Justia California Court of Appeals Opinion Summaries

D.P., C.A. and E.A. (the adoptive parents of D.P.’s two older brothers) appealed an order denying a petition made pursuant to Welfare and Institutions Code section 3881 for placement of D.P. in the siblings’ adoptive parents’ home. The siblings’ adoptive parents and D.P. (Appellants) contended the court erred by failing to apply the “relative placement preference” articulated in section 361.3. After review, the Court of Appeal concluded the Appellants forfeited this claim by failing to raise the issue at the trial court. But even if it were to consider it, the Court determined the siblings’ adoptive parents did not qualify as relatives for consideration under section 361.3. The Court further concluded the court did not abuse its discretion in denying the section 388 petition after finding it would be in D.P.’s best interest to remain with de facto parents A.G. and K.P. The Court, therefore, affirmed the order. View "In re D.P." on Justia Law

In 2006 and 2013, the Foothill/Eastern Transportation Corridor Agency (the Corridor Agency) approved extensions of California State Route 241, and the Environmental Parties along with other environmental organizations and the California Attorney General filed lawsuits challenging those approvals. In 2016, after years of litigation, the Corridor Agency entered a settlement agreement to resolve the litigation. The Corridor Agency continued its planning efforts and identified several alternatives for the transportation project. While these efforts were in progress, the Reserve Maintenance Corporation (the Reserve), a homeowner’s association, filed a lawsuit seeking to protect the interest of their homeowners in avoiding an extension of State Route 241 near their community. In 2020, after three years of litigation, during which the Reserve lost a petition for a restraining order and motions for summary adjudication and faced the prospect of dispositive motions from the other side, they agreed to dismiss their lawsuit. However, they moved for attorney fees and costs on the ground they were successful parties in the litigation under Code of Civil Procedure section 1021.5. In March 2020, the Corridor Agency chose to proceed with a road construction alternative that steered clear of both an "Avoidance Area" and the Reserve Community, and the Reserve argued their litigation caused the agency to make that choice, meaning their litigation was successful as a catalyst of change. The Environmental Parties also moved for attorney fees on the ground they were successful parties because they gained the dismissal, and both they and the Corridor Agency moved for costs as prevailing parties under Code of Civil Procedure section 1032. The trial judge denied the request for attorney fees under section 1021.5 by both parties. The Court of Appeal concluded the trial judge did not abuse her discretion in concluding the catalyst theory didn’t apply to this case but erred as a matter of law by exempting the Reserve from an award of attorney fees under In re Joshua S., 42 Cal.4th 945 (2008) and Save Our Heritage Organisation v. City of San Diego, 11 Cal.App.5th 154 (2017). The Court also concluded the trial judge did not abuse her discretion in awarding costs under section 1032 or by refusing to apportion costs. View "City of San Clemente v. Dept. of Transportation" on Justia Law

Ocie Payne Hinkle (Ocie)2 was an 89-year-old woman who owned several parcels of property in Los Angeles, California. Ocie has an adult son, Ocy. A few years earlier, Ocie had started a relationship with Roi Wilson (Wilson). Ocie was hospitalized and medicated; while in that state, Wilson prevailed upon Ocie to grant him power of attorney over her affairs. Wilson then used that power of attorney to deed away much of Ocie’s real property. As pertinent to this case, while acting as Ocie’s “attorney-in-fact,” Wilson signed a grant deed giving Ocie’s property at 1723 Buckingham Road (the Buckingham property or the property) to Edmound Daire (Daire) (the October 2010 grant deed). Daire applied to Ridec LLC (Ridec) for a $650,000 loan and offered up the Buckingham property as collateral. Ridec retained a title insurer. Ridec’s title insurer sued Daire and Citibank, seeking—and obtaining—court orders freezing the disbursed loan funds still in Daire’s Citibank account. Ridec joined that lawsuit via a cross-complaint against Daire, Ocy, and PSG, in which it sought to establish the validity of its deed of trust. Ridec challenged the trial court’s ruling declaring its deed of trust invalid.   The Second Appellate District reversed and remanded with directions to enter a judgment finding that Ridec’s deed of trust is valid. Ridec’s appeal from the posttrial order denying its motion to set aside the judgment is, therefore, moot. The court explained that because none of the trial court’s reasons for disregarding section 764.060 and Tsasu are valid, the court erred in refusing to apply the governing statute and binding precedent interpreting that statute. View "Ridec LLC v. Hinkle" on Justia Law

