Plaintiff brought a legal action against defendant clients in the Los Angeles Superior Court in downtown Los Angeles to foreclose on a note and deed of trust against real property owned in part by the defendants in the sum of $500,000. The plaintiff also instituted a non-judicial foreclosure sale to foreclose against the real property interest owned by the defendants that secured the debt. The non-judicial foreclosure sale was concluded before the case went to trial. Defendant clients then demanded that the plaintiff dismiss the lawsuit. The plaintiff refused and instituted discovery requests, moved to amend the complaint, and forced the defendants to attend two status conferences.
The defendant finally moved for summary judgment and contended that since there was a non-judicial foreclosure sale that the plaintiffs’ lawsuit was barred by the anti-deficiency statute. The plaintiff dismissed the lawsuit only two weeks before the defendant’s motion for summary judgment could be heard. The defendants then brought a motion for the recovery of sanctions against the plaintiff and their counsel in the sum of $21,000 for unnecessarily forcing the defendants to defend against a frivolous lawsuit that had become moot. The Honorable Judge McCoy awarded the defendants sanctions in the sum of $16,800 and against the plaintiff and their counsel.
