Sunrise Financial, LLC v. Super. Ct.

In August 2017, San Diego County Superior Court Judge Joel Wohlfeil was assigned as the independent calendar judge to preside over a case brought by Overland Direct, Inc., and CTPC, LLC (collectively Overland) alleging defendants fraudulently induced Overland to assign security interests in various properties to certain defendants. In 2018, Overland moved to transfer and consolidate its other cases involving similar fraud allegations, including ones from the San Bernardino and Los Angeles Counties' Superior Courts. Some defendants in the San Bernardino and Los Angeles cases were not already part of the San Diego County action; over written opposition by these defendants, Judge Wohlfeil granted the transfer motion and ordered the San Bernardino and Los Angeles cases transferred to San Diego County Superior Court and consolidated with Overland's existing San Diego case. Three of the defendants in the San Bernardino action ("Sunrise defendants") then brought a Civil Code section 170.6 challenge against Judge Wohlfeil. The court denied the challenge as untimely because the motion was filed more than 15 days after the Sunrise defendants appeared in the action by filing their opposition to Overland's section 403 transfer/consolidation motion. The Sunrise defendants filed a writ petition challenging the denial of their section 170.6 motion. After staying the San Diego County Superior Court proceedings, the Court of Appeal issued an order to show cause because section 170.6 rulings were not appealable and there did not appear to be any published authority on the precise issue. The Court then granted the parties' request that it defer ruling on the writ petition pending the resolution of various bankruptcy issues. After the bankruptcy issues were resolved, the parties completed their briefing on the section 170.6 issues. Based on its evaluation the Court of Appeal concluded the court properly found the Sunrise defendants' section 170.6 challenge was indeed untimely, satisfied its conclusion best effectuated the legislative intent when viewing the specific words of the statute and the statutory purpose and objectives. View "Sunrise Financial, LLC v. Super. Ct." on Justia Law