CA Unpub Decisions

In the interest of brevity, we limit our background discussion to the procedural history relevant to our review of the issues that Lopez presents on appeal.
Lopez filed suit against Defendants in June 2018 for “deprivation of his rights” under state and federal law “due to his race, sex [and] familial status.” Lopez alleged Defendants violated his right to be free from unlawful discrimination by “refusing to rent apartments [and] discriminat[ing] in the terms, conditions and privileges of rental of an apartment dwelling over a period of 3-4 years.” According to Lopez’s complaint, “[t]he most recent lease denial . . . would have been January 18, 2016 effectively, since Plaintiff had [then] sought to occupy and make effective [an] apartment rental on January 19, 2016.”
The trial court sustained Defendants’ demurrer to the complaint, with leave for Lopez to amend; the court subsequently denied Defendants’ request for dismissal.

During their marriage, Father and Mother had two children, A.L. and T.L. A.L., born in 2012, is the couple’s biological daughter. T.L., born in 2018, was adopted by the couple.
In connection with T.L.’s adoption, the couple made an agreement with the Yuba County Health & Human Services Department, whereby the couple received $1,000 per month as “an adoption assistance benefit for [T.L.],” who “me[t] the definition of a special needs adoption” and therefore was eligible to receive a “federally funded subsidy” meant to “encourage the adoption of special needs children.”
During divorce proceedings that began in 2020, Mother asked the trial court to order Father to pay basic child support, in addition to one-half of employment-related childcare costs, and one-half of all uninsured healthcare costs.

For expediency, we will incorporate relevant information from the published opinion in defendant’s prior appeal, People v. Vasquez (2016) 246 Cal.App.4th 1019 (Vasquez):
“Defendants Marquon Deanthony Vasquez and Shoreem Dominique Bryant were tried together in front of separate juries for murder and attempted murder with allegations these crimes were committed for the benefit of a street gang. Vasquez fatally shot Deandra Horton and wounded her companion, Tionee Duncan, who was confined to a wheelchair. Bryant had driven Vasquez to where the shooting took place and was also the getaway driver. The shooting was in retaliation for an altercation between Vasquez’s cousin (Kaveon Plummer-Lee) and one of Duncan’s friends (Marcus Lebeau). Bryant, Vasquez, and Plummer-Lee were members of the North Highlands Gangster Crips. Lebeau was a member of the rival Bloods.

The issue on appeal makes it unnecessary to provide the underlying substantive facts of defendant’s offense. It suffices to say that an August 2017 information alleged that defendant (1) evaded a peace officer in a motor vehicle with wanton disregard for the safety of others (Veh. Code, § 2800.2, subd. (a)) and (2) suffered a prior strike conviction within the meaning of Penal Code section 1170.12, subdivision (b).
In November 2017, defendant waived her right to a jury trial on the prior strike allegation. Defense counsel told the trial court that defendant “[was] willing to waive jury for the strike portion.” The trial court addressed defendant: “[Defendant], you have a right to have a jury trial on the allegation that -- on the issue where the People say you have a prior serious felony strike conviction.

We take the facts of defendant’s crimes from our unpublished opinion affirming his conviction. (See People v. Lewis (2021) 11 Cal.5th 952, 972 [appellate opinion generally part of record of conviction as applied to section 1170.95 proceedings] (Lewis).) We rely on the record of his prior appeal for necessary procedural facts. (§ 1170.95, subd. (d)(3).)
“The Robbery of Eugene Mannie
“On October 6, 1992, Daniel Rontal, who testified on behalf of the prosecution as part of a plea agreement, spent some time drinking and driving around with Willis in Willis’s gray 1983 Pontiac Grand Prix. Later that evening they picked up Willis’s girlfriend, Juanita Bravo, from work. Bravo was carrying a .22-caliber revolver in her purse and gave it to Willis, who put the gun under the driver’s seat. After driving Bravo to the home he shared with her, Willis left with Rontal. According to Bravo, Willis was wearing black pants, a white T-shirt and a hair net.

Starting with the alleged January 2020 order, appellant cites nothing in the record, in fact, he hasn’t supplied any record concerning this order. As best we can tell based on the parties’ briefing, the trial court issued this order in a distinct case that was never appealed and is thus not properly before us. (See Hollister Convalescent Hosp., Inc. v. Rico (1975) 15 Cal.3d 660, 670 [“the timely filing of an appropriate notice of appeal or its legal equivalent is an absolute prerequisite to the exercise of appellate jurisdiction”].) Thus, we do not address it.
Turning to the March 2020 order, the only order he appears to have appealed, appellant argues that he had physical evidence to present to the court at the hearing on the restraining order, yet the court refused to look at it.

NCCI is a marijuana dispensary that has operated at various locations in the San Fernando Valley. Chtivelman and his co plaintiff Pavel Lyubovny had been involved with NCCI in some capacity for several years when, in early 2015, they claim they made an oral agreement with Li and defendant Michael Smushkevich to renovate a new storefront for NCCI. Chtivelman and Lyubovny claim that they spent approximately $1 million building out a new location for NCCI in Van Nuys, but in August 2015, city officials shut down the facility for operating in violation of state law. In November 2015, NCCI gave them promissory notes for $500,000 each, which NCCI thereafter refused to repay.
Defendants NCCI and Li tell a different story.

