Notwithstanding the outcome of the particular discovery motion, the court shall impose a monetary sanction ordering that any party or attorney who fails to confer as required pay the reasonable expenses, including attorney's fees, incurred by anyone as a result of that conduct.
§ 2023.020.Monetary sanctions for failure to confer
Title 4. Civil Discovery Act · Chapter 7. Sanctions · Enacted 2004 · no amendments on record · Last verified July 29, 2026
In one sentenceSection 2023.020 requires a court to impose a monetary sanction on any party or attorney who fails to meet and confer as required before a discovery motion, ordering payment of the reasonable expenses that failure caused, regardless of how the underlying discovery motion is decided.
Full Text of § 2023.020
Plain-English Summary
This section takes one item from the Section 2023.010 list, the failure to meet and confer, and gives it a mandatory consequence all its own. The word the section uses is "shall," not "may": once a court finds that a party or attorney failed to confer as required, it must order that party or attorney to pay the reasonable expenses, including attorney's fees, that failure caused, whatever else happens with the underlying motion.
That mandatory design reflects the purpose behind the meet-and-confer requirement itself. The rule exists to push parties toward resolving discovery disputes without a judge's help, and a party who skips that step has imposed real costs on the other side and the court regardless of who turns out to be right about the discovery dispute underneath. Because the outcome of the discovery motion does not matter to this particular sanction, a party can win its motion to compel and still recover fees for the other side's failure to confer, or lose its motion and still owe fees for its own failure to confer.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is the sanction under Section 2023.020 mandatory or left to the court's discretion?
Mandatory. The statute directs that the court "shall" impose the sanction once it finds a failure to confer as required, without the discretion courts have over most other discovery sanctions.
Does it matter who wins the underlying discovery motion?
No. The section applies "notwithstanding the outcome" of the motion, so the sanction turns entirely on whether the party or attorney met the conferral requirement, not on the merits of the discovery dispute itself.
What does the sanctioned party have to pay?
The reasonable expenses, including attorney's fees, that the failure to confer caused to anyone affected by it.
How does this section relate to Section 2023.010?
Section 2023.010 identifies the failure to confer as a misuse of the discovery process; this section supplies the mandatory monetary consequence for that specific misuse.
Amendment History
(Added by Stats.2004, c. 182 (A.B.3081), § 23, operative July 1, 2005.)
Source & verification. Section text is reproduced verbatim from
the West's Annotated California Codes / Thomson Reuters. Enacted by the California Legislature.
Last verified July 29, 2026.
· Official source
Also known as: ccp 2023.020 mandatory sanction meet and conferdiscovery sanction failure to confer californiamonetary sanction regardless of motion outcome