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C.A. Affirms $37,000 Sanction Award Against O.C. Attorney, Grants More on Appeal
Opinion Says Order Proper Where Opposition to Motion to Confirm Arbitration Award Was Frivolous, Noting Citation to Disapproved Case, Baseless Accusation Against Arbitrator
By a MetNews Staff Writer
Div. Three of the Fourth District Court of Appeal has affirmed an award of $37,000 in sanctions against Orange County attorney Kenneth J. Catanzarite for filing what the court determined to be a frivolous opposition to a motion to confirm an arbitration award, and granted a motion for additional sanctions for pursuing an appeal based on the same meritless arguments.
In an opinion, filed Monday and authored by Acting Presiding Justice Thomas M. Goethals, the court said the Anaheim-based lawyer, with the firm Catanzarite Law Corp, cited case law that has been disapproved by the California Supreme Court—on the very issue Catanzarite cited the opinion to support—and asserted, without evidentiary support, that the arbitrator “exceeded his power in refusing to hear undisputed evidence.”
The sanction was imposed by Orange Superior Court Judge Randall J. Sherman pursuant to Code of Civil Procedure §128.7.
Catanzarite argued in his opening brief on appeal that the sanction was improperly imposed because §128.7(b)(2) authorizes the filing of “claims, defenses, and other legal contentions… warranted by… a nonfrivolous argument for the extension, modification, or reversal of existing law or the establishment of new law.”
Unpersuaded, Goethals said that “[a] party’s abstract right to oppose a petition, or to preserve arguments for appeal, is not an entitlement to pursue frivolous arguments in the trial court or this court” and that Catanzarite acknowledged awareness that the California Supreme Court had taken a contrary position to some of his arguments but he “made no effort to address [the high court case] or distinguish it in his briefing.”
Justices Maurice Sanchez and Thomas A. Delaney joined in the opinion.
The dispute arose after Catanzarite’s clients, Plantations at Haywood 1 LLC, Plantations at Haywood 2 LLC, Plantations at Haywood 13 LLC, and Plantations at Haywood 23 LLC, sued defendant Plantations at Haywood LLC (“Plantations”) over a real estate dispute.
The matter was ordered to arbitration with the American Arbitration Association and the arbitrator, Neil R. O’Hanlon, found for the defendant and awarded $1.7 million in attorney fees and $36,200 in costs to Plantations.
In February 2023, Plantations filed a motion to confirm the arbitration award in the trial court, which Catanzarite opposed. His supporting declaration averred 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” but he cited no evidence that suggested a “refusal” on the arbitrator’s part to consider the evidence.
Instead, he argued that because his documents “plainly showed” facts inconsistent with the award, O’Hanlon must have ignored them. The lawyer cited Code of Civil Procedure §1286.2 which provides that “the court shall vacate the award if the court determines” that “[t]he arbitrators exceeded their powers and the award cannot be corrected” or if “[t]he rights of the party were substantially prejudiced by the refusal of the arbitrators…to hear evidence material to the controversy.”
Plantations responded by filing a motion for sanctions under §128.7, saying the opposition was frivolous, citing case law establishing that “the admission of evidence is to hear it.” Sherman agreed with Plantations and awarded sanctions based on the reasonable attorney fees and other expenses incurred in responding to the filing.
After Catanzarite appealed, Plantations moved for monetary sanctions on the ground that the appeal was also frivolous.
Arbitration Award
Goethals noted that “[t]he rule that courts do not review the merits of an arbitration award is as well-established a principle of law as we have in California” and that §1286.2 “authorizes a court to vacate an arbitration award only under limited circumstances.”
He pointed to the 2016 California Supreme Court decision in Heimlich v. Shivji, which held that vacation of an arbitral award for “refusal…to hear evidence material to the controversy” cannot be grounded on a claim the court erred in the merits of its decision because “if not properly limited, [that basis] could swallow the rule that arbitration awards are generally not reviewable on the merits.”
Catanzarite relied on the 2009 Court of Appeal decision by this district’s Div. Six in Burlage v. Superior Court. There, Presiding Justice Arthur Gilbert found that a party’s rights were substantially prejudiced by the arbitrator’s refusal to hear evidence that would have provided a complete defense to the claim.
The appellant argued in his opening brief that admitting relevant evidence is not enough, contending that “[l]anguage in the Burlage case supported Plaintiff’s petition to vacate and Plaintiff’s claims that the Arbitrator failed to hear or consider material evidence.”
Goethals responded:
“Catanzarite’s…assertion that the arbitrator failed to ‘hear’ the evidence he admitted is directly contradicted by [case law that] Catanzarite failed to cite or acknowledge in his briefing. And while that initial omission might have been an oversight, Catanzarite did not back down when [the case] was cited by Plantations. Instead, he relied upon Burlage, which had been disapproved by the Supreme Court in Heimlich, to support his contention that ‘hearing’ evidence must include considering it. If anything, the citation proved his bad faith.”
Entitlement to Respond
The jurist said:
“Catanzarite also repeats here his contention below that he was statutorily entitled to file a response to Plantations’s 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 is not faced here with sanctions because he filed a response; it was the substance of the response that is 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.”
He continued:
“Catanzarite further contends, ‘[t]he trial court was simply wrong to sanction counsel [just] because the trial court believed [his] cited authorities were unpersuasive next to other authorities.’ That mischaracterizes what happened below. As we have already explained, the weight of Catanzarite’s ‘authority’ was not merely ‘unpersuasive.’ ”
In a footnote, he added:
“Catanzarite characterizes his performance below as having ‘cited a case in support, that was disapproved of by another case.’ That would be an accurate description of Catanzarite’s argument only in a world in which we do not distinguish between the decisions of our Supreme Court and our courts of appeal.”
Goethals was similarly unconvinced by the bare assertions of arbitrator misconduct, saying:
“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. As Catanzarite’s own proffered authority states, even if such inconsistency were sufficient to suggest arbitrator error, it would not be sufficient to demonstrate intentional misconduct.”
Sanctions on Appeal
As to the request for sanctions on appeal, the justice remarked:
“We find that this appeal lacks any semblance of merit. Catanzarite’s opposition to the sanctions motion simply repeats the assertions he made in the court below and in his opening brief on appeal. Catanzarite’s dogged insistence that he had a ‘right’ to file an opposition to Plantations’s petition to confirm the arbitration award—combined with his refusal to grapple with contrary Supreme Court authority—did not become more persuasive through repetition. The result is an appeal that any reasonable attorney would agree is completely without merit. Sanctions are therefore appropriate.”
He continued:
“Plantations has requested an award of $43,835 in sanctions. Although Catanzarite has not contested this amount, we remand this case to the trial court with directions to conduct a hearing to allow the parties to develop a more detailed evidentiary record to establish the proper amount.”
The case is Plantations at Haywood 1 LLC v. Plantations at Haywood LLC, 2025 S.O.S. 300.
The State Bar website shows Catanzarite has no disciplinary history since his admission to practice in 1984.
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