Excerpt: ...sanction order, and in turn that plaintiffs be sanctioned $2,950. She states that she does not own the property, because it is owned by the Start Wars Revocable Living Trust, the beneficiaries of which are minor children. She also states that Plaintiffs were aware of this before they placed a lien on the property. Finally, she states that the sanction award of October 24, 2017, should not have been granted. CONTRA COSTA SUPERIOR COURT MARTINEZ, C...

Excerpt: ... demurrer is sustained on the ground Petitioner/Plaintiff failed to allege facts sufficient to state a cause of action. (CCP § 430.10(e). Background Facts Petitioner/Plaintiff Peter J. Nowicki was a Fire Chief of the Morag‐Orinda Fire District. Petitioner's employer participated in the Contra Costa County Employees' Retirement Association (“CCCERA”), a public employees' retirement system. In compliance with his employment agreement, Nowick...

Excerpt: ...se of Action. The Windeler defendants are not named in the Fifth and Seventh Causes of Action. In the ruling on the companion demurrer by defendant Littman Trust, the Court has granted plaintiffs leave to file an amended complaint adding a single cause of action for declaratory relief, as against the Littman Trust and Windeler Development Group. The Windeler defendants shall file an answer that is timely with reference to service of the amended c...

Excerpt: ...n amount some three times the jurisdictional maximum for limited cases. Although the motion is not so styled, the Court treats this as (in part) a motion for relief from a judgment that was beyond the jurisdiction of the court. So considered, the motion is granted, and the judgment entered on July 6, 2017 is vacated. Because the problem is a jurisdictional one, the vacatur applies to both defendants. Relief from the judgment, however, is not reli...

Excerpt: ...2017. Since then, however, defendants have simply refused to participate in this litigation. They refused to participate in court‐ordered mediation, saying that they were considering filing bankruptcy (and asking plaintiff's counsel to stop “harassing” them). They failed to appear at multiple case management conferences. They did not oppose plaintiff's motion to compel various forms of discovery, but have not complied in any way with the Co...

Excerpt: ... case against her former employer, asserting claims of sexual harassment. Defendant cross‐complained, alleging that plaintiff hacked defendant's electronic records and deleted a substantial amount of material, including students' report cards. The latter accusation is the subject of a felony case filed against defendant, which (as far as the Court knows) is still pending. The Court has previously entered a partial stay of some proceedings in th...

Excerpt: ...ons following the school's sexual assault disciplinary process and appeal. The writ is brought on the grounds that the College's administrative procedure violated California and federal law; violated fundamental principles of fairness by prohibiting John from using an attorney as his advisor, in violation of federal law; depriving him of a fair trial; depriving him of his right to confront and cross‐examine his accuser; employing a process that...

Excerpt: ... of action (as permitted), defendants also purport to seek summary adjudication of numerous sub‐issues contained within those causes of action, such as specific paragraphs of the SAC requesting particular items of damages, or “all claims and/or damages” arising from particular alleged defects. None of that is procedurally permissible as a subject for summary adjudication. As Plaintiff points out, items (d)‐(aa) do not dispose of an entire...

Excerpt: ...se of Action. The Windeler defendants are not named in the Fifth and Seventh Causes of Action. In the ruling on the companion demurrer by defendant Littman Trust, the Court has granted plaintiffs leave to file an amended complaint adding a single cause of action for declaratory relief, as against the Littman Trust and Windeler Development Group. The Windeler defendants shall file an answer that is timely with reference to service of the amended c...

Excerpt: ...he declarations filed by counsel for this and other defendants, plaintiff's counsel has simply failed and refused to engage in the meet‐andconfer required by statute. Plaintiff's response essentially concedes demurrability on at least some points but requests leave to amend. That, counsel needs to realize, is what meet‐andconfer is intended to address. If there are any future requests for leave to amend, plaintiff's CONTRA COSTA SUPERIOR COUR...

Excerpt: ...ctual allegations. The closest it comes to alleging any facts is that Ecker “made [unspecified] false statements against of the plaintiff Anas Ali [which plaintiff identifies as his true name], referenced by citation number 34‐269551”, and that Ecker “failed to provide prima facie evidence supporting his false documents that plaintiff was/is ‘BLACK' and ‘DRIVING' referenced on citation number 34‐269551.” The FAC does not provide a...

Excerpt: ...nee Benham (“Benham”). This is an unlawful foreclosure case. The FAC pleads causes of action for (1) violation of Civil Code § 2923.6; (2) violation of § 2923.7; (3) negligence; (4) intentional misrepresentation; (5) negligent misrepresentation; and (6) unfair business practices. The Court previously sustained Defendant's demurrer to Plaintiff's original Complaint, which pled causes of action for (1) violation of Civil Code § 2923.6; (2) v...

Excerpt: ...d vehicle, but does not explain or identify why that would be. Furthermore, LaPlante does not explain which entity she had/has an auto policy with or which policy had/has the underinsured provision and/or any preservation of a crashed vehicle provision. From the FAC, one cannot know who the two individual employees are, who represented that they would keep the crashed vehicle for Plaintiff, or for which insurer they even worked. Hence, one cannot...

