The Court of Appeal sanctions Las Vegas attorney (and member of the California bar) T. Matthew Phillips $25,000 based upon a series of vociferous yet unsupported claims that he made in a petition for writ of mandate. That's a fair hunk of change. But that sanction, including its size, seem eminently warranted to me.
The Court of Appeal's opinion explains at some length the particular statements for which Mr. Phillips deserves sanctions, but the basic summary is this:
"We are particularly concerned with Phillips’s disregard of his duty to uphold the respect owed to the judiciary. It is one thing to assert in a petition that the trial court committed error. An attorney acts well within their duty as an advocate to raise good-faith arguments challenging rulings, even when it presents an uphill battle. There is nothing inherently improper about making allegations of bias or discrimination against a trial court. . . .
But what attorneys cannot do is what Phillips did here: make serious accusations of impropriety against the court without a scintilla of supporting evidence. Phillips did not simply argue the trial court was wrong. He accused the trial court of being an active participant in a conspiracy with opposing counsel to intentionally deprive N.D. of her rights."
I was even more convinced that the Court of Appeal's sanctions against Mr. Phillips were justified when I did a little digging and found this Order, in which the Nevada judiciary declared Mr. Phillips to be a vexatious litigant and described -- in 46 pages, no less -- the wide variety of his repeated misconduct that led to that Order.
Even without knowing about that prior Order, which was issued last year (from a different jurisdiction), at the end of its opinion, the California Court of Appeal refers the matter to the California bar. Entirely appropriately.
Let's hope the bar does something. Quickly.
