CA Unpub Decisions

A jury found defendant Steven Hendrix guilty of two counts of willfully inflicting corporal injury resulting in a traumatic condition upon his fiancée. (Pen. Code, § 273.5, subd. (a).) In a bifurcated proceeding, the trial court found true the allegations he had previously been convicted of violating section 273.5, subdivision (a) within seven years of committing the current corporal injury offenses. (§ 273.5, former subd. (e)(1), as amended by Stats. 2007, ch. 582, § 1; see Stats. 2013, ch. 763, § 1 [redesignating former subd. (e)(1) as subd. (f)(1)].) The trial court also found true the allegations he had a prior serious felony within the meaning of the three strikes law (§ 667, subds. (c), (e)(1)) and had served one prior prison term (§ 667.5, subd. (b)). The trial court denied his motion to strike the prior strike allegation (People v. Superior Court (Romero) (1996) 13 Cal.4th 497, 504 (Romero)) and sentenced him to an aggregate term of seven years eight months in pris

On January 26, 2016, a jury found defendant Chofa Moses Grijalva guilty of willfully inflicting corporal injury resulting in a traumatic condition upon his wife, and leaving the scene of an accident that resulted in permanent, serious injury. With respect to the former charge, the jury found true that defendant personally inflicted great bodily injury upon his wife under circumstances involving domestic violence. The jury acquitted defendant of assault with a deadly weapon.
The trial court sentenced defendant to a total term of seven years in prison.
On appeal, defendant contends: (1) his conviction for leaving the scene of an accident that resulted in permanent, serious injury was not supported by substantial evidence, (2) the trial court erred in not conducting an evidentiary hearing outside the presence of the jurors regarding the admission of evidence of two prior uncharged instances of domestic violence that his wife’s sister testified about, and (3) the introduction o

A commercial landlord has a general duty to maintain common areas in a reasonably safe condition. (Rowland v. Christian (1968) 69 Cal.2d 108, 119.) Failure to fulfill this duty is negligence. (Brooks v. Eugene Burger Management Corp (1989) 215 Cal.App.3d 1611, 1619.) An exception to this general rule is that a commercial landlord has no duty to protect tenants against unforeseeable criminal acts of third parties. (Castaneda v. Olsher (2007) 41 Cal.4th 1205, 1213.)

Nicole L. (mother), in propria persona, seeks extraordinary writ relief from the juvenile court’s orders issued at a contested six-month review hearing (Welf. & Inst. Code, § 366.21, subd. (e)(1)), terminating her reunification services and setting a section 366.26 hearing as to her now five-year-old son, Sergio, and four-year-old daughter, Madeline. She contends the court erred in conducting the hearing in her absence. We deny the petition.

In this case, plaintiff Corinne Moller, acting in her capacity as a taxpayer, sought to challenge a 2005 contract between defendant Lake Shastina Community Services District (the district) and defendant DECO Industries, LLC (DECO) and also sought to challenge a 2015 settlement agreement between the same parties. The trial court sustained demurrers without leave to amend on the grounds that Moller’s challenge to the 2005 contract was time-barred and she lacked standing to challenge the 2015 settlement agreement. Finding no error in the trial court’s ruling, we affirm.

H.F., mother of the minor, S.R., appeals from the juvenile court’s visitation order. (Welf. & Inst. Code, § 362.1.) She contends the court abused its discretion by delegating its authority over visitation to the minor. Concluding mother’s claim is forfeited because she did not object to the visitation order in the juvenile court, we affirm.

Ryan P., Sr. (Father) appeals from a dispositional order of the juvenile court, declining to place his son, Ryan P., Jr. (Ryan) with paternal relatives and declining to order reunification services for Father. Father contends the juvenile court erred in failing to make the findings required under Welfare and Institutions Code sections 361, subdivision (c), and 361.2. He further contends that the court’s finding under section 361.2 was not supported by substantial evidence. In the alternative, he contends that the court erred in denying him reunification services under section 361.5. We conclude that the juvenile court’s finding under section 361.2 is not supported by clear and convincing evidence and therefore reverse.

Manuel G. appeals from the jurisdiction and disposition orders of the juvenile court. He contends there is insufficient evidence to support the order sustaining the subsequent petition. (Welf. & Inst. Code, § 342.) He also contends that if we reverse the jurisdiction order we must reverse the ensuing disposition order. We conclude that the record supports the juvenile court’s jurisdictional findings. Accordingly, we affirm the orders.

