Excerpt: ...se of the number of defects, the Court has suspended its detailed review of the motion. Therefore, the list may not be complete. However, the defects include the following: Burns's declaration, ¶ 12. The form declaration (which the court has encountered in other motions brought by other counsel in this firm) is not sufficiently tailored to facts of this case. For instance, counsel reviewed the employment records of plaintiff and “other Class M...

Excerpt: ...is denied. The remedy for the filing of a responsive pleading after the deadline for doing so is a request for entry of default, not an order Page 6 of 6 striking the responsive pleading. Besides, there is no showing of how the petitioner was prejudiced by the filing of the answer a couple days later than the Court had ordered. CCOLE Can Prosecute this Proceeding The City requested judicial notice of the records of the Secretary of State to show ...

Excerpt: ... to plaintiff J.R. II is denied. Analysis: J.R. I The application to dismiss J.R. I does not comply with sections E.1., E.2., and E.5. of the Court's case management order. Plaintiff J.R. I having continued to use the defendant's services after the complaint was filed and after his purported disaffirmation dated 8‐17‐22, there is no unequivocal expression of an intent to disaffirm the agreement. Therefore, the motion to compel arbitration of ...

Excerpt: ...s denied in part on 6‐30‐22, and denied in its entirety on 7‐28‐22 after the parties could not reach agreement on the terms of a revised release. On 9‐12‐22, the plaintiff filed a second motion for approval. 1. Enhancement: The motion seeks a $1,000 enhancement for the plaintiff. (Memo., pp. 19‐20.) That request was denied on 6‐30‐22. As the Court explained at the time: “The CMO, at § F.7.c., requires a declaration from the p...

Excerpt: ...ve claims is stayed pending the resolution of the arbitration. Analysis: Almost all of the documents of which the plaintiff requests to judicially notice, and both of the documents requested by the defense, are state trial court decisions. State trial court opinions have no precedential value and are not citable authority. (Aixtron, Inc. v. Veeco Instruments, Inc. (2020) 52 Cal.App.5th 360, 399.) Only published appellate opinions may be cited. (C...

Excerpt: ...recipient that complies with Code of Civil Procedure section 384. The motion fails to comply with the CMO in at least the following respect: The scope of the release exceeds the limitations prescribed by the CMO. (H.3.e.) The amended agreement addresses the scope of the released parties, but does not correct the definition of “Class Released Claims.” By releasing all claims “that could have been asserted against the Released Parties in the ...

Excerpt: ...f first filed a motion for preliminary approval 5‐21‐20. It was set for hearing on 6‐15‐20. Finding that the motion failed to comply with the Court's case management order in numerous respects, the Court continued the hearing to 7‐14‐20, and ordered the plaintiff to supplemental documents seven court days in advance. Therefore, the parties repeatedly – at least five times – stipulated to continue the hearing, ultimately to 2‐23�...

Excerpt: ...lysis: It is not necessary, and thus improper, to ask a court to take judicial notice of published appellate court opinions. Therefore, the defendant's request that this Court take judicial notice of the United States' Supreme Court's opinion in Viking River is denied. The plaintiff asks the Court to take judicial notice of over a dozen trial court opinions. (Exhibits 1 – 8, 11 – 15.) Trial court opinions are not published, and thus have no p...

Excerpt: ...the declaration of Terry Fillman, sustained as to Nos. 1, 12, and 13, and overruled as to Nos. 2‐11, 14, and 15; To the declaration of Alyssa Vernal, sustained as to Nos. 15 and 18, and overruled as to Nos. 1‐14, 16, 17, and 19. The defendants' evidentiary objections are: To the Declaration of Carlos Franco‐ Paredes, M.D., sustained as to Nos. 1, 6‐9, and 11 ‐13, and overruled as to Nos 2‐5, and 10; To Exhibits L, M, N. O, and P, sust...

Excerpt: ...he motion for summary judgment is denied. The motion for summary adjudication is granted as to Issues 3 and 6, and denied as to Issues 1, 2, 4, 5, and 7. Analysis: Evidence submitted with a reply is not timely. Issue #1: First Cause of Action, for Breach of Contract: The critical issue is whether there is a prior burial in the same space as that in which Mr. Garrett is buried. The defendant fails to present affirmative evidence that there is no p...

Excerpt: ...itration of the individual claims. Analysis: The plaintiff appears to concede that he executed the arbitration agreement, that the agreement is enforceable, and that as a result his individual claim must be arbitrated. The plaintiff opposes the motion only to the extent that it seeks dismissal of the representative claims. Thus, the only dispute is whether the PAGA claim should be dismissed, as suggested by the U.S. Supreme Court, or stayed pendi...

Excerpt: ...orney $275,000. A condition of the settlement is that the class claims be dismissed. The Court previously directed the parties to comply with the Court's case management order to obtain such a dismissal. (See minutes of 4‐5‐22.) In particular, requests for dismissal must comply with section F of the CMO. The defendants' motion fails to do so. Instead, the defendants mischaracterize the Court's CMO as a “local rule,” assert that local rule...

