Excerpt: ...ommenced in a court having jurisdiction of the subject matter thereof, other than the court designated as the proper court for the trial thereof, under this title, the action may, notwithstanding, be tried in the court where commenced, unless the defendant, at the time he or she answers, demurs, or moves to strike, or, at his or her option, without answering, demurring, or moving to strike and CONTRA COSTA SUPERIOR COURT MARTINEZ, CALIFORNIA DEPA...

Excerpt: ...ould prepare a separate judgment. Preliminary Matters.  CCP 430.41. The Court commends the parties on their successful meet‐and‐confer discussion, which resulted in the dismissal of former cross‐defendant Roebbelen Contracting, Inc.  Roebbelen's RJN. Roebbelen's request for judicial notice is superfluous as to Exhibit 1, but the Court appreciates the convenience of having a copy of the First Amended Complaint presented with the openin...

Excerpt: ...4) restitution based on unjust enrichment due to fraud or mistake. Defendant demurs pursuant to Code of Civil Procedure § 430.10(e) and (f) on the grounds that Plaintiff has failed to allege facts sufficient to state causes of action for its claims and the pleading as a whole is uncertain. The demurrer is overruled. Defendant must file and serve her answer by December 18. Standard “The function of a demurrer is to test the sufficiency of the c...

Excerpt: ...(Voidable Transfers), and that only as to Josh Senn. It is sustained as to all other causes of action pleaded against Josh, and as to all causes of action pleaded against Catania or Zach Senn. Plaintiff may file and serve a second amended complaint by January 8, 2021. If it elects not to do so, Josh's time to answer cause of action 32 will run from that date, and Catania and Zach Senn should prepare separate judgments. The Court also recalls that...

Excerpt: ...ff's third cause of action against the County for dangerous condition of public property. In the Court's ruling sustaining the County's demurrer to the third amended complaint (TAC), the Court made the following determinations material to the Court's evaluation of the 4AC and the County's current demurrer. The Court refers below the allegations of the current 4AC which contain similar material allegations and will address the new and additional a...

Excerpt: ...This matter involves a residential real estate transaction that closed on May 20, 2019. Reali, in representing the buyers, received a commission instead of respondents, Legacy Real Estate, broker of record William Aboumrad, and real estate agent Maribel Cribb (collectively “Legacy”), who had previously represented the buyers. Legacy brought a complaint against Reali with the California Association of Realtors on Monday, November 18, 2019, cla...

Excerpt: ...vate nuisance shall be stricken from Plaintiff's complaint: paragraph 13, page 5, lines 11‐12 ["and encouraged others to use Calle Arroyo, for CONTRA COSTA SUPERIOR COURT MARTINEZ, CALIFORNIA DEPARTMENT: 39 HEARING DATE: 12/03/20 ‐ 6 ‐ recreational purposes"]; paragraph 21 in its entirety; paragraph 22, second sentence ["Defendant's encouragement of the general public to violate the judgment is damaging Plaintiff's property value, causing a...

Excerpt: ...Muir did not respond. Defendants sent two meet‐and‐confer letters, but not until July 24, 2020, and September 30, 2020. John Muir still did not respond. Defendants filed this motion on October 30, 2020. The subpoena included the notice to consumer required by Code of Civil Procedure section 1985.3. Where the subject of the record is a non‐party, the subject may serve objections to the subpoena, which relieves the recipient of the subpoena f...

Excerpt: ... A. Terms of Settlement The proposed class would consist of all consumers in California who have or had a Mendocino Farms gift card with a balance of $10 or less from November 18, 2015 to the date of preliminary approval of the settlement. The relief provided is that Mendocino Farms would update its policies to assure compliance, by revising its written policies, and training both existing and new employees concerning the requirements of the law....

Excerpt: ...�School District”). At the outset, the Court notes that Code of Civil Procedure section 663 (grounds for vacation of judgment and entry of different judgment) does not appear to be the correct procedural vehicle for the relief sought by Plaintiffs. Instead, the motion is more properly considered a request to reconsider the Court's prior order on Defendant's demurrer pursuant to Code of Civil Procedure section 1008. As a consequence, the Court g...

Excerpt: ...andate, the City sought costs and Petitioners moved to strike. The matter was heard by the Court and the Court granted costs in CONTRA COSTA SUPERIOR COURT MARTINEZ, CALIFORNIA DEPARTMENT: 39 HEARING DATE: 12/03/20 ‐ 19 ‐ the amount of $16,028.12. While the appeal on the merits was pending, the parties reached a stipulation in which they agreed that “[i]n exchange for PETITIONERS waiving the right to appeal the Order on Costs, CITY and PETI...

Excerpt: ... judicial notice of the existence and contents of plaintiff's May 15, 2019 government claim, which the FAC states is, but in fact is not, attached to the FAC. (See FAC, ¶5.) CONTRA COSTA SUPERIOR COURT MARTINEZ, CALIFORNIA DEPARTMENT: 33 HEARING DATE: 12/03/20 ‐ 8 ‐ The Second Cause of Action alleges that plaintiff Wu was bullied and harassed while a student at Hercules Middle School and that this occurred because of her gender, race, and na...

Excerpt: ..., Daphne Rodrigues, sues defendant, Jonas Woodson, for personal injuries that Rodrigues suffered when defendant's jet ski collided with the boat on which plaintiff was riding to view the sunset in the Old River near the Sacramento Delta on September 5, 2016. (Claims by plaintiff's children have been dismissed.) Defendant moves for summary judgment based on primary assumption of the risk. Discussion Every person in California is “responsible . ....

