Excerpt: ...�employee) to engage defendant Rana as a broker to negotiate the Thekkeks' purchase of a 49% interest in Corona from the Ferrers. Having discussed the deal with the Ferrers, Rana engaged his long‐time attorney Sandbank to draft the deal documents. Then in 2014, Singh and Rana negotiated to buy the Thekkeks' interest in Corona. Again Rana arranged for Sandbank to draft the deal documents. The gist of the present lawsuit is the Thekkeks' allegati...

Excerpt: ...e BHGRE's present claim. Plaintiff Wells Fargo obtained a default judgment in this case against defendant Mason‐McDuffie in the amount of $54,420.68. Wells Fargo seeks to collect that judgment by levying on MasonMcDuffie's bank account at Union Bank. BHGRE, however, asserts in this motion that it has a superior right to the funds. It points out that nearly all the funds in the account come from an insurer's refund to Mason‐McDuffie of an over...

Excerpt: ...rnal failure. Defendant Sears Roebuck and Co. distributed the freezer and obtained it from defendant Midea. CSAA brings causes of action against Midea for strict liability, negligence, and breach of warranty. Midea moves for summary judgment on the basis that no evidence shows that a defect in the freezer in fact caused the fire. It also seeks to dispose of the breach of warranty claim based upon a lack of privity between it and CSAA's insured, M...

Excerpt: ... of several county recorder documents. This request is unopposed. The request is granted. Evid. Code §§ 452, 453. Setting Aside the Foreclosure Sale “A properly conducted nonjudicial foreclosure sale constitutes a final adjudication of the rights of the borrower and lender.” Moeller v. Lien (1994) 25 Cal.App.4th 822, 831. “As a general rule, a trustee's sale is complete upon acceptance of the final bid.” Nguyen v. Calhoun (2003) 105 Cal...

Excerpt: ... position to be able to do. Parish is no longer an employee of defendant District. Moreover, although defendant is understandably reticent concerning the circumstances as to the termination of Parish's employment, it is not difficult to infer (from the administrative leave that preceded the termination) that Parish may have left the District on less than friendly terms. Plaintiffs make no effort to explain how the District is supposed to be able ...

Excerpt: ...tration Code of Civil Procedure § 1281.2 creates a summary proceeding for resolving petitions to compel arbitration. “A petition to compel arbitration ‘is in essence a suit in equity to compel specific performance of a contract.'” Rosenthal v. Great Western Fin. Securities Corp. (1996) 14 Cal.4th 394, 411 (internal citation omitted). In these summary proceedings the trial court sits as a trier of fact, weighing all the affidavits, declarat...

Excerpt: ...ing date, they may simply notify the Court of that intention and provide a stipulation in due course. The parties have stipulated to continue all hearings to April 13, in order to accommodate a serious personal situation for defendants' counsel. However, the Court also wishes to receive supplemental briefing on selected issues, as discussed below, and the proposed April 13 date would likely not provide enough time for the parties to prepare such ...

Excerpt: ...1985) 167 Cal. App. 3d 544, 549; CRC 3.1300 (d).) The central issue in this case is who had the responsibility for verifying that plaintiff was well enough to under surgery by requesting that there be a metabolic panel test, ensuring it was done before permitting the surgery to proceed, and ensuring that the appropriate persons were provided the results for review. Plaintiff alleges that before the July 18, 2017 deposition of his CONTRA COSTA SUP...

Excerpt: ...ered to meet and confer in person or by telephone, as required by Code of Civil Procedure § 430.41 (a). Meeting and conferring by letter, as occurred here, is not sufficient. Plaintiffs' Opposition to this motion was filed late. It was required to be served and filed on or before March 12, 2018. It was personally delivered on March 13, 2018. It was not filed until March 14, 2018. In its discretion, the court considers the late‐filed Opposition...

Excerpt: ...Plaintiff Manh Singh Khalsa is a Sikh man. On September 25, 2016, while driving home, he encountered defendants Chase Little, Colton LeBlanc, Dustin Albarado and Doe 26 at a red light at an intersection in Richmond. Little threw a beer can at plaintiff, and the others yelled at him. The cars proceeded beyond the intersection. At another red light, Little, LeBlanc, and Albarado exited their vehicle and punched at plaintiff through his open window....

Excerpt: ...s, she finally tendered a request for publication in March 2017, which was however rejected for lack of any supporting paperwork such as a showing of diligence. In June 2017 her renewed request to serve by publication was rejected with a direction that she check criminal dockets for relevant cases (because this case arises out of an alleged DUI accident). Plaintiff apparently misread this rejection as an approval, and proceeded to publish during ...

Excerpt: ...ior briefing order. The statements to which Fry's makes “objections” are arguments and characterizations of the state of the record, not evidence. Fry's is thus trying to sneak in a reply brief, not called for in the Court's order, by relabeling it as “objections.” In any event, the objections, such as they are, go to the weight the Court should give to the material presented by the March 19 Response, rather than its admissibility. On tha...

Excerpt: ... attorney; and Meyers's law firm, Westpro Realty, Inc. In brief, plaintiffs allege that defendants contrived to evict plaintiffs from the premises by serving a series of inflated or unfounded three‐day notices to quit or pay rent and then filing two unmeritorious unlawful detainer actions (the second of which is apparently still pending). Plaintiffs also allege that defendant Pineda unlawfully applied plaintiffs' $2,000 security deposit to plai...

