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Westwood Lawyers Slammed in C.A. Opinion for Second Time for Incivility in Briefing
By a MetNews Staff Writer
Court of Appeal Justice Helen Zukin, writing for this district’s Div. Four, has for the second time chastised members of a Westwood law firm for displaying a lack of civility in their appellate brief.
In an opinion filed last July 11, she took to task three lawyers in the firm of Frost LLP—Christopher Frost, John D. Maatta and Nicholas Lauber—for comments in their brief assailing Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Monica Bachner over her order granting an anti-SLAPP motion in an action they filed on behalf of WasteXperts, Inc.
The lawyers gained a reversal of that order, but also incurred a scolding from Zukin over their choice of wording.
“We publish to draw attention to our concluding note on civility and persuasive brief writing,” she wrote.
On Friday, the Court of Appeal posted an opinion filed the previous day, this one not certified for publication, in which the same three lawyers, along with firm member David T. Shackelford, won but were reprimanded.
Zukin kicked off Thursday’s opinion by saying:
“Incivility calls for an apology. Repeated incivility, coupled with inaccuracy in briefing, calls for something more. We reversed the grant of a special motion to strike filed under Code of Civil Procedure section 425.161 by respondent Arakelian Enterprises, Inc. dba Athens Services (Athens)….Here, we necessarily reverse the trial court’s award of attorney’s fees to Athens under section 425.16, subdivision (c), as Athens is no longer a prevailing defendant under that statute. But, in the interests of justice, we order WasteXperts to bear its own costs for this appeal, and we advise their counsel yet again that hyperbolic and inaccurate briefing only damages an attorney’s credibility and weakens their presentation.”
She elaborated:
“While the opening brief in this appeal was filed shortly before our opinion in WasteXperts I, and thus before counsel was aware of our views on their verbiage, this does not wholly excuse the repetition of the previous incivility. First, unfounded attacks on the trial court and the opposition are always unacceptable and unwise. Counsel should not need a warning from any court on this subject. Second, counsel for WasteXperts had ample opportunity in this appeal to offer an apology and attempt to correct the issue. But they made no effort to do so in the four months that elapsed between WasteXperts I and the filing of Athens’s respondent’s brief, or by filing a reply brief thereafter.”
Misstatement Made
The jurist noted that the lawyers, appealing Bachner’s award against their client of $175,000 in attorney fees and $767.65 in costs in connection with her granting of the anti-SLAPP motion, termed that amount “the largest (and most egregious)…that can be found in any recorded California case” stemming from such a motion. They also maintained, she recited, that it was “the highest fee award in the history of the Anti-SLAPP statute for a successful motion in a trial court” and was “more than triple the typical attorney fee award in such matters.”
Zukin wrote:
“One practice manual for this area of the law has compiled a list of fee awards in California courts, both state and federal; many of the awards on that list approach or exceed $175,000….While counsel may not have been aware their statements were inaccurate, they should not have made statistical claims without citation to a survey, study, or other authoritative source.”
July 2025 Opinion
In her opinion filed last July 11, Zukin said:
“Having resolved the merits of the appeal, we cannot allow the tone of the briefing to pass without comment. Appellant’s briefs use inappropriately harsh terms to launch needless and unsubstantiated attacks on the decisions made by the trial judge, as well as against the opposing party and its lawyers. We recognize WasteXperts may not prosecute its appeal without responding to the trial court’s orders. But counsel can dispute the merits of a ruling without calling it ‘transparently erroneous,’ ‘egregious,’ or a ‘truly perverse miscarriage of justice.’ Counsel did no better in proclaiming that ‘the overreach by the trial court here is nothing short of shocking, effectively blessing Athens’ business threats...and immunizing them.’ Appellant can certainly challenge the outcome without such unfounded insinuations that the trial judge had become an advocate for the other side.”
She went on to counsel:
“Emotional diatribes do nothing to support the arguments made by counsel. In fact, this verbiage serves the opposite purpose. It requires the court to spend additional resources filtering out the hyperbole, and requires opposing counsel to bill their client for additional time to compose a response.
“Ad hominem attacks and other invective detract from counsel’s legal arguments, signal inappropriate personal embroilment in the dispute, and indicate an inability to engage in the reasoned analysis the courts need and counsel’s clients deserve. When counsel resort to name-calling and to unsupported claims of misconduct, they risk obscuring any meritorious arguments they may have. Appellant’s counsel would be well advised to refrain from incivility in the future.”
Thursday’s opinion comes in WasteXperts v. Arakelian Enterprises, B327712.
Ronald B. Turovsky, Donald R. Brown and Benjamin G. Shatz of Manatt, Phelps & Phillips represented Arakelian.
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