Filed 4/19/22 Medina v. Medina CA4/1
NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN OFFICIAL REPORTS
California Rules of Court, rule 8.1115(a), prohibits courts and parties from citing or relying on opinions not certified for publication or ordered published, except as specified by rule 8.1115(b). This opinion has not been certified for publication or ordered published for purposes of rule 8.1115.
COURT OF APPEAL, FOURTH APPELLATE DISTRICT
DIVISION ONE
STATE OF CALIFORNIA
| RICARDO MEDINA,
Plaintiff, Cross-defendant, and Appellant,
v.
RAFAELA MEDINA,
Defendant, Cross-complainant, and Respondent.
| D078671
(Super. Ct. No. 37-2019- 00016190-CU-CO-CTL)
|
APPEAL from a judgment of the Superior Court of San Diego County, Katherine A. Bacal, Judge. Affirmed.
Ricardo Medina, in pro. per., for Plaintiff, Cross-defendant, and Appellant.
The Stone Law Group and Kenneth H. Stone for Defendant, Cross-complainant, and Respondent.
OPINION
This appeal arises out of a family dispute between Ricardo Medina (Ricardo) and his mother Rafaela Medina (Rafaela) concerning the ownership of a residential home in Chula Vista.
Ricardo filed a complaint against Rafaela alleging he was the sole owner of the property from 1986 until 1999. The complaint alleged that in 1999, Ricardo deeded the property to Rafaela and his father, Daniel Medina (Daniel), on the condition that they would deed the property back to him upon his request. According to Ricardo, Daniel died in 2002, Ricardo asked Rafaela to return the property to him in 2019, and Rafaela refused his request. Based on these allegations, Ricardo sued Rafaela for promissory estoppel, imposition of constructive and resulting trusts, breach of contract, specific performance, damages, an accounting, deceit and trick, real estate and mortgage fraud, and filing false or forged documents.
Rafaela filed a cross-complaint against Ricardo alleging she gave him $40,000 to purchase a mobile home. According to the cross-complaint, Ricardo did not use the funds to buy a mobile home as he had promised. Based on these allegations, Rafaela cross-complained against Ricardo for financial elder abuse, conversion, breach of contract, and money had and received.
The case proceeded to a two-day bench trial. At the end of the trial, the court issued an oral statement of decision and rendered a judgment finding that Ricardo failed to carry his burden on the causes of action asserted in the complaint and Rafaela failed to carry her burden on the causes of action asserted in the cross-complaint. Therefore, neither party took anything from the other party.
Ricardo, proceeding in propria persona, appeals the judgment. We presume the judgment “ ‘to be correct on appeal, and all intendments and presumptions are indulged in favor of its correctness.’ [Citation.] Thus, ‘t is [Ricardo’s] burden to affirmatively demonstrate error and where the evidence is in conflict, we will affirm the trial court’s findings.’ ” ([i]In re Marriage of Marshall (2018) 23 Cal.App.5th 477, 483.)
“As a propria persona litigant, [Ricardo] is entitled to the same but no greater consideration than other litigants. [Citations.] Accordingly, he must follow the rules of appellate procedure. [Citations.] Those rules require an appellate brief to support each point by argument and, if possible, by citation to authority and to provide a citation to the record for a factual assertion. (Cal. Rules of Court, rule 8.204(a)(1)(B) & (C).) ‘[W]e may disregard factual contentions that are not supported by citations to the record [citation] or are based on information that is outside the record [citation]. We may disregard legal arguments that are not supported by citations to legal authority [citation] or are conclusory [citation].’ [Citations.] Further, we may treat a point that is not supported by cogent legal argument as forfeited.” (County of Sacramento v. Rawat (2021) 65 Cal.App.5th 858, 861 (Rawat).)
Ricardo’s opening brief is a verbatim copy of a legal brief he filed in the trial court prior to the bench trial. It includes unsupported allegations recounting Ricardo’s version of events, as well as a request for damages “according to proof at trial.” It does not include reasoned arguments addressing why the judgment should be reversed. It does not set forth the applicable standard of review. Further, it does not include citations to the appellate record or legal authorities supporting any alleged claims of error.
Because the opening brief does not include these essential components, Ricardo has forfeited his arguments on appeal. (Rawat, supra, 65 Cal.App.5th at p. 861; see Ewald v. Nationstar Mortgage, LLC (2017) 13 Cal.App.5th 947, 948 [“ ‘Failure to acknowledge the proper scope of review is a concession of a lack of merit.’ ”].) In light of our presumption that the judgment is correct, Ricardo’s forfeiture of his arguments compels us to affirm the judgment.[1] (Pizarro v. Reynoso (2017) 10 Cal.App.5th 172, 181.)
DISPOSITION
The judgment is affirmed. Respondent is entitled to her costs on appeal.
McCONNELL, P. J.
WE CONCUR:
O’ROURKE, J.
DO, J.
[1] After Ricardo filed his opening brief, Rafaela filed a motion to dismiss the appeal based on Ricardo’s failure to articulate any claim of error supported by legal authorities and citations to the appellate record. We deny the motion to dismiss and instead affirm the judgment for the reasons stated herein.