Plaintiff worked for Defendant Skyview Capital, LLC. He sued this entity and others in state court after his termination. Skyview moved to compel arbitration. The trial court granted the motion and stayed the proceedings. Skyview had to pay arbitration fees ahead of the hearing. The fees were due June 4, 2021. On July 7, 2021, Plaintiff’s counsel asked the case manager whether Skyview had paid the deposits. On July 8, 2021, the case manager confirmed by email that Skyview had not paid. Plaintiff filed in the trial court a section 1281.98 Election to Withdraw from Arbitration. The court’s February 2022 order granted Plaintiff’s request to withdraw from arbitration, vacated the order staying proceedings, and awarded Plaintiff reasonable expenses under section 1281.99.
The Second Appellate District affirmed, holding that the order allowing Plaintiff to withdraw from arbitration was proper. The court explained that in enacting sections 1281.97 through 1281.99, the Legislature perceived employers’ and companies’ failure to pay arbitration fees was foiling the efficient resolution of cases. This contravened public policy. The Legislature responded by making nonpayment and untimely payment grounds for proceeding in court and getting sanctions. The point was to take this issue away from arbitrators, who may be financially interested in continuing the arbitration and in pleasing regular clients. Therefore, the trial court was right to decide this matter of statutory law. View "Cvejic v. Skyview Capital" on Justia Law

Divine Food and Catering, LLC (Divine) appeals from the dismissal of its malicious prosecution complaint against defendants and respondents the Western Diocese of the Armenian Church of North America (the Diocese), St. John Armenian Church (St. John), Archpriest Manoug Markarian (Archpriest Manoug), and Harout Markarian (collectively, defendants). The trial court dismissed the complaint after granting Defendants’ special motion to strike under Code of Civil Procedure section 425.16, the anti-SLAPP statute. Divine was a commercial tenant of St. John’s banquet hall. St. John and the Diocese (the church entities) filed an unlawful detainer action seeking to evict Divine based on a purported oral month-to-month lease. Following trial, the unlawful detainer court found the written lease was valid and granted judgment for Divine. Divine then filed its malicious prosecution complaint, alleging Defendants brought the unlawful detainer action in order to extort money from Petros Taglyan, the father of Divine’s owner. Divine alleged Defendants had no probable cause to bring the unlawful detainer action.   The Second Appellate District reversed. The court held that the triggers for the interim adverse judgment rule are limited to actual judgments and rulings on dispositive motions. The trial court, therefore, erred by applying the rule based on the unlawful detainer court’s sua sponte comments during trial. Alternatively, Divine has made an adequate showing for anti-SLAPP purposes that the unlawful detainer court’s comments were the product of fraud or perjury, which precludes application of the interim adverse judgment rule. Defendants have shown no other valid basis to support their anti-SLAPP motion. View "Divine Food and Catering v. Western Diocese of the Armenian etc." on Justia Law

This appeal involved the effect of an antiwaiver provision of the Song-Beverly Consumer Warranty Act on a release executed as part of a pre-litigation settlement between plaintiff-appellant Derek Rheinhart and defendants-respondents Nissan North America, Inc. and Mossy Nissan, Inc. (collectively Nissan) over issues that had arisen with Rheinhart’s leased Nissan vehicle. After Rheinhart entered into the settlement agreement and release, he filed a lawsuit alleging violations of the Act and seeking repurchase of his vehicle as well as other statutory remedies. Nissan moved for summary judgment on grounds the settlement agreement and release, which Rheinhart admitted he read and had an opportunity to review before signing, extinguished his claims. The trial court granted the motion, finding section 1790.1 of the Act applied to waivers of consumer warranties in connection with a product purchase, not to releases negotiated to end disputes about those warranties, and thus rejected Rheinhart’s argument that the settlement was unenforceable. Rheinhart contends the court erred. He argued the settlement agreement and release violated section 1790.1 and was unenforceable as a matter of law. The Court of Appeal reversed, finding the settlement agreement and release contravened Rheinhart’s substantive rights under the Act and was void and unenforceable as against public policy. View "Rheinhart v. Nissan North America" on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed a complaint alleging seven causes of action against TFMI. Plaintiff alleged he entered into two oral contracts with TFMI for which he has not been paid – one for his management of TFMI farms located in Arizona and New Mexico (out-of-state management services) and the other for consulting services he rendered in connection with the management of TFMI orchards located in California (instate consulting services). The trial court entered judgment in favor of TFMI and against Schmidt.   The Fifth Appellate District reversed the trial court’s judgment dismissing Plaintiff’s complaint alleging seven causes of action against TFMI. The court held that the trial court erred in applying California law instead of Illinois law in determining whether to enforce the forum selection provision. The court held that in the interests of justice, it is best to remand the case to the trial court for reconsideration of the issue. Moreover, the parties themselves did not apply the correct law in arguing for or against the motion to quash and, thus, may not have submitted evidence they might now consider relevant to the court’s determination. Accordingly, the court explained it believes the trial court should entertain and consider additional briefing and evidence from each of the parties concerning the application of Illinois law to the question of whether the trial court should exercise, or decline to exercise, jurisdiction over claims involving the assigned Summit Gold invoices. View "Schmidt v. Trinut Farm Management" on Justia Law

