CA Unpub Decisions

Xavier Becerra, Attorney General, Gerald A. Engler, Chief Assistant Attorney General, Lance E. Winters, Senior Assistant Attorney General, Margaret E. Maxwell, Supervising Deputy Attorney General, Yun K. Lee, Deputy Attorney General, for Plaintiff and Respondent.
Tom Taylor was bludgeoned to death with a metal rod in the motor home where he lived with defendants and appellants Jazmin Montanez and Anthony Paz. That motor home—which was set on fire with Taylor’s dead body inside—was regularly used as a place to smoke methamphetamine by Taylor, defendants, and others, including David Romero, Alfredo De La Torre, and Diana Sequen. Defendants argue key incriminating evidence was wrongly admitted at trial, and defendant Paz argues the trial court incorrectly sustained objections to certain cross-examination questions.

Zana and James married on May 20, 2004, and have two children, Joseph (born in 2006) and Liam (born in 2009). James filed a petition for dissolution on June 3, 2014. James is a senior litigation associate at a large law firm; he does not practice family law. He represented himself beginning in April 2015 after incurring over $40,000 in attorney fees. Zana does not work outside the home and has not worked full time since the marriage, although she did some work as an actress. She has a degree from an Italian university and attended three semesters of an LLM degree program, but has been unable to pass the California bar exam.

The juvenile court declined to order services to reunify Daisy Z. with her six-month-old son J.Z. pursuant to Welfare and Institutions Code section 361.5, subdivision (b)(10), on the ground she had failed to reunify with J.Z.’s older half-sister in another case.

J.C. (Father) and B.K. (Mother) appeal from an order denying their petitions under Welfare and Institutions Code section 388 and terminating their parental rights as to their daughter B.C. (Minor). Father contends (1) the court, county counsel, and respondent Humboldt County Department of Health and Human Services (Department) violated their duties to conduct these proceedings in an expeditious, effective, and nonadversarial manner (§ 350, subd. (a)); (2) the court erred in denying Father’s section 388 petition; and (3) the order terminating Father’s parental rights must be reversed if we reverse the denial of his section 388 petition. Mother does not claim error in the denial of her section 388 petition or the termination of her parental rights, but she joins in Father’s opening brief on the ground that, if we reverse the termination of Father’s parental rights, we must reverse the termination of Mother’s parental rights also. We will affirm.

Pursuant to a plea agreement, defendant Jeffrey Paul Robinson pleaded guilty to assault as a felony offense in exchange for an indicated sentence of probation and one year in county jail. In lieu of serving the one year, defendant could complete a six-month residential drug treatment program. At the change of plea proceeding, defendant agreed to be sentenced by a different judge and to waive any custody credits he had accrued at the time of sentencing to allow the court to impose the promised sentence. Thereafter, at the initial sentencing before a different judge, the court accepted the plea agreement and imposed a three-year probationary term and a one-year jail term that was stayed to allow defendant to complete the six-month residential drug treatment program. The sentencing court also secured defendant’s express agreement to waive 321 custody credits that he had accrued in order to allow the court to impose the promised sentence.

J.C. (Father) and B.K. (Mother) appeal from a disposition order in a proceeding commenced as to their daughter B.C. (Minor) under Welfare and Institutions Code section 300. They contend (1) respondent Humboldt County Department of Health and Human Services (Department) and the juvenile court failed to satisfy their duties with respect to the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA; 25 U.S.C. §§ 1901 et seq.); and (2) there was insufficient evidence to support the court’s jurisdictional findings under section 300, subdivisions (b) and (j). We will affirm.

This appeal raises two primary issues, one procedural and the other substantive. The substantive issue concerns whether the trial court correctly ruled, in the context of defendant’s motion for judgment on the pleadings, that plaintiff’s breach of contract claim is barred by the statute of limitations. The procedural issue concerns whether the trial court should have entertained the defendant’s motion at all. We conclude the trial court should not have entertained the motion, which was defendant’s third challenge to the pleadings and second to the operative first amended complaint. The motion sought relief the defendant previously requested and the trial court previously denied. The motion did not meet the requirements of Code of Civil Procedure section 1008 because defendant made no effort to show it had acted with diligence and had good cause for failing earlier to raise the argument it made in the renewed motion.

