Gray

*1000 Code of Civil Procedure section 128.5 provides the trial court with a mechanism to sanction certain bad faith actions and tactics. 1 Pursuant to a former version of that section, the trial court ordered CPF Vaseo Associates, LLC (CPF) and its counsel, John P. Byrne, to pay Bruce W. Gray and Barbara Gray (the Grays) just over $30,000 in fees and costs. Yet a mandatory procedural prerequisite to that award was never fulfilled. The motion requesting sanctions was served and filed on the same day, and no safe harbor period was afforded for CPF and Byrne to correct the challenged conduct. While a panel of this court previously determined that no such safe harbor applied to a sanctions motion like the one here, the Legislature's subsequent clarifying amendment of the section and the contrary opinion of another court convince us we must now reach a different conclusion. For that reason, we reverse.

FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

CPF was granted limited provisional remedies in a suit against the Grays in Arizona. Based on that Arizona court order, CPF applied for entry of a sister-state judgment in the San Diego Superior Court under the Sister-State Money Judgment Act (SSMJA).…