Court Opinion

ID: 9561305
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 18:06:46.080289+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:13:42.950405
License: Public Domain

GRODIN, J., Concurring.
Unlike the Chief Justice (see conc. opn. of Bird, C. J., ante), I believe that the Legislature may constitutionally authorize a trial court to dismiss an action if a plaintiff intentionally refuses to participate in a legislatively established, mandatory judicial arbitration process. Indeed, as a policy matter, it may well be that dismissal is the most appropriate sanction for such conduct.
I have joined the lead opinion, however, because as I read the relevant statutes, the Legislature has to date declined to authorize the denial of a trial de novo and the dismissal of the plaintiff’s action as a sanction for such conduct. The provisions of the Judicial Arbitration Act explicitly embrace an alternative sanction, under which a party who requests a trial de novo is required to pay specified costs if the judgment after the trial de novo is not more favorable to such party than the arbitration award. (Code Civ. Proc., § 1141.21.)1 In addition a separate statute—section 128.5— authorizes a trial court to order a party to a judicial arbitration proceeding to pay “any reasonable expenses, including attorney’s fees” which the opposing party incurs “as a result of bad-faith actions” or frivolous or delaying tactics in such a proceeding. (§ 128.5.) No statute explicitly authorizes dismissal as a permissible sanction for a party’s nonparticipation in the judicial arbitration proceeding.
As the lead opinion explains (see ante, pp. 918-919), the absence of a statutory provision authorizing dismissal takes on added significance in light of the pertinent judicial and legislative history in this area. After the Court of Appeal ruled in Hebert v. Harn (1982) 133 Cal.App.3d 465 [184 Cal.Rptr. 83] that the governing judicial arbitration statutes did not authorize the denial of a requested trial de novo as a sanction for a party’s failure to participate in a judicial arbitration proceeding, the Legislature took up the question raised by a party’s refusal to participate in such proceedings. If the Legislature had intended to authorize dismissal for such nonparticipation, it seems evident that it would have simply amended the judicial arbitration provisions at that time to so provide. Instead, the Legislature opted to amend *928the provisions of section 128.5 to make clear that the monetary sanctions authorized by that section for frivolous or delaying actions were applicable to judicial arbitration proceedings. (See Stats. 1984, ch. 355, § 1.)
I agree with Justice Reynoso (see, ante, p. 926) that if a trial court finds that a litigant has refused to participate in the judicial arbitration proceeding as a means of avoiding the award-of-costs penalty provided by section 1141.21, the court may award the costs that would have been recoverable under section 1141.21 as an element of the monetary sanctions authorized by section 128.5. I also agree that, in particular situations, additional statutorily authorized sanctions may be properly invoked, depending on the nature of the litigant’s misconduct in the judicial arbitration proceeding. (See, e.g., § 2034 [sanctions for refusal to comply with discovery orders].) The Legislature’s response to Hebert indicates, however, that—at least to date—it has chosen not to authorize dismissal as a sanction for nonparticipation. If experience demonstrates that a dismissal sanction is necessary to make the judicial arbitration process effective, the Legislature, in my view, is free to adopt such a remedy.

All statutory references are to the Code of Civil Procedure unless otherwise indicated.