Felipe v Greene Los Angeles County Superior Court Case Number BC638721.


From the court's tentative ruling and online county case records it is Lawzilla's understanding the following occurred:

Attorney Brian Banner represented the plaintiff in an auto accident case.




Defendants served a request for documents to be produced and written questions for plaintiff to answer as part of discovery.

Banner's office did not serve responses for his client by the due date.

Defendant's attorney granted Banner extensions of time for his client.

Finally, a motion to compel was filed.

The judge said attorney Brian Banner did not file any opposition to the motion or request for sanctions.

Despite a motion being filed with the court, there were still no discovery responses.




The judge then initially imposed sanctions against both attorney Brian Banner and his client for $692.




There was then a court hearing for the motion.

Attorney Brian Banner did not appear.

About four months after the discovery was served the judge adopted the tentative ruling as the final order of the court.

Interesting court order sanctioning attorney Brian Banner.

As best Lawzilla can interpret the court's order the attorney sanctions must relate to attorney Banner obtaining extensions of time for his client to answer discovery and then failing to obtain those responses.

Since Brian Banner did not oppose the motion seeking sanctions against him, or appear at the court hearing, we assume he agreed attorney sanctions were warranted.

Worse, since he did not make an opposition he let sanctions enforceable as a judgment be imposed against himself and his client.

It is unclear what was gained from this strategy. His client now has a court order to answer the discovery. There are now sanctions. If an attorney had a problem getting their client to be responsive they could withdraw, but Banner did not do that either.

If you are looking to retain an attorney you will have to ask yourself if this is the attorney you want to aggressively pursue your case and look out for your interests.



Update: Brian Banner provided us with the following new information about what happened:

"Yes we had moved and were not given proper notice of the motion or ruling. We are filing a declaration with the court. I actually spoke to the defense attorney about this during a mediation and she was aware that there was no new discovery responses. The only Thing we didn't produce was a supplemental discovery response stating nothing had changed. The sanctions will be vacated"

Lawzilla checked the online case docket and could not find where Banner had given notice of a new address.

We believe it might be hard for an attorney to claim he was not given proper notice of a motion because his office moved - if he never filed a notice of a new address.

Moreover, what did he think was happening in the case?

The judge's order said Brian Banner had been given extensions of time for his client to answer discovery.

In our opinion that tells us Banner's office was served with the discovery. He knew responses were not timely being provided and knew extensions of time were being missed. What did he think the other attorney was doing? Nothing?

This does not seem diligent or good oversight over a case. It seems potentially misplaced to say proper notice was not provided when it was Banner's office who had not filed a change of address.

California Rules of Court 2.200 required Banner to serve and file with the court a change of address.

Brian Banner was admitted to the California Bar in 2012. Bar Number 282225.

Banner Attorneys
25950 Acero Suite 200
Mission Viejo, California 92691

Law School: California Western School of Law

Sanctions are Recoverable as a Judgment - Analysis of the little known fact that sanctions awarded in a lawsuit can be enforced as their own separate judgment. Surprise someone by putting a lien on their bank account, home, wages, etc.