Sanctions are usually monetary fines, levied against a party to a legal action or his attorney, for violating rules of procedure, or for abusing the judicial process. The most severe sanction is the involuntary dismissal, with prejudice, of the complaining party's cause of action, or of the responding party's answer. This has the effect of deciding the entire action against the sanctioned party without recourse, except to the degree that an appeal or trial de novo may be allowed because of reversible error. An example of Money. ... A fine is money paid as a financial punishment for the commission of minor crimes or as the settlement of a claim. ... A party is a person or group of persons that compose a single entity which can be identified as one for the purposes of the law. ... This article is about law in society. ... An attorney is someone who represents someone else in the transaction of business: For attorney-at-law, see lawyer, solicitor, barrister or civil law notary. ... Involuntary dismissal is the termination of a court case despite the plaintiffs objection. ... In law, the phrase without prejudice means that a claim, lawsuit, or proceeding has been brought to a temporary end but that no legal rights or privileges have been determined, waived, or lost by the result. ... In the law, a cause of action is a recognized kind of legal claim that a plaintiff pleads or alleges in a complaint to start a lawsuit. ... In the common law, an answer is the first pleading by a defendant, usually filed and served upon the plaintiff within a certain strict time limit after a civil complaint or criminal information or indictment has been served upon the defendant. ... An appeal is the act or fact of challenging a judicially cognizable and binding judgment to a higher judicial authority. ... In law, the expression trial de novo literally means new trial. It is most often used in certain legal systems that provide for one form of trial, then another if a party remains unsatisfied with the decision. ... Reversible error in an error by the trier of law (judge) or the trier of fact (jury - or again the judge if it is a bench trial) or malfeasance by one of the trying attorneys which results in an unfair trial. ...

Almost always used in the plural, even when it refers to a single event. If a judge fines a party, it is not said that he imposed a sanction, but that he imposed sanctions.

A judge may "sanction" a party during a legal proceeding, by which it is meant that he imposes penalties. A judge or justice is an official who presides over a court. ... A penalty is a punishment: a legal sentence, e. ...

Conversely, the word may be used to mean "approve of," especially in an official sense. "The law sanctions such behavior" would mean that the behavior spoken of enjoys the specific approval of law.