cal.App.2d at p. 858), and a more severe sanction is

disfavored if a lesser sanction is available (In re De La Parra,

supra, 184 Cal.App.3d at pp. 144–145). Given these long-settled

understandings, we see no genuine danger that reading sections

2023.010 and 2023.030 as an independent source of sanctions

authority in any way undermines the intended functioning of

the statute. Courts have for decades read sections 2023.010 and

2023.030 in just this way. The trial court did not err in relying

on those provisions here.

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CONCLUSION

We reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeal.

KRUGER, J.

We Concur:

GUERRERO, C. J.

CORRIGAN, J.

LIU, J.

JENKINS, J.

EVANS, J.

SNAUFFER, J.*

*

Associate Justice of the Court of Appeal, Fifth Appellate

District, assigned by the Chief Justice pursuant to article VI,

section 6 of the California Constitution.

42

See next page for addresses and telephone numbers for counsel who

argued in Supreme Court.

Name of Opinion City of Los Angeles v. PricewaterhouseCoopers

LLP

__________________________________________________________

Procedural Posture (see XX below)

Original Appeal

Original Proceeding

Review Granted (published) XX 84 Cal.App.5th 466

Review Granted (unpublished)

Rehearing Granted

__________________________________________________________

Opinion No. S277211

Date Filed: August 22, 2024

__________________________________________________________

Court: Superior

County: Los Angeles

Judge: Elihu M. Berle

__________________________________________________________

Counsel:

Michael N. Feuer and Hydee Feldstein Soto, City Attorneys, Kathleen

A. Kenealy, Chief Assistant City Attorney, Joseph A. Brajevich,

Assistant City Attorney, Julie C. Riley; Browne George Ross O’Brien

Annaguey & Ellis, Ellis George Cipollone O’Brien Annaguey, Ellis

George Cipollone, Eric M. George, Guy C. Nicholson; Annaguey

McCann, Kathryn L. McCann and Jason Y. Kelly for Plaintiff and

Appellant.

Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, Julian W. Poon, Casey J. McCracken,

Samuel Eckman, Ryan Azad, Daniel J. Thomasch, Lauren J. Elliot and

Joseph M. Ortega for Defendant and Respondent.

Orly Ravid for Amicus Project at Southwestern Law School, Joshua D.

Cahn, Warren S. Grimes, Michael M. Epstein, Martin J. Tangeman

and Erwin Chemerinsky as Amici Curiae on behalf of Defendant and

Respondent.

Counsel who argued in Supreme Court (not intended for

publication with opinion):

Kathryn L. McCann

Annaguey McCann LLP

10880 Wilshire Boulevard, Suite 960

Los Angeles, CA 90024

(424) 431-0078

Julian W. Poon

Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP

333 South Grand Avenue

Los Angeles, CA 90071

(213) 229-7758