In 1999, appellant Wayne Bennett, a certified public accountant, became the chief financial officer at respondent E L & Associates, Inc. (ELA), a company formed by respondent Ed Toy. In 2002, as fallout from the “.com bust” took effect, ELA reduced the salaries of all employees, including Bennett, a state of affairs that lasted for years. In 2011, Toy received a fraud alert on a credit card, investigation of which led to the conclusion that Bennett was involved in the incident—and much, much more. The upshot was Bennett’s termination—and the within lawsuit.

Aaron Clayton Robinson shot and killed Dominique Thomas, a neighborhood gang member, allegedly in self-defense. A jury convicted him of voluntary manslaughter and found he personally used a firearm in committing the offense. Robinson argues (1) the standard instructions on justifiable homicide in self-defense are flawed; (2) the trial court abused its discretion by excluding various pieces of evidence; and (3) the case should be remanded so the court can consider whether to strike the firearm enhancement under a 2017 amendment to Penal Code section 12022.5, subdivision (c). We agree the case should be remanded to consider the firearm enhancement, but we otherwise affirm the conviction.

Defendant Steven Dylan Belmont appeals a judgment entered upon a jury verdict finding him guilty of mayhem (Pen. Code, § 203), two counts of assault with a deadly weapon (§ 245, subd. (a)(1)), and battery with serious bodily injury (§ 243, subd. (d)). He contends the trial court did not instruct the jury correctly on self-defense—giving three instructions it should not have—and that his mayhem conviction was improper because the jury found the prosecution did not prove one of the elements of that crime and the court did not instruct the jury fully on that element. We shall affirm the judgment.

In this dependency action, the parents of M.B. seek reversal of the juvenile court order terminating their parental rights based on noncompliance with state law implementing the federal Indian Child Welfare Act. (ICWA; 25 U.S.C. § 1901 et seq.) Father argues substantial evidence does not support the court’s findings regarding ICWA compliance because respondent failed to adequately inquire and provide complete notice to the tribes of which M.B. may be a member. Mother argues more specifically that the social worker failed to adequately investigate M.B.’s possible Chickasaw ancestry. For the reasons stated here, we will conditionally reverse the judgment to permit the juvenile court to comply with ICWA’s inquiry and notice provisions incorporated into Welfare and Institutions Code sections 224.2 and 224.3. (Undesignated statutory references are to the Welfare and Institutions Code.)

After a jury trial, Appellant R.K. was found to be gravely disabled within the meaning of the Lanterman-Petris-Short Act (LPS Act) (Welf. & Inst. Code, § 5000 et seq.). The court entered judgment based on the jury’s verdict, appointing Respondent Public Guardian for Santa Clara County (public guardian) as conservator of the person of R.K. On appeal, R.K. asks us to reverse the judgment arguing that errors throughout the proceedings deprived him of various statutory and constitutional rights.
Shortly after R.K. filed this appeal, the trial court terminated the conservatorship and discharged the conservator. R.K. requests that this court nevertheless address each of the issues he raises on appeal. For reasons that we will explain, we will dismiss the appeal as moot.

Qiuyue Jiao and Xiang Ji, mother and son (collectively, appellants), appeal from a posttrial judgment denying them relief on the complaint they brought against Jiao’s former business partner, Jin Jin, and Jin’s husband and daughter. They contend the trial court erred in concluding they failed to meet their burden of proof on their intentional tort and business-related causes of action because they presented substantial evidence in support thereof. We find no error, however, because the court’s conclusion was based on its determination that none of appellants’ evidence was credible, a determination to which we defer. Accordingly, we affirm the judgment.

Bradley G. Weiskittel (Bradley) appeals from a postjudgment order requiring him to continue paying spousal support to Rebekah S. Weiskittel (Rebekah) for an additional five years. He contends the court’s “extension of jurisdiction over spousal support was an abuse of discretion” because the court incorrectly found the marriage was of long duration. He claims this finding conflicted with the parties’ stipulated judgment, which did not define the marriage as long term. Alternatively, he claims there was insufficient evidence to find the marriage was of long duration and the court abused its discretion by not reducing or terminating spousal support. Finally, he contests the court’s award of attorney fees to Rebekah. As explained below, we disagree with Bradley’s contentions and, accordingly, we affirm the order.