City of Los Angeles v. Pricewaterhousecoopers, LLP

Opinion of the Court by Kruger, J.

The City of Los Angeles filed a lawsuit against a private contractor. The contractor sought discovery relevant to the claims and defenses. After years of stonewalling, the City eventually turned over information revealing serious misconduct in the initiation and prosecution of the lawsuit. The trial court found that the City had been engaging in an egregious pattern of discovery abuse as part of a campaign to cover up this misconduct. The court ordered the City to pay $2.5 million in discovery sanctions. The central question before us is whether the trial court had the authority to issue the order under the general provisions of the Civil Discovery Act concerning discovery sanctions, Code of Civil Procedure sections 2023.010 and 2023.030. The Court of Appeal in this case answered no. Bucking the long-prevailing understanding of these provisions, the appellate court read the Civil Discovery Act as conferring authority to sanction the misuse of certain discovery methods, such as depositions or interrogatories, but as conferring no general authority to sanction other kinds of discovery misconduct, including the pattern of discovery abuse at issue…