Excerpt: ...n amendment. (See Cardenas v. Ellston (1968) 259 Cal.App.2d 232, 239 [court justified in permitting amendment of answer after cutoff date same court had set during pretrial conference].) Plaintiff's citation to Code of Civil Procedure section 438 is irrelevant as that section applies to amendments made after motions for judgment on the pleadings. The contents of DARREN's amended answer do not now take Plaintiff by surprise as the amended answer w...

Excerpt: ...subdivision (d) authorizes a prevailing plaintiff in a Lemon Law case to recover reasonable attorney's fees. The trial court's determination of Lemon Law attorney's fees starts with the “lodestar” of reasonably incurred number of hours times reasonable hourly rate, taking into account such factors as the complexity of the case and the skill displayed by the attorney. (Nightingale v. Hyundai Motor America (1994) 31 Cal.App.4th 99, 104.) Lemon ...

Excerpt: ...ident, but also cited wildfires and that one of the defendants was in Oregon and would be required to travel to California to track down documents. An extension was granted. A second request for a two‐week extension was made August 31, 2020 which was again granted. On September 1, plaintiff's counsel requested a continuance of the deposition. Ultimately plaintiff's counsel agreed and continued the deposition to October 23, 2020, a date proposed...

Excerpt: ...3(b) based upon mistake, inadvertence, surprise or excusable neglect. The motion is denied. OSI is an Illinois corporation doing business in California. At all times relevant, OSI's designated agent for service of process was CT Corporation. (Declaration of Kenneth Freed, Exhibit 1.) Creditors Adjustment Bureau, Inc. (CAB), a collections agency and assignee of a debt owed to State Compensation Insurance Fund by OSI, filed its complaint in Solano ...

Excerpt: ...cial mail establishment did not forward her the lawsuit, Defendant's declaration fails to establish that she did not actually receive a copy of the lawsuit by mail. (See CCP § 473.5.) Defense counsel acknowledges receiving an emailed courtesy copy of the summons and complaint on March 2, 2020, after he initiated a request for such documents to Plaintiff's counsel. While Defendant may not have authorized her attorney to accept service of process ...

Excerpt: ... is denied. In this case the easement agreement between the parties states that “[i]n the event of any controversy, claim, or dispute relating to interpretation or enforcement of this Agreement, or to the Easement, the prevailing party shall be entitled to recover from the non‐prevailing party reasonable attorneys' fees, costs of suit and expert witness fees.” (Declaration of Michael E. Vinding at ¶ 7, Exhibit 1.) This action was indisputa...

Excerpt: ...ted cannot defend the action against them. Plaintiff may submit the Request for Entry of Default as to these defendants forthwith. Absent a negotiated agreement for resolution between the Receiver and COMPASS BANK (which must be approved by the Court), COMPASS BANK may proceed to a default judgment prove‐up hearing as to the corporations. As the answers for these corporations are stricken, so are the oppositions to the summary judgment motions ...

Excerpt: ...p inquiry guides exercise of this discretion: first, the court determines if the inmate is indigent; second, the court determines if the action represents a bona fide threat to his personal or property interests; and third, after affirmatively answering the first two questions, the court must determine what remedy to use to protect the person's right of meaningful access to the courts. (Ibid.) The court, after examining the totality of the circum...

Excerpt: ...s may be historical, i.e. prior DUI history of causing a serious automobile accident, numerous DUI arrests and convictions, pending DUI charges or active DUI probation. (See, id. at 893.) Alternatively, the circumstances may also be case dependent, such as egregious and highly dangerous driving patterns or extremely high risk situations. (See, Dawes v. Superior Court (1980) 111 Cal.App.3d 82, 90.) Alleging that a defendant was DUI without additio...

Excerpt: ...n amendment. (See Cardenas v. Ellston (1968) 259 Cal.App.2d 232, 239 [court justified in permitting amendment of answer after cutoff date same court had set during pretrial conference].) Plaintiff's citation to Code of Civil Procedure section 438 is irrelevant as that section applies to amendments made after motions for judgment on the pleadings. The contents of DARREN's amended answer do not now take Plaintiff by surprise as the amended answer w...

Excerpt: ...n file a new motion under C.C.P. §2030.300 to compel even further responses as to those interrogatories, if they comply with all of the procedural requirements for such a motion). As to the 3 interrogatories remaining at issue (8, 18 and 20), the court declines to compel a further response to any of them. Page 2 of 3 As to interrogatories 8 and 20, the court recognizes that under the modified collateral source rule, information about payment by ...

Excerpt: ...e property by Cross‐Defendants MIKE LOWRIE TRANSPORT, INC. (“MLT”), MIKE LOWRIE, JOSH LOWRIE, and unnamed DOES. (First Amended Cross‐Complaint (“1ACC”) at ¶¶ 5‐6.) Cross‐complainant alleges that in 2018 CHRISTOPHER VAN VELDHUIZEN (“VAN VELDHUIZEN”), an officer of SIERRA SILICA, communicated with MLT representatives about satisfaction of SIERRA SILICA's debts to MLT for trucking services rendered but that even after payments ...

Excerpt: ...ff's health, the threshold for providing information about medical diagnoses and prognoses is very low. C.C.P. §36.5 allows such information to be provided by a party's attorney, based on information and belief. Therefore, “[t]he attorney's declaration can consist entirely of hearsay and conclusions”. Edmon & Karnow (Weil & Brown), Civil Procedure Before Trial, §12:247.1, p. 12(I)‐43, citing Fox v. Superior Court (2018) 21 Cal.App.5th 529...

