Appellate Sanctions Lesson

For today's lesson in appellate sanctions take a look at Parisi v. Lotchk Corp. (A135121).
http://www.courts.ca.gov/opinions/nonpub/A135121.PDF

Division 4 of the First District sanctions the appellant because:
1-The appeal was clearly taken from a nonappealable order -- and the respondent alerted the appellant to this point, even raising the issue of monetary sanctions.
2-The appellant never argued why the Court of Appeal should treat the improper appeal as a writ petition.
3-The appellant's brief was deficient, failing to explain why the order was appealable, failing to address the substance of the trial court's ruling, and generally failing to support its points by reasoned argument.
4-The notice of appeal contained false statements about the underlying proceedings.
5-The record demonstrated that the appellant had engaged in a pattern of conduct to delay the case.

It's possible that a court might overlook imposing sanctions for any one of these points standing alone, but in combination they equaled an award of $6K plus attorneys' fees for the respondent.

For a somewhat different take, see fn. 7, here:
http://www.courts.ca.gov/opinions/nonpub/B238724.PDF