On July 15, 2018, Cross disappeared from her home. She had wandered out of her home on prior occasions and, in 2016, was diagnosed with dementia. She lived with two of her daughters, Lisa Cross Vasallo and Valerie King. According to Vasallo, Cross had never fallen or fractured her hip before her admission to San Gabriel and was able to walk without a cane or walker. Cross had suffered from a hernia for 40 years.
The police found Cross in the midst of traffic and brought her to Intercommunity Hospital on a Welfare and Institutions Code section 5150 hold. She remained there for 24 hours, waiting for an available bed at San Gabriel’s geriatric psychiatric ward, referred to as the behavioral unit. One of Cross’s daughters stayed with her overnight at Intercommunity Hospital, and Cross did not appear to have a fractured hip or suffer any injury or fall there.

We summarize only those facts that are relevant to our disposition of this appeal.
“Under the federal Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act [citation] and the Knox-Keene [Health Care Service Plan Act of 1975 (the Knox-Keene Act)], hospitals and other medical providers have a statutory duty to provide ‘emergency [medical] services and care’ to persons who are in ‘danger of loss of life, or serious injury or illness.’ [Citations.] Under the Knox-Keene Act, the health care service plan . . . must, within 30 or 45 days, reimburse the hospital or other medical providers for the ‘emergency services and care provided to its enrollees’ as to (1) all care necessary for ‘stabilization’ of the enrollee, and (2) for all poststabilization care the plan authorizes the hospital to provide. [Citations.] When the hospital or other medical providers have a contract with the plan, the plan must reimburse them for the services at the ‘agreed upon contract rate.’

In 2009, a jury convicted Bustos of one count of first degree murder and two counts of premeditated attempted murder, with true findings on firearm and gang allegations on each count. The trial court sentenced Bustos to 50 years to life in prison. In 2011, a different panel of this division affirmed Bustos’s conviction. (People v. Bustos (Apr. 21, 2011, B220474) [nonpub. opn.].)
In September 2020, the Secretary of the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) sent the trial court a letter recommending it recall Bustos’s sentence and resentence her under former section 1170, subdivision (d)(1) based upon her exceptional conduct while confined.
The parties submitted briefing. The trial court declined to recall the sentence, reasoning that Bustos’s time in prison was not free of violations and that the actions that led to her conviction resulted in pain and suffering.
Bustos timely appealed.

This action arises out of a $250,000 loan made in 2008 to borrowers and others by lender’s assignor, Dove Street Capital Lenders, secured by deeds of trust on two separate residential properties, one of which was owned by borrowers. Lender commenced this action against borrowers seeking initially to judicially foreclose on the deeds of trust. That action was later dismissed as time-barred.
Before the dismissal of lender’s action, borrowers filed the cross-action that is the subject of this appeal, seeking to prevent foreclosure and to obtain declaratory relief as to the rights and obligations of the parties. Borrowers obtained a preliminary injunction in October 2018 barring foreclosure of the property during pendency of the action.
In their operative fourth amended cross-complaint, borrowers asserted causes of action for declaratory relief, accounting, cancellation of the deed of trust, and quite title.

Jane Doe was a 33-year-old woman between seven and eight months pregnant, who had significant intellectual and learning disabilities. On March 5, 2017, she left a transitional housing shelter in Oakland where she lived to take a transit bus to Love Temple Missionary Baptist Church located on 85th Avenue and Birch Street in Oakland. The church has a parking lot located in the rear. Jane Doe is a member of the church who attended sporadically, but was known by a male deacon and a female member.
At 8:25 a.m. that day, Jane Doe exited the bus and walked across 85th Avenue. Because she was pregnant, she was feeling tired and her feet were swollen. As she was walking down the sidewalk on 85th Avenue near the church, defendant drove up in a white van with tinted windows. Through an open window, defendant said to Jane Doe, “ ‘You know me.’ ” Jane Doe had never seen him before, and feeling “[k]ind of scared,” she responded, “ ‘I don’t know you.’ ” Because Jane Doe was “

On July 18, 2018, officers arrested defendant at the Pacific Pride gas station in San Jose, where he and another man (whom officers were unable to positively identify) were pumping diesel fuel into two large vessels in the back of a stolen Ryder box truck. A shed on the premises housed the computer system for the fuel pumps. The shed was unlocked and the pumps used by defendant had been set to manual mode. Defendant was arrested at the scene on an unrelated warrant.
Some three months later on October 9, officers were alerted to a stolen Freightliner truck parked behind a Target store also in San Jose. Defendant, who was in the driver’s seat with the engine running, did not respond when ordered to exit the truck. Officers entered the cab and ordered defendant to turn off the engine. Instead defendant drove the truck over a small embankment and into a loading bay, injuring both officers, before fleeing on foot.

Kirkpatrick pleaded guilty to a violation of Penal Code section 646.9, subdivision (b), stalking with a restraining order. He also admitted two prior strike convictions pursuant to Penal Code section 667, subdivisions (d) and (e)(2)(A). Pursuant to the plea agreement, the trial court struck the prior convictions, and sentenced Kirkpatrick to three years of probation. The court imposed various terms and conditions of probation including a $300 restitution fine, and that Kirkpatrick comply with a protective order.
Kirkpatrick admitted a violation of probation, and the trial court found he violated probation. The court reinstated probation and sentenced Kirkpatrick to credit for time served of 104 days in county jail. On May 11, 2021, the court terminated probation pursuant to Penal Code sections 1203.1 and 1203a.