Gureninger v Century City Dental Group Los Angeles County Superior Court Case Number 19STCV10611.


From the Los Angeles court's freely available online case records it is Lawzilla's understanding the following occurred:

Attorney Eric Sapir was listed as the lawyer for the plaintiff in case alleging professional negligence against a dentist.




During the litigation the defendant served discovery on Sapir's client. This consisted of two types of written questions to be answered and documents to be provided.

The judge said despite multiple meet and confer efforts between the defense attorney and Sapir no responses were provided.

Defendant then filed three motions to compel and sought sanctions.




The court file indicates Eric Sapir, Esq., did not file any opposition to the motions to compel or to the sanctions being sought against him and his clients.




The judge said the motions would be granted. He was giving attorney Sapir's clients ten days to respond.




The judge then ruled sanctions were warranted given the situation.

The said $1470 in sanctions were appropriate against attorney Eric Sapir and his clients.




When it came time for the hearing on the motions in court, attorney Sapir did appear to argue.

After hearing Sapir's argument the judge adopted the tentative ruling as the final order of the court.

$1470 in sanctions were imposed against attorney Eric Sapir.

$1470 is a large amount of sanctions from a judge in our opinion.

Lawzilla has read many orders for discovery sanctions and we view this is as on the large side.

An odd situation is that Mr. Sapir did not file any opposition to the request for sanctions against him, but he did appear to argue the matter before the judge.

However, he was apparently not able to persuade the judge about anything since the judge adopted the tentative ruling as the court's final order.

Update: After reaching out to Mr. Sapir for more information about what happened he said "Responses were served prior to the hearing instead of oppositions. The judge ordered sanctions for the preparation of the motions. No responses are due." .

Attorney Sapir then said "it is a false statement that responses were not provided prior to the hearing."

In our opinion Sapir is saying Judge Jon Takasugi is a liar who made a false statement in his court order.

Los Angeles judge Takasugi ruled just the opposite of what Sapir claimed. The judge ruled, after hearing Sapir's argument that:

- "Plaintiff has not served responses"

- "Defendants' motions are granted. Plaintiff is ordered to serve verified responses to form interrogatories, special interrogatories, and RPDs, without objections, within ten days."

The judge's order said sanctions were required by Code of Civil Procedure section 2030.290(c). That section says:

The court shall impose a monetary sanction under Chapter 7 (commencing with Section 2023.010) against any party, person, or attorney who unsuccessfully makes or opposes a motion to compel a response to interrogatories, unless it finds that the one subject to the sanction acted with substantial justification or that other circumstances make the imposition of the sanction unjust.

In Lawzilla's opinion, the judge's order says Sapir was sanctioned per section 2030.290(c) for unsuccessfully opposing a motion to compel without substantial justification.

Now it appears to us there is also the issue of attorney Eric Sapir claiming a judge did not order discovery responses be provided when the judge ruled the exact opposite - responses had not been made and must be provided within 10 days.

Before hiring Mr. Sapir as an attorney, one may want to consider these issues and sanctions, and his claiming the judge ordered sanctions but not verified responses to the discovery - when in fact the judge explicitly ruled responses had not been provided and verified answers must be made within 10 days.

Note: Lawzilla does not know if verified responses were provided before the hearing or whether attorney Sapir or the judge is correct. We only report on court orders. There is nothing in the publicly available court file telling us verified responses were provided before the hearing and Mr. Sapir did not provide us with any proof.

was admitted to the California Bar in 2012. Bar Number 282740.

Law Office of Eric Sapir
11040 Santa Monica Boulevard, Suite 440
Los Angeles, California 90025

Law School: Southwestern University




In 2019 Eric Sapir sued Southwestern Law School claiming they acted illegally to collect a consumer debt Sapir allegedly owes.



You can draw your own judgment from the lawsuit ...

In our opinion this implies Sapir owes the school money, the attorney has failed to pay his debt, the law school has tried to collect the debt, and Sapir has sued due to debt collection activities.

Is this the type of attorney you want to retain?

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.