Opinion
B160828.
11-6-2003
I-TEL PUBLISHING CORP., Plaintiff and Respondent, v. GENE SPEKTOR, et al., Defendants and Appellants; STEPHEN HOLLINGSWORTH, Objector and Appellant.
Law Offices of Bruce Cormicle and Bruce Cormicle for Defendants, Objector, and Appellants. The Mentislaw Group and Diane L. Mancinelli for Plaintiff and Respondent.
Defendants and appellants Gene Spektor and Amiable Aesthetics Tech, Inc. (collectively, defendants) and their trial attorney, Stephen Hollingsworth (Hollingsworth), appeal from an order imposing $4,000 in sanctions against them and in favor of plaintiff I-Tel Publishing Corporation (I-Tel) and its counsel Diane L. Mancinelli (Mancinelli). Citing Bauguess v. Paine (1978) 22 Cal.3d 626, defendants and Hollingsworth contend that the order must be reversed because there was no statutory authority for imposing sanctions. I-Tel contends that (1) the trial court had inherent power to impose sanctions, and (2) the order may be affirmed because I-Tel was entitled to its attorney fees under an attorney fees provision in a stipulation between I-Tel and defendants.
I-Tels first contention is directly contrary to the California Supreme Courts holding in Bauguess v. Paine, supra, 22 Cal.3d at pp. 637-639. The cases I-Tel relies upon in support of its contention are inapplicable here. Chambers v. NASCO, Inc. (1991) 501 U.S. 32 involved the inherent power of a federal court to impose sanctions. (Id. at p. 35 ["This case requires us to explore the scope of the inherent power of a federal court to sanction a litigant for bad-faith conduct"].) Johnson v. Banducci (1963) 212 Cal.App.2d 254, People v. Superior Court (1970) 13 Cal.App.3d 672, and Vanderstok v. Bank of America (1972) 29 Cal.App.3d 731, all were decided before Bauguess; thus, to the extent the holdings of those cases are contrary to Bauguess, they no longer are good law. And the Court of Appeals decision in Byran v. Bank of America (2001) 86 Cal.App.4th 185, not only did not (and could not) "supersede" the Supreme Courts holding in Bauguess, it did not address a trial courts inherent power to impose sanctions.
I-Tels second contention is contrary to the record. The trial court did not purport to award attorney fees under the stipulations attorney fees provision. The trial court specifically stated, three times, that it was ordering defendants and Hollingsworth to pay $4,000 in sanctions. Moreover, the court ordered defendants and Hollingsworth to pay $4,000 to I-Tel and Mancinelli. Neither Hollingsworth nor Mancinelli were parties to the stipulation, and the attorney fees provision does not provide for fees to be paid by or to either Hollingsworth or Mancinelli. Therefore, the order at issue could not properly have been made under the attorney fees provision.
DISPOSITION
The sanctions order is reversed. Appellants shall recover their costs on appeal.
We concur: TURNER, P.J., and ARMSTRONG, J.