Excerpt: ...ad Case"). For the CONTRA COSTA SUPERIOR COURT MARTINEZ, CALIFORNIA DEPARTMENT: 21 HEARING DATE: 12/02/20 ‐ 15 ‐ reasons set forth below, the motion is granted, with leave to amend. The amended complaint shall be filed by no later than December 22, 2020. In addition, the Motion for Leave to File First Amended Complaint Against Lydia T. Percin and Mark David Percin filed by Plaintiffs and Defendants Lisa Black, David Black individually and dba...

Excerpt: ...tiff is the current owner of 1455 Vista Road in El Cerrito, California; his property is the dominant tenement; and he purchased it in his sole name as separate property on October 31, 2013. (See Complaint, ¶ 1.) Defendants own the adjacent property at 1465 Vista Road. Plaintiff has gained a prescriptive easement to use a trail over defendants' property to access a street that connects to his. (*¶ 5‐8.) Defendants move for judgment on the plea...

Excerpt: ...OURT MARTINEZ, CALIFORNIA DEPARTMENT: 21 HEARING DATE: 12/02/20 ‐ 22 ‐ Decedent, Edison Gatlin, was a 14‐year old boy who died in his sleep on December 8, 2019, while in foster care at Angels Haven 2, a group home for disabled youth. Edison had suffered from cerebral palsy, intellectual disability, and epilepsy with frequent seizures. He was first placed in foster care by the County on September 24, 2014 on an emergency basis after his moth...

Excerpt: ...econd Cause of Action for Negligence (No Breach of Duty); Issue No.3: Second Cause of Action for Negligence (No Causation); and Issue No. 4 (Fourth Cause of Action for Loss of Consortium). Background On or about January 3 or 6, 2014, Plaintiff Bruce Lohmann entered Safeway Store #1215, located at 660 Bailey Road in Pittsburg. Plaintiff was pushing a shopping cart when the CONTRA COSTA SUPERIOR COURT MARTINEZ, CALIFORNIA DEPARTMENT: 21 HEARING DAT...

Excerpt: ...sement over the entirety of Echo Springs Road, including the portion that currently has a gate across it. Defendants argue that the subdivision map does not support Plaintiffs' position. When lots are sold with reference to a subdivision map, which includes streets, the general rule is that there is a private easement over those streets. (See, e.g. Tract Development Services, Inc. v. Kepler (1988) 199 Cal.App.3d 1374, 1381‐1382.) However, the s...

Excerpt: ...ntiff Vatche Cabayan to retain Hassen and Jeffer Mangels Butler & Mitchell, LLP (“JMBM”) as Plaintiff's legal counsel in an investment opportunity presented by Hassen. Plaintiff employed Hassen and JMBM as legal counsel to represent Plaintiff in the investment. Plaintiff deposited $1.6 million dollars into a socalled “controlled account” at Chase Bank to facilitate the acquisition of financing by a purported film production company known ...

Excerpt: .... At its core, that order depended on the conclusion that there was no reason for Department 15 to exercise its discretionary power to dismiss the case without prejudice under Bus. & Prof. Code section 6201(a) because the Defendants in fact had already been made aware of their right to arbitrate any fee dispute with Plaintiff before this case was filed. In this court's view, the Defendants' ex parte motion had failed to advise the court of facts ...

Excerpt: ...v. Atlantic Richfield Co. (2001) 25 Cal. 4th 826, 850; Undisputed Material Facts Nos. 1‐37.) Plaintiff has submitted no admissible evidence sufficient to raise a triable issue of material fact. (See Code Civ. Proc. 437c subds. (b)(2) & (d).) This ruling is directed only to the First and Second Causes of action of plaintiff's complaint (negligence and declaratory relief), because plaintiff dismissed all other causes of action on November 16, 202...

Excerpt: ...dant's previous motion (filed January 10, 2020) to set aside the default judgment previously entered on October 16, 2019. The denial was based upon defendant's failure to include a proposed answer with his motion to vacate. Defendant's prior answer had been stricken by order of Department 15. Therefore, at the time of this court's ruling on August 18, 2020 there was no Answer on file in the case. Undeterred, counsel for Defendant on August 24, 20...

Excerpt: ...lternative, but it makes no effort to address any individual causes of action apart from all the other ones.) Bigelow's motion for summary adjudication is granted as to plaintiff's causes of action 1 (negligence), 3 (respondeat superior), 4 (negligent hiring and supervision), 5 (negligence per se), and 10 (negligent infliction of emotional distress). It is denied as to plaintiff's cause of action 11 (UCL). Accordingly, the motion for summary judg...

Excerpt: ...cussing the overall merits of the case and the conduct of opposing counsel. For the most part, this is not material to the Court's decision and will not be discussed. Where a party seeks to prevent the issuance of a commission to take an out‐of‐state deposition, the moving party has the burden of establishing good cause for the requested relief. (Dow Chemical Co. v. Superior Court (1969) 2 Cal.App.3d 1, 6.) Generally, anything relevant to the...

Excerpt: ...one defendant from the complaint and removing one defendant from the FEHA claims; (2) reorganizing the factual allegations and adding new allegations; (3) clarifying that the FEHA claims exist for the entire alleged employment of six years and not just for the time period that Defendants claim Plaintiff was an employee and that Plaintiff suffered retaliation beyond the termination of her employment; and (4) adding a new fraud claim based on facts...