Excerpt: ...tion Act (the “FAA”) covers at least some of the claims asserted in the First Amended Complaint (“FAC”) and that a party may properly move to compel arbitration of claims asserted in an existing lawsuit. Rather, the dispute here is limited to whether and the extent to which the Ending Forced Arbitration of Sexual Assault and Sexual Harassment Act of 2021 (the “EFAA”) permits Bruschi to elect to proceed in court on his claims. The EFAA...

Excerpt: ... (“Envirobuilt”). Gray now moves pursuant to CCP §§386.5 and 386.6 to deposit the sum of the bond with the Court, to be discharged from further liability for the sum, to be dismissed from the action, and for its fees and costs. Gray's motion is hereby GRANTED with modiÞcations to the requested costs and attorneys' fees set forth herein. “Where the only relief sought against one of the defendants is the payment of a stated amount of money...

Excerpt: ... states, on the caption page, that the Feb. 2 hearing on this Motion to Strike will take place in Dept. 21 at 9 a.m., whereas the body of the Notice (the next page) states that the Feb. 2 hearing will take place in Dept. 24 at 2 p.m. Thus, the Notice provides incorrect information. The hearing is 2.2.24 @ 9:00 a.m. in D24. Defendants' 1.26.24 “Opposition to the Declaration of Christine Tour Sarkissian,” in which Defendants ask the Court to st...

Excerpt: ... (“CPQ”) and Cross-complainant David Espie's Motion to Compel Cross- defendant The Chugh Firm, PC's (hereafter “Chugh”) Further Responses to Requests for Admission, Set Two, and for Monetary Sanctions is GRANTED in part and DENIED in part. Cross-defendant Chugh shall serve code-compliant further responses to requests nos. 2021, 28–30, 37, 59–82, 84– 87, and 90–99 no later than February 16, 2024. Upon receipt of responses to reques...

Excerpt: ...el, noting that Plainti
¯'s objections and arguments were meritless, appeared to have been made in bad faith, and were unreasonable. The Court ordered Plainti
¯ to supplement his responses to certain special interrogatories, and also ordered that Plainti
¯ pay $2,000 in monetary sanctions to Defendant within twenty days of its Order. (Order Re: Motion to Compel, signed September 14, 2023.) Defendant now moves for evidentiary and monetary sanct...

Excerpt: ...— first sentence alleging malice; • 947 — last sentence related to attorney fees; and • Prayer for punitive damages, p. 12, 93 CCP S 436 empowers the court to, upon moton or sua sponte, strike out any irrelevant, false, or improper matter inserted in any pleading, as well as all or any part of the pleading not drawn or filed in conformity with the law, rules of court, or an order of the court. On a motion to strike, the Court construes th...

Excerpt: ... Espie's Motion to Compel Cross-defendant The Chugh Firm, PC's (hereafter "Chugh") Further Responses and Document Production in Connecton with Request for Production of Documents, Set Three, and for Monetary Sanctions is GRANTED in part and DENIED in part. Cross-defendant Chugh shall serve code-compliant further responses as set forth herein no later than February 9, 2024. Upon receipt of responses to requests for production, the propounding part...

Excerpt: ...at least two choices to the Court's Clerk for the Court to choose from. In order to comply with CCP the demurring party shall file and serve with the demurrer a declaration stating either of the follovnng: (A) The means by which the demurring party met and conferred with the party who filed the pleading subject to demurrer, and that the parties did not reach an agreement resolving the objections raised in the demurrer. (B) That the party who file...

Excerpt: ... that Plaintiffs' real property in San Carlos was damaged due to flooding, allegedly caused and exacerbated by the actions of the collective Defendants including Grove. As to Grove, Plaintiffs allege that he engaged in "construction activty in the vicinity of Canyon Vista Avenue in late 2022 and continuing through the month of January 2023. Plaintiffs are informed and believe, and thereon allege that Grove blocked numerous storm drains operated b...

Excerpt: ...dd the conspiracy theory to any remaining independent tort causes of action to which it applies, but not to amend and reallege as a separate, stand-alone cause of action. As an initial matter, the Court simply notes that this cause of action is not asserted against Artichoke Joe's. It is asserted only against individual defendants Annie and Cody Sammut. Artichoke Joe's argues that because Artichoke Joe's is paying for Annie and Cody Sammut's defe...

Excerpt: ...thout leave to amend. While, as Plaintiff points out, California decisions are mixed on whether unjust enrichment can constitute an independent claim or is merely an equitable remedy, the majority of cases hold that "unjust enrichment" does not properly state a cause of action. (Sepanossian v. National Ready Mix Company, Inc. (2023) 97 Cal.App.5th 192; Durell v. Sharp Healthcare (2010) 183 Cal.App.4th 1350, 1370.) As Plaintiff notes, some decisio...

Excerpt: ...ons, LLC ("Cross-complainants"), is OVERRULED. Cross Complainants did not file an opposition to this Demurrer, but filed a Notice of Filing of Second Amended Cross-complaint on December 21, 2023 and an Objection to Amiseq's Reply on December 28, 2023. Despite its label, the Objection is essentially an unauthorized surreply filed without leave of court as it responds to the arguments raised by Amiseq's Reply. The Court therefore has discretion to ...

Excerpt: ...psed registration. SMCSO's Demurrer is SUSTAINED WITHOUT LEAVE TO AMEND as to the First and Second causes of achon and the remaining causes of action against the SMCSO are STRICKEN for the reasons below. A demurrer tests the legal sufficiency of the pleadings, raising issues of law but not fact regarding the form or content of the opposing party's pleading. (Donabedian v. Mercury Insurance Company (2004) 116 Cal.App.4th 968, 994.) Because a demur...

Excerpt: ...Annuity Association of America (2020) 53 Cal.App.5th 71, 80—81.) Plaintiff Satish Sandadi's Request for Judicial Notice is DENIED as irrelevant. (AL Holding Company v. O'Brien & Hicks, Inc. (1999) 75 Cal.App.4th 1310, 1313 fn. 2 ["a court must decline to take judicial notice of material that is not relevant" l.) Defendant's Objections to Evidence are SUSTAINED as to the six declarations submitted by Plaintiff in support of his opposition — ex...

Excerpt: ... papers, with the determinative fact for the Court being that the Confidential Settlement Agreement and Release (Fairbrother Decl„ Exh. D) was never signed by Plaintiffs or their counsel. Nevertheless, Defendant now seeks to enforce that Agreement. Whether the Notice of Settlement (Fairbrother Decl., Exh. C) was filed inadvertently is irrelevant. Plaintiffs argue that the settlement agreement cannot be enforced pursuant to CCP 5664.6 because it...

Excerpt: ...IED IN PART. The burden of proof is on Defendants that a cause of action cannot be established by showing the undisputed facts presented by Defendants prcwe the contrary of Plaintiffs' allegations as a matter of law. Brantley v. Pisaro (1996) 42 Cal.App.4th 1591, 1597. Defendants, as moving parties, cannot "simply argue or allege that the opposing party has no evidence." Scheiding v. Dinwiddie Construction Company (1999) 69 Cal.App.4th 64, 80—8...

Excerpt: ...is DENIED. A cross-complainant has met his or her burden of show-ng that there is no defense to a cause of action if that party has proved each element of the cause of action entitling the party to judgment on the cause of action. (CCP Once the cross- complainant has met that burden, the burden shifts to the cross-defendant to show that a triable issue of one or more material facts exists as to the cause of action or a defense thereto. (Ibid.) Th...

Excerpt: ...o constitute a cause or causes of action against the defendant and the answer does not state facts suffcient to constitute a defense to the complaint." (CCP The grounds must appear on the face of the answer or from any matter of which the Court may take judicial notice. (ld., at subd. (d).) The Court may take judicial notice of admissions or inconsistent statements that a defendant has made and that cannot be reasonably controverted and thus disr...

Excerpt: ...chard Poletti, individually and dba Poletti Realty, and John Poletti, is GRANTED in part and DENIED in part as discussed herein. Issue 1: Claims by Keith Giusto against Poletti Defendants The MSA is DENIED as to Issue 1. It is undisputed that Plaintiff Keith Giusto asserts no claims against any of the Poletti Defendants. Therefore, summary adjudication cannot be granted on claims that are not alleged and there are no claims to dismiss. Issue 2: T...

Excerpt: ...ifications herein. Accordingly, the Court's prior tentative from December 1, 2023, is adopted and incorporated here by this reference. The parties' supplemental briefing following the hearing on December 1, 2023, has not persuaded the Court to change its prior tentative decision that relief is warranted under CCP 5473.5. Here, two years have not yet passed since the default judgment was entered. (See Mar. 30, 2023 Default Judgment.) Nor have 180 ...

Excerpt: ...fs and exhibits to the trial briefs). Any new motion must be heard in Department 611 before Judge Karnow (contact his clerk for a date and time). The moving party must: At the time of filing, lodge with Department 611, but not file, a "delta" document which is comprised of documents the subject of the sealing motion, redlined to show the specific words or portions sought to be deleted from the public file; Rely only on admissible evidence to show...

Excerpt: ...law. Brantley v. Pisaro (1996) 42 Cal.App.4th 1591, 1597. Defendants, as moving parties, cannot "simply argue or allege that the opposing party has no evidence." Scheiding v. Dinwiddie Constructon Company (1999) 59 Cal.App.4th 64, 80—81. Further, Defendants evidence is to be strictly construed in determining whether they have met their initial burden with doubts or ambiguities at this stage resolved in Plaintiffs' favor. Johnson v. American Sta...

Excerpt: ... the opposing party's evidence must be liberally construed." (Binder v. Aetna Lie Ins. Co. (1999) 75 Cal.App.4th 832, 838.) There are a triable issues of material fact regarding whether plaintiffs substantially performed their agreements. (Magic Carpet Ride LLC v. Rugger Investment Group, L.L.C. (2019) 41 Cal.App.5th 357, 364 ["What constitutes substantial performance is a question of fact. The evidence creating triable issues of material fact ar...

Excerpt: ...in order to comply with this re-designaton of the case. That is a significant and unreasonable amount of clerical work that would be an undue burden on this Court's already overworked Clerk's Office. This is especially true in light of the fact that the Court is not correcting ANY clerical error, but rather a result of alleged inadequate legal advice by Defendant's former counsel. Accordingly, Defendant and/or her counsel must perform the tasks o...

Excerpt: ... at least $281.18 commencing on April 30, 2021, until the "compromise sum" of $10,122.50 was paid off in full. (Declaration of Gloria Zarco ("Zarco Decl."), Ex. 1 ("Stipulation") '13).) Plaintiff asserts that Defendant has failed to make payments on the compromise sum since March 30, 2023, and has not paid the compromise sum in full. Plaintiff now moves the Court to enter judgment pursuant to the terms of the settlement under CCP S 654.6. CCP S 5...