Excerpt: ... the consolidated or coordinated cases should be in Contra Costa County rather than San Mateo County. The Court notes that the defendants in both cases are on record as preferring Contra Costa. Plaintiff, for its part, argues unconvincingly against transferring either case. But, if one of the cases is to be transferred, plaintiff gives no indication which County it thinks would be more appropriate. If the Court sticks with its tentative view that...

Excerpt: ...arties whether or not the amended complaint changes any allegations regarding all parties because an amended complaint generally supersedes the original complaint for all purposes. (See 1 Weil & Brown, California Practice Guide: Civil Procedure Before Trial § 6:688, p. 6‐193; State Compensation Ins. Fund v. Superior Court (2010) 184 Cal.App.4th 1124, 1130.) The court does not work with one complaint for the parties that choose to answer rather...

Excerpt: ...ase real property. Plaintiff alleges that she has performed her obligations while Defendants have not. Plaintiff filed her complaint on June 23, 2017. On July 25, 2017, Defendant Sobayo, in pro per, filed answers on behalf of himself and his corporation, Kingsway. Plaintiff filed a motion to strike Defendants' separate answers and Defendant Sobayo's cross‐complaint. This Court denied the motion as it related to Defendant Sobayo individually, bu...

Excerpt: ...y the Cigna defendants with rigor, but it appears uncontested for purposes of this action that at least some Cigna entity is a health insurer, governed by the Knox‐Keene Act. ASH is Cigna's agent for claims administration. Diablo alleges that it has provided treatment for Cigna's insured patients, but that Cigna and ASH have underpaid Diablo. The FAC contains a number of listed causes of action, but for analytical purposes they may be grouped i...

Excerpt: ...fendant's employee, Nancy Pfeiffer Hazen, to advise Plaintiff that she should have had a higher amount of underinsured motorist coverage. Plaintiff's husband was killed in a bicycle‐vehicle collision in which the motorist at fault had only $100,000 in liability coverage. Because Plaintiff's policy had only $100,000 for uninsured/underinsured motorist coverage, Plaintiff received nothing on her underinsured coverage after the tortfeasor's carrie...

Excerpt: ...blish that he is “a person who generally understands the system's operation and possesses sufficient knowledge and skill to properly use the system and explain the resultant data …” (People v. Lugashi (1988) 205 Cal.App.3d 632, 640.) Mr. LaMunyon identifies himself as an “Associate” who has “access to certain of Chase's records,” but he does not explain the duties of an Associate within plaintiff's organization. Mr. LaMunyon doe...

Excerpt: ... outset, plaintiff argues that defendant failed to meet and confer as required by Code of Civil Procedure § 433.5(a)(2). This motion, however, was filed before that section came into effect. Moreover, defendant's counsel recounts that she offered to discuss the issues in the motion to strike after the fact. This is a medical malpractice action. Much of the verified complaint is taken up in alleging the history of defendant's treatment, not of pl...

Excerpt: ... recounts the procedural history of this case and Waraich, to the extent relevant to the disposition of this motion. This case was filed in May 2015. In September 2015 the Court (Judge Spanos) denied the petition to compel arbitration brought by Fry's. Fry's appealed that ruling, and it was affirmed by the First District Court of Appeal. The remittitur was issued on January 19, 2018. The instant motion followed on January 31, 2018. Waraich was a ...

Excerpt: ...ific, the building owner, and Schindler, the company contracted to maintain the elevator at the time of the accident (and now). Sierra Pacific and Schindler in turn cross‐complained against Otis, the company that performed a modernization of the elevator in 2005‐06 and then held the maintenance contract until late 2012. A threecornered jury trial resulted in a substantial recovery for Zapotoczny as against both Sierra Pacific and Schindler, e...

Excerpt: ... want to heed the Court's comments on the need for her to decide what her case really is (see line 1). 9. TIME: 9:00 CASE#: MSC17‐00140 CASE NAME: MARY STORELLI VS. ROSE SATORI HEARING ON MOTION FOR SUMMARY ADJUDICATION FILED BY ROSE SATORI * TENTATIVE RULING: * Defendant's motion for summary adjudication is denied. The motion would not dispose of an entire cause of action, but only one branch of a cause of action. It is therefore impermissible...

Excerpt: ...ntained provisions for plaintiff to collect attorney fees incurred in enforcing the notes. As plaintiff acknowledges, these are the kind of fee clauses rendered bilateral under § 1717. Plaintiff argues that that statute does not apply here (at least not fully), because some of its pleaded causes of action were on purportedly non‐contractual theories such as open book, misrepresentation, and estoppel. At base, however, all of plaintiff's pleade...

Excerpt: ...gn the 1999 deed, or that she did not. Defendant's effort to knock out plaintiff's duress theory is being rejected today for procedural reasons (line 9). But the briefing on that motion is nevertheless revealing: Facing a limitations attack on her claim of having been coerced into signing a deed 19 years ago, plaintiff seeks to rescue that claim from limitations by giving it away substantively – attesting that she actually didn't sign the deed ...