Excerpt: ...iew of the motion as a whole. 1. The Proposed Order/Judgment filed on September 2, 2022, shall be amended as follows: A. Paragraph 7 shall be amended to state that the release is limited to the facts alleged in the Lawsuit. B. Correct the definition of “released parties” in compliance with H.3.e. C. Provide in Paragraph 6(e) for the settlement administrator to file a final accounting report at least 10 court days prior to the nonappearance he...

Excerpt: ...were unnecessary. Moreover, the time claimed by the plaintiffs is fairly nominal, and neither suffered adverse consequences. The Court reduces the payments from $5,000 apiece to $1,500 apiece. • Attorney's fees: o The Haffner firm claims a lodestar of $102,330. The Stevens firm claims a lodestar of $190,225. Neither estimate is supported by any contemporaneous time records, and thus neither can be independently evaluated by the court. o The tot...

Excerpt: ...endants have failed to produce evidence of an arbitration agreement signed by the plaintiff and hence failed to meet their initial burden to show that an agreement exists. That is incorrect. The existence of the agreement is established by the declaration of Castro, and exhibits A and B thereto. Although the declaration erroneously refers to Zamudio, in the event of inconsistency between the declaration and the exhibit, the exhibit controls. Thus...

Excerpt: ...ng is continued to 12‐5‐22 at 8:30 A.M. in this department. Any supplemental evidence or argument by the defendant must be filed and served at least 16 court days in advance. Any supplemental opposition must be filed and served in accordance with Code of Civil Procedure section 1005, subdivision (b). It is denied as to the plaintiff's motion to consolidate and amend. In light of the discovery proposed by the defendant, the stay on formal disc...

Excerpt: ...d to 10 pages in length and shall confine itself to the issue of whether the plaintiffs have unequivocally expressed their intent to disaffirm the arbitration agreement in a timely fashion. Page 3 of 4 Analysis: The plaintiffs assert that T.M. will be dismissed, and otherwise offer no opposition by that plaintiff to the defendant's motion. At present, however, no such dismissal has been requested. Therefore, the unopposed motion is granted as to ...

Excerpt: ...ng issues no later than 9‐26‐ 22, and continued the hearing to 9‐30‐22. As this tentative ruling is written on 9‐28‐22, no such supplemental documents appear to have been received. The issues are: 1. Although not required by the terms of the CMO, the Court asks for more information concerning the individual settlement reached by the plaintiff, including the nature of the claims released, the maximum value of those claims at trial, the...

Excerpt: ...the CMO. 4. The Court previously noted that the “description of the means by which individual shares will be calculated (Notice, pp. 2‐3, Aiwazian decl., ¶23) is unclear,” and asked: “If the initial shares of the previously paid settlement class members will be reduced by the amount of those previously paid settlement payments, which totals $97,500, and if “the total amount by which the initial shares of all previously paid settlement ...

Excerpt: ...on fails to comply with the CMO in the following respects: Contrary to CMO § H.3.a.v., the declaration of counsel fails to describe the range of the anticipated distributions to individual class members. (Wheeler decl., ¶ 22.) The administrator's declaration is inconsistent with counsel's declaration. The administrator's quotation is based on there being 128 class members (Mullins decl., Exh. B), but counsel says that there are only 93, 27% few...

Excerpt: ...ct with the plaintiffs or their minor children, and (2) from interfering with the plaintiffs' quiet enjoyment of the premises at 30407 Early Round Drive, Canyon Lake, California, and of the rights associated with those premises, during the term of the current lease and any renewal or extension of that leasehold interest. If counsel for the defendant believes that the injunction requires a more detailed definition, defense counsel shall propose al...

Excerpt: ...e is continued to 11‐29‐22, 8:30 A.M., Dept. 1. Analysis: First Cause of Action re failure to comply with APA The parties appear to agree that relevant test is from Tidewater Marine Western, Inc. v. Bradshaw (1996) 14 Cal.4th 557, 571, in which the court adopted this rule for when an agency has adopted a regulation that should be subject to the APA: “First, the agency must intend its rule to apply generally, rather than in a specific case. ...

Excerpt: ...executed the arbitration agreement or that it is governed by the FAA. She does, however, deny that the waiver of the right to bring PAGA actions is enforceable. She contends instead that the PAGA waiver is unenforceable and severable, and therefore the terms of the Agreement require her individual PAGA claim to be “litigated in a civil court of competent jurisdiction.” The Court is not persuaded. The PAGA waiver only applies to the representa...

Excerpt: ...‐28‐22), the California Department of Fish and Wildlife (on 8‐4‐22), Mitsubishi Cement Corporation (on 8‐4‐22), the Silver Lakes Association (on 8‐5‐22), and the CalPortland Company (on 9‐6‐22). In addition, the Watermaster filed a reply to the DF&W's response (on 8‐5‐22). After considering the arguments raised in those responses, the Court rules as follows: The free production allowance for all producers in the Alto Subar...

Excerpt: ...of any authority for such compensation for services as the plaintiff in PAGA cases, as opposed to class actions. The proposed order shall be revised accordingly. Both Marquez and Mor state in their declarations that these individual payments are, “in part,” consideration “for a general release of [their] individual claims.” To the extent that they are not given in consideration for those releases, what is the consideration? If the payment...