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Order That Lawyer, Client Pay $20,000 in Sanctions Lifted
Court of Appeal Says Judge Erred in Imposing Penalty in Part Based on Filing Statement of Disqualification
By a MetNews Staff Writer
The Court of Appeal for this district yesterday reversed a $10,000 sanction imposed sua sponte on a lawyer and a like amount on her client, in part predicated on the party filing a for-cause challenge to the judge.
Acting Presiding Justice Lamar Baker of Div. Five authored the opinion. It eradicates the order that Long Beach attorney Crystal Hill and her client, Annaquite Featherstone, the plaintiff in a custody case, pay, cumulatively, $20,000 to the defendant in that case, Brian Martinez.
Los Angeles Superior Court Judge James E. Horan issued the order in September 2021.
Admonishment to Plaintiff
At a hearing in December 2019, before Featherstone was represented by counsel, Horan told the plaintiff that her declaration in support of her petition requesting primary physical and joint legal custody of a two-month-old child, had the wrong tone, admonishing:
“[T]he way you wrote it, it was along the lines of, I control everything, I’m the boss, and, you know, I’ll do him a favor and let him see his child.
“That is not how it works. You are co-equal parents. Moms get the advantage because technically, literally, when a child is born, they are there, obviously. But then when it comes to court, they think, well, I’m the mom. I always win.”
He queried as to whether she was breast-feeding, instructing her that in answering, not to “lie” or “exaggerate.”
The judge also uttered comments reflecting empathy toward Featherstone.
Attorney’s Services Engaged
After the mother retained Hill’s services, the lawyer in March 2020 filed a statement of disqualification based on Horan’s comments in December. At a hearing after the statement was filed, Horan said that it was “almost by definition untimely under these circumstances,” proceeding to strike it.
In the course of the litigation, Martinez’s lawyer sought sanctions, with the issue dangling for a spell.
At a hearing on February 24, 2021, Horan alluded to the statement of disqualification, saying that Featherstone “has the right to believe I was biased,” and acknowledging, “I can’t sanction her for that,” but adding:
“[S]he does not have the right to file late, improperly noticed, and/or out of context motions.”
Criticizes ‘Tone’
On June 21, 2021, at a hearing, Horan commented:
“[T]here has been a tone of control in this case. It started with the very first pleading.”
Hill responded:
“We object to that statement as being biased. Once again we’re going to renew our motion to move the matter from this courtroom.”
Horan responded:
“[N]ow sanctions are back, thoroughly back, on the table, and I am now accused of bias because I am concerned that your position might be a little overreaching and controlling.”
He indicated that the matter of sanctions would be taken up at the next hearing.
In September 2021, Horan declared that the statement of disqualification “was written out of context in an intentionally inflammatory and dishonest manner.”
Baker’s Opinion
It was on that occasion that he imposed sanctions, pursuant to Family Code §271, on Hill and Featherstone. In his opinion reversing the orders, Baker said:
“As to Hill, the family court’s sanctions award is obviously wrong: Section 271 permits imposing sanctions only on a party, not a party’s attorney, and the sanctions award against Hill is therefore improper. As against Mother, the sanctions award is error too, even if a marginally less obvious one. There is a question as to whether section 271 even authorizes a family court to issue sanctions on its own motion, but we need not decide that issue because the conduct relied on by the family court to impose sanctions here, even considered in the aggregate, does not rise to the level of meriting sanctions. The family court abused its discretion in concluding otherwise.”
The justice went on to say:
“Mother’s motion to seek disqualification of the family court judge and her objection to perceived bias again at the February 2021 hearing were not sanctionable either. The family court itself had it right when it stated during an earlier hearing that ‘Petitioner has the right to believe I was biased. She always has that right, and I can’t sanction her for that.’ But the record reveals the court was unable to hold to that standard and did what it said it could not by improperly relying on Mother’s disqualification motion and renewed objection to impose sanctions.”
Elaboration in Footnote
In a footnote, Baker commented:
“The best that can be said for the family court’s reliance on the disqualification motion as grounds for sanctions is that the court believed what it thought was a procedural defect in the motion (purported untimeliness) was fair game even if the substance was not. There are several problems with that, however. One, the family court also cited counsel’s renewal of a bias objection during the June 2021 hearing as reason for sanctions, and there was undisputedly no timeliness problem with that objection. Two, one cannot read this appellate record without coming away with the impression that the family court was just miffed about being accused of bias. On a personal level, that is understandable. But exercise of the judicial function requires more, and the mere accusation of bias here is not reason for a five-figure sanction—or any sanction, for that matter. Three, the filing of a motion is generally not sanctionable under section 271 unless it is “so devoid of merit that no reasonable person would have pursued it.”…
He continued:
Procedurally, the motion was not obviously untimely in light of Mother’s retention of counsel and the date on which the transcript of the pertinent hearing was received. Substantively, Mother’s motion to disqualify the judge was not utterly devoid of merit either. A non-frivolous argument could be made that the family court’s statements at the December 2019 hearing suggested the court was allowing an apparent view about how mothers generally act (the court stated its remarks during the hearing would ‘alert mothers’ to the law in the state of California) to color its view of Mother’s then-self-represented litigation of her case.”
Other Bases
In imposing sanctions, Horan also alluded to Featherstone’s declaration, with which he had taken issue in December 2019, and a request she uttered at a hearing that child visitation by the father be via Zoom. Baker wrote:
“The family court’s discussion of the grounds for its sanctions order referenced what it called Mother’s controlling ‘mindset.’ Yet section 271 provides for sanctions where the conduct of a party or attorney frustrates the policy of the law to promote settlement. The record indicates that, in sanctioning Mother for the requests she made in her early declaration and for requesting video calls take place on Zoom, the court was principally sanctioning Mother not for taking actions that frustrated settlement efforts but for taking litigation positions with which the court disagreed.’ That is improper.”
He went on to say:
“With these grounds for sanctions appropriately put aside, that leaves only Mother’s filing of a proposed judgment with errors. That cannot justify the sanctions award here, which is infected with other inappropriate considerations that we have detailed. Further, the particular errors in the proposed judgment were not so significant as to merit sanctions anyway.”
The case is Featherstone v. Martinez, B316280.
Ladera Ranch attorney James D. Decker represented Featherstone and Hill on appeal. Martinez did not appear.
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