Justia California Court of Appeals Opinion Summaries

Plaintiff appealed the trial court's grant of summary judgment in favor of defendants, a law firm and an attorney, on her legal malpractice claim. The court concluded that there was no triable issue of material fact as to causation where plaintiff disregarded the firm's advice to accept an initial settlement in an underlying putative spouse lawsuit. When plaintiff obtained new counsel, she also disregarded his advice to accept the settlement. Plaintiff ultimately recovered nothing from the underlying suit. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment of the trial court. View "Moua v. Pittullo, Howington, Barker, Abernathy, LLP" on Justia Law

The Commissions challenged a post judgment order denying their motion for attorney fees under the private attorney general doctrine, Cal. Civ. Proc., 102.5. The court affirmed the order denying attorney fees because section 1021.5 does not apply in this instance where the financial burden of this litigation was not out of proportion to the Commissions' pecuniary stakes in the proceedings. Because the trial court did not abuse its discretion in determining that the Commissions failed to meet the "financial burden" element of section 1021.5, the court need not consider whether it satisfied the other criteria upon which the trial court denied the motion. View "Children & Families Commission v. Brown" on Justia Law

Plaintiff-appellant Joanne Peake purchased a home from Marviel and Deanna Underwood. About two years later, Peake brought an action against the Underwoods and the Underwoods' real estate agent, Paul Ferrell. Peake sought to recover damages for defendants' alleged failure to disclose defective subfloors in the home. After the case had been pending for more than one year, Ferrell moved to dismiss and for monetary sanctions against Peake and her counsel Norman Shaw under Code of Civil Procedure section 128.7, arguing Peake's claims were factually and legally frivolous because the undisputed evidence showed Ferrell had fulfilled his statutory and common law disclosure duties, and Peake had actual notice of facts disclosing prior problems with the subfloors. Peake declined to dismiss the action during the statutory safe harbor period, and instead amended her complaint to add claims similar to claims she had previously dismissed. The trial court found Ferrell met his burden to show Peake's claims were "without legal or evidentiary support" and Peake's continued maintenance of the lawsuit demonstrated "objective bad faith" warranting sanctions. As sanctions, the court dismissed Peake's claims against Ferrell and ordered Peake and her attorney to pay Ferrell for his attorney fees incurred in defending the action. On appeal, Peake and Shaw challenged the sanction order. The Court of Appeal concluded that the trial court acted within its discretion in awarding the section 128.7 sanctions. View "Peake v. Underwood" on Justia Law

Plaintiff-appellant Nancy Lee hired Attorney William Hanley to represent her in a civil suit. After the litigation settled, Lee sought a refund of unearned attorney fees and unused expert witness fees she had advanced to Hanley. Not having received a refund, Lee hired Attorney Walter Wilson and terminated Hanley. Attorney Hanley thereafter refunded certain expert witness fees, but no attorney fees. More than a year after hiring Wilson, Lee filed a lawsuit against Hanley seeking the return of the unearned fees. Hanley filed a demurrer to Lee’s second amended complaint, based on the one-year statute of limitations contained in Code of Civil Procedure section 340.6. The court sustained the demurrer and dismissed the action with prejudice. Lee appealed. Upon review, the Court of Appeal held that to the extent a claim is construed as a wrongful act not arising in the performance of legal services, "such as garden variety theft or conversion, section 340.6 is inapplicable. . . . Here, the facts alleged in Lee’s second amended complaint could be construed as giving rise to a cause of action for the theft or conversion of an identifiable sum of money belonging to her. This being the case, we cannot say that Lee’s second amended complaint demonstrates clearly and affirmatively on its face that her action is necessarily barred by the section 340.6 statute of limitations." Because this action had not reached a point where the court could determine whether the wrongful act in question arose in the performance of legal services, and thus, whether or not section 340.6 applied, the demurrer should not have been sustained. View "Lee v. Hanley" on Justia Law

Defendant-respondent Stephen Lipworth won a judgment against Plaintiff-appellant Raj Singh, and successfully moved to amend the judgment to add certain aliases Singh used. The trial court then granted Lipworth's application for the sale of certain property that Singh transferred to his wife, who in turn transferred the property to Sunman Mehta. The trial court concluded that "Mehta" was another alias Singh adopted to avoid paying his creditors. The court set aside that series of transfers and ordered the property sold to satisfy the judgment. The order granting Lipworth's application for sale became final after various appeals were dismissed. In the case before the Court of Appeal, Singh, along with his wife Karen and "Mehta," sued Lipworth alleging he used "fraudulent representations" to persuade the trial court in the prior case that Singh was "hiding some properties from his creditors using different names such as Archana Singh and Suman Mehta." After several frivolous motions were decided against Singh, the trial court invited Lipworth to file a motion to require Singh to furnish security or have the case dismissed pursuant to the vexatious litigant statutes. Lipworth did so, and filed both a demurrer and a special motion to strike pursuant to the anti-SLAPP statute. The trial court found Singh to be a vexatious litigant with no reasonable probability of prevailing in the litigation because the lawsuit amounted to an impermissible collateral attack on a prior final judgment and post-judgment orders. The trial court ordered "Raj Singh aka Suman Mehta" to furnish security and dismissed the lawsuit as to plaintiff when no such security was furnished. The trial court then granted the anti-SLAPP motion as to Karen Singh, and awarded attorney fees and costs. Plaintiffs appealed to the Court of Appeal, and Lipworth filed a motion for sanctions against plaintiffs and plaintiffs' counsel pursuant to section 907 and rule 8.276 for bringing a frivolous appeal. The Court of Appeals concluded sanctions were warranted in this case. The Court therefore affirmed the judgment and imposed sanctions against plaintiffs and their attorney. View "Singh v. Lipworth" on Justia Law