Excerpt: ...y settled Armstrong's claims against Daly, but did not settled Daly's crosscomplaint against Armstrong. Armstrong filed a second opposition to this motion on January 11, 2018 and Daly filed a timely reply. Daly's motion seeks to disqualify Armstrong's attorney Robert De Vries because De Vries represented Armstrong's brother, Richard Armstrong, during his deposition. Daly argues that De Vries' representation of Richard Armstrong at his deposition ...

Excerpt: ...aglins, in 2010, but they lost the property to foreclosure. Bank of New York purchased the property at a foreclosure sale on August 15, 2011. After the foreclosure sale, the property manager was originally defendant Tenant Access and later moving party Rockbridge Group, LLC. Rockbridge is the successor in interest to Tenant Access. Neither party has provided the precise date when Rockbridge took over from Tenant Access, but Tenant Access was stil...

Excerpt: ...only once. Due to the volume of material the parties have filed in connection with these motions, for clarity's sake, the particular motion(s) the analysis and disposition governs will be identified by the date and time of the motion's filing. Indemnity and Labor Code section 2860 (Pertains to AAA NCNU's motion filed at 10:11 a.m. on May 13, 2016 and the class's motion filed at 3:35 p.m. on May 13, 2016.) Both of the motions this tentative ruling...

Excerpt: ...en done in this case. The only discovery initiated was by Plaintiff's first counsel, Mark Corrinet, Esq., approximately two months after the initial lawsuit was filed almost five years ago. Mr. Corrinet propounded a first set of form interrogatories and a first document request. Following a disqualification motion, Mr. Corrinet withdrew as counsel, and Grover Perrigue substituted into the case on July 2, 2014. Mr. Perrigue did even less than Mr. ...

Excerpt: ...f escrow. And Paragraph 19 of the subject purchase agreement requires the arbitration of all such pre‐closure disputes, “whether or not arising from CONTRA COSTA SUPERIOR COURT MARTINEZ, CALIFORNIA DEPARTMENT: 09 HEARING DATE: 01/24/18 ‐ 4 ‐ a Buyer default.” There is no reasonable interpretation of the pre‐closure arbitration provisions that simply ignores the language “whether or not arising from a Buyer default.” The CDI defend...

Excerpt: ...0836 CASE NAME: REILAND VS. JOHN MUIR HEALTH HEARING ON MOTION TO COMPEL COMPLIANCE WITH SUBPOENAS FILED BY CEP AMERICA ‐ CALIFORNIA * TENTATIVE RULING: * First, the matter does not appear to be exempt from the Discovery Facilitator Program. While that program exempts “[m]otions necessitated solely by a third party's refusal to comply with a subpoena[,]” (Local Rule 3.300(c)), this motion concerns Plaintiff's objections, not a third‐party...

Excerpt: ...vides for indemnity by Reco to AFC is identified. As to equitable indemnity, there can be no equitable indemnity unless AFC has tort liability to KMS. (Prince v. Pacific Gas & Electric Co. (2009) 45 Cal.4th 1151, 1157‐1158.) AFC asserts that there may be implied contractual indemnity, but AFC has no contract of any sort with Reco. The third cause of action for declaratory relief is wholly derivative of the first and second causes of action for ...

Excerpt: ...e to strike the Answer on account of these deficiencies. At this time, there is an Answer on file, and it contains denials and affirmative allegations sufficient to defeat the present motion. If the Answer should be stricken, plaintiff should move to strike it. If it is not stricken, however, it defeats the present motion. Among other advantages, that order of procedure would create an opportunity for plaintiff's counsel to meet and confer with d...

Excerpt: ...irst Amended Complaint, even though some of them are deleted altogether due to the Court's prior demurrer ruling.) Defendants District, Yurkovich, and Perry demur to what are labeled as the sixth and seventh causes of action. The demurrer is sustained. Leave to amend is allowed, one final time, as to the seventh cause of action. Leave to amend is denied as to the sixth cause of action. Any amended complaint (which, to avoid hopeless confusion, wi...

Excerpt: ...ere all served on April 7, 2017. Each defendant responded to each discovery request with a blanket paragraph of rote objections, each substantially identical to the objections made to the hundreds of other discovery requests cumulatively made to the responding defendant and all the other defendants. On the face of these “responses”, there was no pretense of any good‐faith attempt to respond, nor to provide objections actually CONTRA COSTA S...

Excerpt: ...rning her mental disability. But her claim itself centers directly on the alleged existence and results of that CONTRA COSTA SUPERIOR COURT MARTINEZ, CALIFORNIA DEPARTMENT: 12 HEARING DATE: 01/19/18 ‐ 5 ‐ disability; without the disability she has no claim. Plaintiff has thus directly put her own mental state at issue, alleging (among other things) that she lacked capacity to agree to and sign an alleged quitclaim deed in 1999. She cannot exp...

Excerpt: ... can be denied where there is “‘inexcusable delay and probable prejudice to the opposing party'… [Citation.]” (Ibid; see also, Kittredge Sports Co. v. Superior Court (1989) 213 Cal.App.3d 1045, 1048 (even assuming there is unreasonable delay, “it is an abuse of discretion to deny leave to amend where the opposing party was not misled or prejudiced by the amendment.”).) Leave to amend can be denied where the proposed amendment is insuf...