ORIENTAL ENTERPRISE LK, INC v. SHU JUN ZHANG - According to the judge's order, defendant is represented by John Wolcott. Mr. Wolcott is also listed as the defense attorney on the Los Angeles county case summary for this matter.

From the tentative ruling this is what happened:

Attorney John Wolcott represents the defendant in this case.

The plaintiff served discovery for Wolcott's client to answer. This included requests for admissions, requests to produce documents, and answering written questions.

Responses are normally due within about thirty days. If a client needs more time to answer it is customary for their attorney to ask for an extension.

Here, though, there appears to be silence from Wolcott about the discovery. No responses were provided. There is no indication any request for an extention of time to answer was made.

So plaintiff filed motions to compel.

Almost seven weeks after the motion was filed, John Wolcott, Esq., stated responses to the discovery had been made.

Reviewing the situation and what had been stated by Mr. Wolcott, the judge said $840 in sanctions were to be levied on the attorney.

This is a significant amount.

It gets worse, and the sanctions levy may have been influenced by misconduct by attorney Wolcott.

It appears John Wolcott filed retaliatory and frivolous motions in response to plaintiff's motion to compel.

In our opinion Wolcott could eventually be facing more sanctions as a result. Potentially, the State Bar may become involved.

Per the judge this is what happened:

Wolcott's client served discovery on plaintiff in 2016 and plaintiff responded in 2017.

The rule is if responses are inadequate there is a 45 day deadline to file a motion to compel.

After plaintiff filed his motions to compel attorney Wolcott filed his own motions to compel relating to the 2016 discovery his office had served. Wolcott's motion was filed in April 2018, long after the 45-day deadline had passed.

Needless to say plaintiff's attorney noted the problem that the motions were not timely.

The judge said attorney John Wolcott admitted in a declaration filed under penalty of perjury that his motions were not timely.

The court then rejected the motions.

The problem we see for Wolcott is plaintiff can now file a sanctions request for filing frivolous motions. The motions were frivolous because they were untimely, which John Wolcott admits.

It is our understanding sanctions from filing frivolous motions are an issue which may be reportable to the California State Bar.

Bottom line: Worse in our view than being sanctioned $840 for not getting responses to plaintiff's discovery, is filing frivolous, retaliatory motions in response.

This reeks of not just attorney negligence, but intentional wrongdoing.

It cannot be overstated how bad this appears, and could ultimately be for John Wolcott.

Would you hire John Wolcott to be your attorney?

Absolutely not. The monetary sanctions from the court are obviously a concern.

But the bigger red-flag we see is Wolcott filing motions he admitted were untimely.

This type of intentional misconduct likely undermines his credibility with the court, and could subject him, and his client, to additional sanctions.

The judge was polite and to the point in reciting what happened and the orders being made, but once you realize what is being said about an attorney admitting to filing untimely motions - apparently in retaliation - we see a huge concern about attorney competence and what kind of mentality would lead to these motions being filed.

Attorney John Wolcott has been disciplined by the California State Bar.

We do not yet have the details about the incident, but Wolcott was disciplined and put on probation by the Bar.

John Wolcott was admitted to the California Bar in 1984. Bar Number 113693.

Law Offices of John F. Wolcott
3318 Del Mar Avenue Suite 202
Rosemead, California 91770

Law School: LaSalle University