SANCTIONS

Plantations at Haywood I v. Plantations at Haywood LLC, 108 Cal. App. 5th 803

Attorney Catanzarite was sanctioned in the amount of $37,000 because he filed a frivolous opposition to a motion to confirm filed by defendant Plantations and then refused to withdraw the opposition. In his motion, Catanzarite contended that the arbitrator’s decision to admit evidence submitted by Catanzarite was a sham to avoid vacatur because he had no intention to consider the evidence. In moving to vacate the award, Catanzarite misquoted Moncharch v. Heily & Blasé (1992) 3 Cal. 4th 1 and also relied upon Burlage v. Superior Court (2009) 178 Cal. App. 524, which had been disapproved by the Supreme Court in Heimlich v. Shivji (2019) 7 Cal. 5th 350, to support his contention that “hearing” evidence must include considering it. Catanzarite appealed and the Court of Appeal affirmed.

If anything, the citation of Burlage proved his bad faith. Catanzarite knew the Supreme Court had explicitly disapproved Burlage in Heimlich. Thus, he was also aware of Heimlich, yet he made no effort to address it or distinguish it in his briefing.

Catanzarite also contended that he was statutorily entitled to file a response to Plantations’ petition to confirm the arbitration, and to contest the facts claimed in the petition, and thus he could not be sanctioned for doing so. But the right to file a document should not be confused with an obligation to do so. Catanzarite was not faced with sanctions because he filed a response. It was the substance of the response that was the problem. And while it is true that the failure to file a response may certainly be treated as an admission for purposes of appeal, that is not a significant loss if the only argument to be made in opposition is one no reasonable attorney would make. Catanzarite further contended that the trial court was simply wrong to sanction counsel just because it believed his cited authorities were unpersuasive next to other authorities. That mischaracterized what happened below. The weight of Catanzarite's “authority” was not merely “unpersuasive.” He asserted that contrary to the trial court's finding, his opposition was supported by substantial evidence. The court disagreed. Catanzarite's argument was that “[a]lthough the Arbitrator ostensibly admitted all or nearly all exhibits ‘into evidence’, this was done only as a pretext to allow the Arbitrator to willfully refuse to hear dispositive evidence … .” Catanzarite offered no evidence to support this assertion of overt arbitrator misconduct. His evidence demonstrated only that he had submitted documents to the arbitrator which, when viewed in the abstract and most favorably to his clients, were arguably inconsistent with some aspects of the arbitrator's award. Even if such inconsistency were sufficient to suggest arbitrator error, it would not be sufficient to demonstrate intentional misconduct. Because Catanzarite failed to offer any affirmative evidence in support of his contention that the arbitrator admitted his evidence as a pretext for refusing to consider it, there was no error in the trial court's determination that Catanzarite failed to produce sufficient evidence to support a finding in his favor.