Excerpt: ...ally alleged the roles specific defendants have played in the two written loan agreements on which the causes of action are based and the use of the term in the subheadings do not impair Defendants' ability to understand the complaint or determine the issues that must be met. (People v. Lim (1941) 18 Cal.2d 872, 882.) Plaintiff has alleged facts establishing that Defendant Dwight Davenport was a party to the agreements on which the first and thir...

Excerpt: ...affidavit attesting to his or her mistake, inadvertence, surprise, or neglect, vacate any…resulting default judgment or dismissal entered against his or her client, unless the court finds that the default of dismissal was not in fact caused by the attorney's mistake, inadvertence, surprise, or neglect. The court shall, whenever relief is granted based on an attorney's affidavit of fault, direct the attorney to pay reasonable compensatory legal ...

Excerpt: ...R during the time of the events described in the complaint, is in Riverside County. The court takes judicial notice of all proffered facts as relevant, not reasonably subject to dispute, and capable of immediate and Page 5 of 6 accurate determination by resort to sources of reasonably indisputable accuracy. (Ev. Code, § 452, subd. (h).) Merits of Motion. Code of Civil Procedure section 397, subdivision (a) states that venue may be changed when t...

Excerpt: ...action.” (Kelly v. House (2020) 47 Cal.App.5th 384, 393, quoting Bell v. Vista Unified Sch. Dist. (2000) 47 Cal.App.4th 672, 686‐687.) Although apportionment may not be necessary if attorneys' fees are incurred for representation on an issue common to causes of action for which attorneys' fees are proper and for which they are not, or if it is impracticable or impossible to separate the attorneys' time into compensable and noncompensable unit...

Excerpt: ...Act. With respect to the lodestar amount, Plaintiff's billed hours are generally reasonable with some exceptions. The nature of this litigation is routine with standardized pleadings and discovery requiring minimal adaptation for use in this suit. The case resolved early with no law and motion other than this fee motion (which took longer to draft than the complaint). Despite the simplicity of the suit, Plaintiff utilized five different attorneys...

Excerpt: ...construed and must correctly set forth the amounts required to cure the default. (Angell v. Superior Court (1999) 73 Cal.App.4th 691, 699; Sweatt v. Foreclosure Co. (1985) 166 Cal.App.3d 273, 278.) A trustee's sale based on a deficient notice of default would be invalid. (Miller v. Cote (1982) 127 Cal.App.3d 888, 894.) Plaintiff would suffer irreparable harm absent the injunction and the balance of harms favors Plaintiff. Posting of an undertakin...

Excerpt: ...pute regarding these matters has been rendered moot by the service of amended responses. Should Plaintiffs continue to find any of these responses insufficient, they may file an appropriate motion within 45 days of the service of verified responses or any later date to which the parties agree in writing. (Code Civ. Proc. §§ 2031.310(c), 2033.290(c).) The court reminds the parties that they must make a “reasonable and good faith attempt at an ...

Excerpt: ...onses in her counsel's October 2, 2020 communication with Plaintiff. This is unavailing because the October 2, 2020 communication was simply a letter, not a set of verified responses to discovery, and was not timely provided. A meet and confer letter arriving after the filing of a motion to compel cannot moot the motion to compel. The court notes that the failure of SUZANNE's counsel to timely respond to GERALD's requests for stipulations to exte...

Excerpt: ...963) 60 Cal.2d 303, 305; Brizuela v. CalFarm Ins. Co. (2004) 116 Cal.App.4th 578, 590.) Actual prejudice, such as the substantial likelihood that a trier of fact would have found in favor of the insured had the insured not breached the cooperation clause, must be shown. (Billington v. Interinsurance Exch. of S. Cal. (1969) 71 Cal.2d 728, 737‐738; State Farm Fire & Cas. Co. v. Miller (1970) 5 Cal.App.3d 837, 840.) Defendant presents undisputed e...

Excerpt: ...defendants BARBER AUTO MALL PROPERTIES, L.P.; BARBER FAIRFIELD MANAGEMENT COMPANY, LLC; and RONALD L. BARBER (“BARBERS”) is subject to arbitration and the scope of that arbitration. It is undisputed that the Real Estate Purchase Agreement (“REPA”) assigned to Crosscomplainant contains an arbitration clause. Any party to a contract containing an arbitration provision may file a petition to compel arbitration of a dispute or disputes, as lo...

Excerpt: ... Plaintiff's counsel used the identical lengthy recitation of complaints regarding the subject parking lot which predated the subject incident and listed a long series of documents produced by Defendant. The responses are not responsive to the specific question asked by defense counsel in Special Interrogatories 8 and 14. And, other than boilerplate general objections at the beginning of the Response, no specific objections were raised by Plainti...

Excerpt: ... Inc. v. Rambus, Inc. (2004) 118 Cal.App.4th 1413, 1420.) A complaint must allege facts sufficient to establish every element of each cause of action. (Rakestraw v. California Physicians' Service (2000) 81 Cal.App.4th 39, 43.) A complaint is sufficient if it alleges ultimate rather than evidentiary facts, but the plaintiff must set forth the essential facts of his or her case “with reasonable precision and with particularity sufficient to acqua...