CAROLE TADDEO-BATES VS IFRAN KHAN - Martin Horwitz, we believe, is the attorney for the plaintiff in this matter based on Los Angeles County court case summary records listing him as plaintiff's counsel of record, and his name is on the complaint in the court file.

From the tentative ruling this is what happened:

Attorney Martin Horwitz represented the plaintiff in this case.

One has to dig deep into the tentative to understand why sanctions were awarded.

We found this jaw dropping:

Martin Horwitz' client "failed to appear at deposition seven separate occasions."

Yikes.

7 times! Over two years.

It gets worse.

To try and get out of sanctions the opposition papers Horwitz filed apparently claimed the motion was moot and his client would sit for a deposition on April 12th.

But then, unbelievably, Martin Horwtiz, Esq., apparently served a notice of objection to a deposition on that date.

Seriously.

First the attorney tells the court his client will be deposed on a specific date. Then he files an objection to the deposition.

We are amused at this shenanigans but obviously the judge was not.

The court hammered Mr. Horwitz to the tune of $1439.40 in sanctions.

The judge also continued the trial date and discovery deadlines so defendants could conduct more discovery about Horwitz' client.

Finally, attorney Martin Horwitz' client was ordered to be deposed within ten days.

Would you hire Martin Horwitz to be your attorney?

Nope. The judge basically said the attorney was playing games. The court said sanctions were "substantially justified" against the attorney for first telling the court the matter was moot because of a deposition, but then he objected to the deposition.

Frankly, from what we read, in our opinion Mr. Horwitz should count his lucky stars he was only sanctioned and not ordered to a contempt hearing and/or reported to the State Bar for misleading a judge.

Martin Horwitz was admitted to the California Bar in 1991. Bar Number 156056.

9430 West Olympic Blvd Suite 400
Beverly Hills, California 90212

Law School: Southwestern University