The Privette doctrine limits a property owner’s potential liability for on-the-job injuries sustained by employees of an independent contractor. An exception to the Privette doctrine’s rule of nonliability in cases where: “(1) [the property owner] knows or reasonably should know of a concealed, pre-existing hazardous condition on its premises; (2) the contractor does not know and could not reasonably ascertain the condition; and (3) the landowner fails to warn the contractor.” Plaintiff-appellant Travis Blaylock argued the trial court erred by failing to recognize there was a triable issue of fact about whether DMP 250 Newport Center, LLC, the owner of the premises on which he was injured, and DMP Management, LLC, the owner’s property manager (collectively DMP) knew or should have known of the allegedly concealed hazardous condition — an access panel in the floor of the crawl space in which he was working—that he fell through. The Court of Appeal found no error: while the evidence submitted by Blaylock might be sufficient to demonstrate DMP should have known the access panel existed, there was no evidence it knew or should have known the panel was either concealed from a person in the crawl space above, or that it was hazardous. View "Blaylock v. DMP 250 Newport Center" on Justia Law

Under the Rosenthal Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (the Rosenthal Act or the Act), a debt collector may not “collect or attempt to collect a consumer debt by means of judicial proceedings when the debt collector knows that service of process, where essential to jurisdiction over the debtor or his property, has not been legally effected.” The trial court found that Defendant (Collect Access) violated this law in its efforts to collect a default judgment against Plaintiff. The court set aside the underlying judgment on equitable grounds, awarded Plaintiff statutory damages and attorney fees, and ordered Collect Access to repay the amount it had collected from Plaintiff as restitution. Collect Access appealed from both the trial court’s judgment (case No. B318325) and its order awarding attorney fees (case No. B321996).   The Second Appellate District affirmed. The court held that substantial evidence supports the trial court’s finding that Collect Access is a debt collector under the Act. Further, the litigation privilege does not apply to Collect Access’s conduct. Moreover, Section 1788.15 does not require actual knowledge of no effective service of process. it is irrelevant that no court had declared the judgment against Plaintiff void. Additionally, the trial court did not err by finding collect access liable under the unfair competition law. Finally, the court found that the attorney fees award was not an abuse of discretion. View "Minser v. Collect Access, LLC" on Justia Law

Bennett, an oral and maxillofacial surgeon, purchased three disability income insurance policies from National in 1984, 1991, and 1995. Under the policies, monthly benefits were payable for life if he was totally disabled due to injury; if due to sickness, benefits would only be paid until the age of 65. National initially approved Bennett’s 2014 claim that he was totally disabled due to an injury sustained when thrown from his horse. In June 2015, National notified him of its determination that his disability was due to sickness, not an injury. National continued to pay disability benefits until September 2018, the policy year Bennett turned 65 years old.Bennett sued. The trial court granted National summary judgment, concluding his claims were barred by the statutes of limitation — four years for breach of contract and two years for breach of the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing–both of which accrued when National issued an unconditional denial of liability in June 2015. The court of appeal reversed, agreeing with Bennett that his causes of action did not accrue until all elements — including actual damages — were complete. Bennett suffered no harm as of June 2015, because National continued to pay disability benefits. Only in September 2018 — when National began withholding benefits, and Bennett thereby incurred damages — did his causes of action accrue. View "Bennett v. Ohio National Life Assurance Corp." on Justia Law