Wednesday, July 8, 2026
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Judge Imposed Terminating Sanction Based on Breach of Orders Never Made—C.A.
By a MetNews Staff Writer
A Los Angeles Superior Court judge erred in issuing a terminating sanction in an action against an insurance company based on supposedly snubbing three discovery orders, Div. Four of this district’s Court of Appeal has held, declaring that no such orders had been made.
Justice Audra Mori of Div. Four authored the unpublished opinion, filed Monday. She said that Judge Michael C. Small misread the record in concluding that defendant Liberty Mutual Fire Insurance Company had been required to turn over unredacted copies of everything in its file relating to a claim by plaintiff Curtiss Croft after October 2020.
Scott Sveslosky, Robert A. Sanders, Andrea Feathers, and Matthew G. Halgren of the law firm of Sheppard, Mullin, Richter & Hampton, representing Liberty, pointed out on appeal that contrary to Small’s notion, the insurer had only waived privilege as to earlier documents.
Mistaken Premise
They wrote:
“The trial court premised its decision to impose the ‘ultimate’ sanction against Liberty on its conclusion that Liberty waived all objections to producing its claim file, which was sought in Plaintiff’s First Request for Production…regardless of time or content. However, Plaintiff’s discovery request was expressly time-limited to the ‘present,’ so the waiver could not possibly affect documents created after May 2020, or at the latest September 2020. Nor could Liberty’s discovery response…waive attorney work product created by other attorneys months and years into the future.” Arguing for an affirmance, Croft—through his counsel, Michael E. Schwimer and Mitchell E. Rosensweig of the Santa Monica firm of Schwimer Weinstein—maintained that that the appeal “is the culmination of Appellant Liberty Mutual’s…years-long strategy of delay and defiance” and that “Liberty deliberately violated” discovery orders.
Croft’s claim goes back to a July 3, 2015 automobile accident. He made a claim for the policy limit of $1 million under his uninsured motorist coverage, which Liberty denied.
Monetary Sanction Invalidated
Mori’s opinion directs that the order imposing a terminating sanction be vacated and that an award of $15,750 in monetary sanctions also be lifted.
She wrote:
“The trial court had the difficult task of tracing discovery disputes between the parties, which were interrupted by an appeal and presided over by different judicial officers, back several years. There were many discovery orders concerning the claim file, but there was no clear order requiring Liberty to produce completely unredacted copies of privileged documents added to the claim file after October 2020….
“It was therefore error to impose terminating sanctions….Because the award of monetary sanctions was based on the imposition of terminating sanctions, the monetary sanctions are also reversed.”
The case is Croft v. Liberty Mutual Fire Insurance Company, B339589.
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