Thoughts on publication of opinions imposing appellate sanctions for frivolousness

This recent Southern California Appellate News post by Ben Shatz led me to a case that got me thinking further about the utility of publishing opinions imposing appellate sanctions. More than six years ago, I posted in response to a law review article that Ben co-authored with another, which surveyed the cases imposing appellate sanctions. As I recall, the article limited the time frame of the survey to the period since unpublished decisions became available online, since so many of the decisions imposing sanctions are never published. That led me to write:

I was struck by how many of the cited cases were unreported.  The Court of Appeal should want to publicize the conduct that leads to sanctions, because this would inform and deter.  It could be that sanctions are so rare (awarded in approximately 1 out of every 500 cases during the studied period) that the Court of Appeal finds additional deterrence unnecessary.

My thinking at the time was that, as a rule of thumb, opinions imposing appellate sanctions should generally be published, but I hadn’t really taken into account the criteria for publication. The mere imposition of sanctions does not automatically fit within any of the established criteria for publication in rule 8.1105(c)(6), Cal. Rules of Court. I was thinking in the abstract that publication should be encouraged, even if it meant amending rule 8.1105.

However, I think my initial concerns were probably misplaced. Educating attorneys on what is and is not sanctionable was the intent behind my initial thought that sanctions decisions should be published, but is that really needed? Consider the standard for frivolousness:  “whether any reasonable person would agree that the point is totally and completely devoid of merit.” In other words, no reasonable person would agree that the point is not frivolous. Do we need guidance on that?

That standard for frivolousness is at odds with the idea that any sanctions decision would be a close call. Publication of an opinion imposing sanctions for frivolousness might frequently undermine the very basis for the imposition of sanctions, because it would suggest that the imposition of sanctions was a close enough call that it requires an explanation justifying publication under rule 8.1105. Those should be rare occasions, indeed.

If you have thoughts on this, feel free to leave them in the comments.