Gaggero

FACTS

This litigation began in 2002, when plaintiff sued defendants for malpractice. Plaintiff lost, and the trial court granted defendants’ motion for attorney fees. We affirmed the judgment in an unpublished opinion in May 2010. (Gaggero v. Knapp, Petersen & Clarke (May 6, 2010, B207567) (Gaggero I).) In December 2010, the judgment was amended to include attorney fees and costs on appeal, plus postjudgment interest, and amounted to more than $1.8 million. Defendants’ initial efforts to enforce the judgment against plaintiff were predictably fruitless. We say “predictably” because one of the principal issues in the underlying malpractice case involved the tactics plaintiff employed with other judgment creditors. These included the assertion that he had no assets and was judgment-proof. The trial court in the malpractice case described plaintiff’s testimony on the subject this way (a description we found was fully supported by the record): “Between 1995 and 1998, [plaintiff] did extensive ‘estate planning,’ which supposedly resulted in all of his personal assets being transferred to various corporations, trusts and foundations. Supposedly, he retained absolutely no ownership…