When a party moves for NON-discovery sanctions in California, the court only rarely awards sanctions: about 7% of the time for a frivolous finding (CCP 128.7), and 18% of the time for bad-faith tactics (CCP 128.5). Courts grant discovery sanctions about 57% of the time.

California courts treat "you filed something frivolous" as a much heavier accusation than "you played games in discovery". Courts set this bar high on purpose. One ruling in our data said sanctions "should not be imposed except in the clearest of cases." It then cited Luke v. Baldwin-United Corp., which reserves 128.5 sanctions for "the most egregious conduct," so litigants aren't scared off from pushing a hard argument they're entitled to make.

So what does clear the bar? To find out, we analyzed 127 individual sanctions requests brought under CCP 128.7 or 128.5. Those are the two statutes that reach frivolous filings and bad-faith litigation tactics in general, not discovery misconduct. The requests come from tentative rulings in seven California counties.

Out of those 127 requests, we found 14 examples where the court awarded sanctions. We read every one of the 14 granted or granted-in-part rulings in full text and sorted them by what triggered the award.

What triggers a grant

The other side going silent (4 of 14). The single biggest driver of a grant in this group is the opposing party not showing up to fight it. In Zargaryan v. Sargsyan, a defamation defendant moved for sanctions and the plaintiff filed no opposition at all. The court: "This motion is unopposed; the court must construe this as an admission that the motion is meritorious." Result: $15,073.10 in fees plus $595.52 in costs, and the complaint dismissed with prejudice. In a separate Orange County matter, a plaintiff's counsel repeatedly failed to appear ready for trial across multiple continuances. The court awarded $7,124 against the firm, and the firm filed no opposition.

A claim kept alive after being disproven (3 of 14). Each time, a party was handed proof it was wrong and kept litigating anyway. In Yan v. Smart Kidz, Inc., a plaintiff sued a college-admissions consultant claiming he'd been rejected from UCLA. The defendant produced a declaration from UCLA's Executive Director of Undergraduate Admissions confirming he'd been admitted. Plaintiff didn't dismiss until after the 21-day safe-harbor window had closed. $3,113.40 granted. The largest 128.7 award in the corpus, $12,633.20, went to a case where a plaintiff kept re-arguing a theory that a family court had already rejected, including on appeal.

A weak sanctions motion backfiring (2 of 14). Filing a bad-faith motion can itself be found in bad faith. A tenant's own 128.5 motion accused opposing counsel of bad faith for filing a successful demurrer. The court denied the tenant's motion. The landlord had filed a separate counter-request for sanctions, and the court granted that one, awarding the landlord's counsel a reverse $3,300 sanction because the tenant's attorney never genuinely met and conferred first: "The 21-day safe harbor rule is of no effect if the moving party does not confer with opposing counsel about the merits of the motion."

Filing without authority (2 of 14). In one case, a demurrer and motion to strike went out under an attorney's signature. He later swore under penalty of perjury he'd never written or authorized it, called it "AI slop" sent out by colleagues without his knowledge, and vowed to report them to the State Bar. Pleadings stricken. The dollar sanction was nominal ($76.93) because the strike itself was the real remedy.

Forged or fabricated evidence (1 of 14). In the fabricated-evidence matter, an employer sought to compel arbitration on an agreement dated nine years before the employee's own start date. The signature didn't match across two produced copies of the "same" document. $6,325 granted, citing precedent that submitting forged documents is itself sufficient evidence of bad faith.

Misconduct toward the court (1 of 14). In a separate case, defense counsel's brief cited a case that doesn't exist. He denied using generative AI entirely, then filed a supplemental brief that itself contained an apparently unedited, pasted AI response. The court sanctioned him and ordered its own clerk to report him to the State Bar directly. (That one has enough in it to be its own piece; we're not spending it here.)

Misrepresenting your own conduct to the court (1 of 14). In a post-verdict Song-Beverly matter, plaintiff's counsel told the court three separate times he'd be ready for trial, and he wasn't. Once he said his trial attorney was in another county's courtroom. She wasn't. $10,000 granted under 128.5.

The common thread

None of these fourteen turned on argument quality. Every one turned on proof the court could point to directly: a declaration nobody rebutted, a document that didn't match itself, an admission on the record, a motion nobody bothered to oppose. If you're evaluating whether conduct on the other side is sanctionable, ask one question: "Can I hand the court something they can't argue with?"

Methodology note: California tentative rulings, 7 counties, sanctions-motion procedure type. 127 individual sanctions requests coded under CCP 128.7 or 128.5 (that count as of September 28, 2026), drawn from a broader corpus of 2,342 total sanctions requests, which includes discovery-basis sanctions. All 14 granted/granted-in-part rulings read in full text, not sampled; citations verified against CiteLaw. Discovery sanctions' grant rate of about 57% is reported as a contrast figure from the broader corpus, not re-derived here. This is internal LawSnap corpus data, not a citation to any single case as binding authority. Nothing here is legal advice.