M.B. (Mother) and J.R. (Father) appeal from the juvenile court’s jurisdictional and dispositional findings regarding their now seven-year-old daughter K.R. In her appeal, Mother contends that after she was arrested in California, K.R. should have been immediately sent to her paternal grandparents’ home in Arizona, where the child had resided since her birth. (Paternal grandparents do not have legal custody of K.R. and are not parties in this appeal.) In addition, Mother challenges the court’s denial of her motion to dismiss, disputing the court’s decision to exercise emergency jurisdiction to consider the dependency petition pursuant to the Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction and Enforcement Act (UCCJEA). Father’s appeal attacks the court’s jurisdictional finding as to him on the grounds of insufficiency of the evidence. Specifically, he maintains there was no evidence his use of drugs and addiction caused K.R. to be at substantial risk of serious physical harm or illne

Plaintiffs and appellants D&D Goryoka, Inc. (DGI) and its sole shareholders, Amir Goryoka, and Izik Aziz Goryoka, appeal from a judgment of dismissal entered after the trial court sustained without leave to amend the demurrer of defendant and respondent Bank of Southern California, N.A. (Bank) to appellants' complaint for malicious prosecution. In that action, appellants alleged Bank wrongfully maintained a lawsuit against DGI seeking repayment of an $880,000 Small Business Administration (SBA) loan because, after causing a nonjudicial foreclosure to take place, Bank could not obtain a deficiency judgment against DGI due to DGI's status as a co-borrower under SBA regulations. The trial court ruled appellants could not allege Bank lacked probable cause to sue under the so-called interim adverse judgment rule, in which probable cause for purposes of such a claim may be established by certain nonfinal rulings in the underlying lawsuit, including, as here, denial of a defense su

Gulfstream Aerospace Corporation (Gulfstream) appeals from an order denying its petition to compel arbitration of a complaint filed by Advanced Air Management, Inc. (Advanced). Advanced alleges that Gulfstream negligently maintained and repaired an airplane operated by Advanced. The trial court found that the parties’ contract was unconscionable, so the arbitration agreement contained within it was unenforceable.
Gulfstream argues that the parties agreed to delegate to an arbitrator the authority to decide disputes concerning the enforceability of the arbitration agreement, and Advanced never specifically challenged the validity of that delegation, so the trial court was required to order arbitration and allow the arbitrator to decide whether the arbitration agreement as a whole is enforceable. We agree. We therefore reverse the order with directions to grant the petition.

Maria R. (mother) appeals from the court’s assertion of dependency jurisdiction over her two children pursuant to Welfare and Institutions Code section 300, subdivisions (a) and (b). Mother contends that the court erred in finding her conduct created a substantial risk of harm to her children; she argues the risk was created entirely by her husband, Juan M. (father), the perpetrator of severe domestic violence against her. We disagree and affirm.

Valerie R. appeals from the juvenile court’s jurisdiction findings declaring her three children dependents of the juvenile court and from the court’s disposition order removing them from her physical custody and placing them with their father, Abel R. Valerie argues substantial evidence does not support the court’s findings and order, the court failed to consider whether there were reasonable means to protect her children other than removal, and the court failed to state the facts supporting its decision to remove the children. Because substantial evidence supported the juvenile court’s jurisdiction findings, we affirm the court’s findings. In its disposition order, however, the court erred in failing to consider whether there were reasonable means less drastic than removal to protect the children and failing to state the facts on which its removal order was based. Because these errors were not harmless, we reverse the disposition order and remand for a new disposition he

A bank denied a homeowner’s application to modify the payment schedule for the second loan on his house, finding him financially ineligible on the basis of information supplied in a credit report. The homeowner then presented the bank with documentation to prove that the credit report was wrong. It took the bank another two years to reject the homeowner’s request to reconsider its initial denial, and it did so on the ground that the borrower had already received a modification and the bank’s policy was only to grant one modification per loan. The homeowner sued, and the trial court sustained a demurrer without leave to amend to the homeowner’s claims for negligent processing of his loan modification application, for unfair competition, and for negligent misrepresentation. Accepting the facts in the homeowner’s complaint as true (as we must), we conclude that the homeowner has stated a claim for negligence and unfair competition; he has not stated a claim for negligent mis