Sickle

In this action, plaintiff Beth Van Sickle filed a complaint against her former attorney, defendant Gregory F. Gilbert, arising out of his alleged mismanagement, years earlier, of certain properties Van Sickle had received in a divorce in which Gilbert had represented her. Van Sickle included in her complaint a cause of action for an accounting, and, as is generally true in accounting cases, she did not include in her complaint a demand for a specific amount of money from Gilbert in connection with that cause of action. (See Ely v. Gray (1990) 224 Cal.App.3d 1257, 1261-1262 [ 274 Cal.Rptr. 536 ].) She also included in her complaint a cause of action for breach of fiduciary duty, in which she likewise failed to include a prayer for a specific amount of damages. There is also no evidence Van Sickle ever served Gilbert with a statement identifying the amount she sought to recover from him in this action, whether as damages or otherwise.

When Gilbert failed to comply with an order compelling him to answer Van Sickle’s special interrogatories and respond to her demands for production of documents, the trial court granted Van Sickle’s request for a terminating sanction and…