Wednesday, November 12, 2003
Page 7
PERSPECTIVES (Column)
Puzzled Jurist Told to Change the Toner in His Fax Machine
By ROGER M. GRACE
Time and again over the past month or so, a bewildered Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Alan G. Buckner has received a message from the Metropolitan News Company (publisher of this newspaper) on his chambers’ fax machine, telling him:
“The FAX’s toner is almost run out, it can only print about 50 pages, When ‘TONER EMPTY’ appears, The printing will stop.
“Meanwhile, The FAX will send a ‘TONER LOW REPORT’ to your local dealer automatically, They will contact with you.”
With the messages coming with increased frequency, Buckner wrote to MNC General Manager Vahn Babigian, saying:
“I am finally impelled to write this letter for the reason that (1) I received three such faxes on 30 October 2003—the date this letter is dictated, and (2) I installed a new toner cartridge only 10 days ago.”
The judge was undoubtedly mystified as to why we would care about the state of the toner in his fax machine. Our apparent solicitousness must have been especially confounding given that he recently acted on his own motion in striking our causes of action against District Attorney Steve Cooley for libel (proceeding on a crackpot basis that was so bizarre that even Cooley couldn’t embrace his theory).
Anyway, Babigian, who was himself taken aback at learning of the newspaper’s frequent faxes to the befuddled Buckner, figured out what was going on. The fax machines here, about four-months-old, were programmed by Minolta to transmit the message quoted above when the toner supply was dwindling. It was intended that the advisory go to Minolta —but the phone number that was built into the machines was Buckner’s.
Well, if the Minolta fax machines at our offices have been instructed by their creator to telephone Buckner when they get thirsty for toner, presumably other fax machines of similar vintage have the same directive etched in their circuitry. Buckner is apt to be receiving orders for toner from throughout the realm.
This presents a dandy potential for him to derive an income on the side by filling orders for toner.
A message recently began appearing in the visual display window on one of our fax machines. It complains that the drum needs to be replaced.
I trust that Buckner will be over shortly with the new drum.
BUT WHAT FOR? —Div. Five of this district’s Court of Appeal on Thursday, in an unpublished opinion by Justice Richard Mosk, reversed a $4,000 sanction imposed by Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Jean E. Matusinka on the defendants and their trial lawyer. The sanction, payable to the plaintiffs and their counsel, was appealed on the ground that it was not statutorily authorized.
Perhaps the case represents an appellate court’s scrapping of yet another frivolous sanction imposed by a judge who became too frisky in the exercise of powers. But if it does fit that category, it’s because facts exist which do not appear in the opinion.
Mosk’s opinion, the body of which is 386 words, never mentions what the conduct was on the part of the defendants and their lawyer which triggered the sanction. It gives not a clue as to what rationale Matusinka offered for her action.
Mosk rejected the plaintiffs’ lame rationale that sanctions may be imposed based on inherent powers (the California Supreme Court scotched that notion in Bauguess v. Paine (1978) 22 Cal.3d 626) and dismissed the explanation that Matusinka was simply awarding attorney fees pursuant to a contractual provision. The judge, herself, said she was imposing sanctions. (Too, the provision did not authorize a direct award of attorney fees against or in favor of a party’s lawyer.)
All we know is that Mosk made short strift of two balmy arguments posed by the respondents in favor of the order under appeal. But we are left in the dark as to just what it was the trial court determined to be sanctionable, and on what purported authority the sanctions were imposed.
Even in unpublished opinions, there ought to be enough substance that a reader can pick up the opinion and understand that the ruckus is all about.
The case is I-Tel Pub. Corp. v. Spektor, 2003 WL 22511621.
FROM SS E-MAIL SERVICE —Making its rounds on the e-mail circuit is a reflection by Wilford H. Ross, an administrative judge in Woodland Hills for the Department of Defense’s Office of Hearings and Appeals. Former Los Angeles County Bar President Sheldon Sloan forwarded it to those on his list.
It reads: