Excerpt: ...case is set for a Case Management Conference on Thursday January 14, 2021 at 3:00 P.M. in Department 18. No appearances will be required at the Case Management Conference if the case has been transferred by that time. 1. Venue is Proper in Orange County. The Probate Code states that the proper county for commencement of a proceeding “[i]n the case of a living trust, is the county where the principal place of administration of the trust is locat...

Excerpt: ... Plaintiff Houses 4 Homes, LLC (“H4H”), or negligently failed to provide loans to achieve what Plaintiffs requested, ultimately causing Plaintiffs to run out of money, default on the Loans, and face foreclosure of the Properties. Plaintiffs allege that Plaintiff Charlotte Souch (“Souch”) is the sole managing member of H4H, which owns the Properties, consisting of two parcels of real property at 10161 Green Meadow Road, Sebastopol (“Gree...

Excerpt: ..., LC § 2698 et seq. (the “Complaint”). This matter is on calendar for Plaintiff's unopposed motion for conditional certification of the class and preliminary approval of the class action settlement (the “Motion”). The Motion is GRANTED. I. The Complaint The Complaint alleges that LC § 226(a) requires employers to provide accurate itemized wage statements to its employees that identify all applicable hourly rates in effect during the pay...

Excerpt: ...g to file and serve a first amended cross-complaint. 1. Tenant Alleges Sufficient Facts to State a Cause of Action for Implied/Equitable Indemnity. In this case, Plaintiffs purchased the commercial property from sellers in February 2019 and Broker acted as the dual agent for the sale. (First Amended Complaint at ¶¶5, 8-9.) As of the date of the sale, Tenant was a commercial tenant who operated a body shop on the property. (Id. at ¶¶ 10, 13.) ...

Excerpt: ...he facility of Defendant Jersey City Medical Center/RWJ Barnabas Health in Jersey City, New Jersey, on June 21, 2018. Motion Defendants RWJ Barnabas Health (“RWJ”), Jersey City Medical Center (“JCMC”), Dhruv Vasant, M.D. (“Vasant”), Catherine Lushbough, M.D. (“Lushbough”), and Siva Teja Jetty, M.D. (“Jetty”) move the court to quash service of the summons an complaint and dismiss the action on the ground that there is no person...

Excerpt: ...employer, USI, and its ultimate parent company, USI Advantage, notwithstanding having signed various agreements containing post-employment restrictive covenants they allege are not enforceable under California law. USI filed the presently operative First Amended Cross-Complaint against the Individual Plaintiffs and Kenneth A. Keeney with causes of action for: 1) breach of the duty of loyalty; 2) breach of fiduciary duty; 3) intentional interferen...

Excerpt: ... facts sufficient to state a cause of action and/or the pleading is uncertain. With respect to plaintiffs' causes of action for fraud and nuisance, Defendants further argue these causes of action are barred by the applicable statutes of limitation. The demurrers are SUSTAINED, in part, and OVERRULED, in part, as discussed below. This matter is a landlord-tenant dispute over property located at 483 Bettencourt Street, Sonoma, CA (“the Subject Pr...

Excerpt: ...' Fees pursuant to CCP § 425.16(c), which seeks $314,115 in attorneys' fees (plus $14,160 in connection with the reply) and $5,061.91 in costs, which is the total amount of fees and costs incurred in this case. The Motion is GRANTED; however, because the court finds that Defendant seeks fees and costs which are not recoverable under CCP § 425.16(c), and because certain fees are not reasonable, Defendant is awarded reasonable attorneys' fees in ...

Excerpt: ... as well, to eliminate any threat of prejudice. Plaintiff moves the Court for leave to amend the complaint and file a first amended complaint (FAC”). She claims that she wants to “add factual allegations related to Defendant's prior knowledge and ratification of [Cortright's] misconduct and add a cause of action for sexual harassment in defined relationship in violation of [Civil Code] §51.9 and Premises Liability….” The factual allegati...

Excerpt: ...l date and transfer the action from unlawful detainer to the regular civil calendar because Defendant had vacated the Property so that possession was no longer an issue. No new trial date has been set since. Plaintiff now moves the Court for leave to amend the complaint in order to reflect the fact that possession is no longer at issue and the case is now a regular civil action for money owed and damages. It attaches a proposed first amended comp...

Excerpt: ...pute about the order after hearing. On May 14, 2020 the Court issued an Amended Order After Hearing granting in part and denying in part the motion to amend the judgment. The Court's May 14, 2020 Order directed Mr. Abel to take certain actions in connection with preparing the second amended judgment consistent with the Court's ruling, including entering his total damages (which amounts were to include both his own damages and the damages of other...

Excerpt: ...re granted in the amount of $18,298.91. “If parties to pending litigation stipulate, in a writing signed by the parties outside the presence of the court or orally before the court, for settlement of the case, or part thereof, the court, upon motion, may enter judgment pursuant to the terms of the settlement. If requested by the parties, the court may retain jurisdiction over the parties to enforce the settlement until performance in full of th...

Excerpt: ...emic, the matter was continued to May 13, 2020, at 3:00 p.m. in Department 17. Since no request for oral argument was made, the tentative ruling granting the motion to lift the stay of proceedings was confirmed as the order of the court. However, Defendant successfully moved to vacate the order on the grounds that he did not receive notice rescheduling the hearing to May 13, 2020. The court's August 12, 2020 ruling on Defendant's motion to vacate...

Excerpt: ...e provisions as well as the Court's inherent power to set aside a judgment based on mistake under section Code of Civil Procedure 128(a)(8) and Code of Civil Procedure section 86(b)(3). However, the memorandum contains only two terse paragraphs citing the law and it provides no analysis or explanation of any sort and provides no evidence at all. In opposition, Plaintiff argues that Defendant has provided nothing to carry her burden of demonstrati...

Excerpt: ... infliction of emotional distress on January 27, 2020. Defendant has not filed a cross- complaint. On August 17, 2020, defendant Maria Dwyer Biggs filed a Notice of Settlement of Entire Case (“Notice”). The Notice indicates that the parties entered into a settlement agreement and that a request for dismissal would be filed no later than November 15, 2020. Plaintiff argues that the Notice was wrongfully filed by defendant Biggs. Judgment has n...

Excerpt: ...iser. He contends that in March 2019 a fire damaged his real property (“the Loss”) at 121 Mary Paige Lane, Santa Rosa (“the Property”), he had an applicable insurance policy through Respondent which covered the Property (“the Policy”), he made a claim, and Respondent agreed that the Policy covered the Loss. However, he disputed the actual cash valuation of the claim so he hired a public adjuster, who also disputed the valuation. He de...

Excerpt: ...sion; 5) ejectment; and 6) claim and delivery (the “Complaint”). This matter is on calendar for Defendant's motion to strike the punitive damages allegations, which are sought in connection with the causes of action for slander of title and conversion, pursuant to Cal. Code Civ. Proc. (“CCP”) § 435. The Motion is GRANTED with leave to amend. I. The Complaint The Complaint alleges that the National Grange is the highest level of a nationw...

Excerpt: ... Fritti Action”). Plaintiffs oppose the motion, arguing that consolidation with the later Fritti Action is likely to delay the set trial date in this action, causing prejudice. The Fritti Plaintiffs have also filed opposition, reiterating the objections to consolidation. Under Code of Civil Procedure section 1048(a), a party may seek to consolidate separate actions “involving a common question of law or fact ... pending before the court ....�...

Excerpt: ...'s requests for admissions are DEEMED ADMITTED. Mr. Sechrist's request for $3,538.00 in monetary sanctions is GRANTED. Plaintiff is ORDERED to pay the sanctions within twenty (20) days of service of the Court's final ruling. Code of Civil Procedure section 2030.290 provides that if a party to whom interrogatories were directed fails to serve timely responses, the responding party waives all objections, including those based on privilege and work ...

Excerpt: ...egligence; 6) breach of bailment agreement; and 7) conversion (the “FAC”). This matter is on calendar for the continued hearing on CannaCraft's discovery motions, directed at Plaintiff, to compel: 1) responses to requests for admission and for sanctions; and 2) responses to requests for production of documents and for the production of documents, responses to special interrogatories, responses to form interrogatories, and for sanctions. The h...

Excerpt: .... In light of the difficulty counsel has had in communicating with Lonich, the Court will allow Lonich additional time to respond to Ananda's requests. Lonich shall provide further responses no later than January 15, 2021. Sanctions are reserved. In response to Ananda's special interrogatories and request for production of documents, Lonich responded, as follows, to each of the 104 interrogatories and 69 requests for production: Responding Party ...

Excerpt: ...eby STAYED pending a resolution of the arbitration. “California has a strong public policy in favor of arbitration and any doubts regarding the arbitrability of a dispute are resolved in favor of arbitration.” (Howard v. Goldbloom (2018) 30 Cal.App.5th 659, 663, citing Aanderud v. Superior Court (2017) 13 Cal.App.5th 880, 890.) “[W]hen considering a motion to compel arbitration, the court must initially determine whether the parties agreed ...

Excerpt: ...under appeal. Defendant's alternative request for an undertaking in the amount of $652,380.78 is DENIED. Finally, Plaintiffs' request to stay enforcement of the entire judgment is DENIED. When the Court considers the likelihood that Plaintiff will prevail in Ramos II; the amount of recovery that Plaintiffs are likely to obtain in Ramos II; and Defendant's ability to satisfy a potential judgment in Ramos II, Plaintiffs have simply presented insuff...

Excerpt: ... or, in the alternative, summary adjudication of each cause of action therein on the grounds that there is no defense to any of Defendants' causes of action. Defendants' motion for summary judgment is DENIED. Defendants' motion for summary adjudication is GRANTED as to each of Plaintiffs' causes of action with the exception of the cause of action for retaliatory eviction, as to which the motion is DENIED. Defendants' motion for summary judgment/a...

Excerpt: ...age for Plaintiffs' property destroyed in the October 9, 2017 Tubbs Fire, as well as bad faith in connection with the adjustment of Plaintiffs' claim. Among other things, the Complaint alleges that Defendant Rosetti failed to obtain separate dwelling insurance for a separate barn-style dwelling unit (the “Barn Unit”) on the property along with the main residence, resulting in limited and insufficient “other structures” coverage when the B...