CA Unpub Decisions

Plaintiff and appellant Michael Omidi, M.D. (Omidi) appeals a judgment in favor of defendant and respondent National Resident Matching Program (NRMP) after the trial court sustained a demurrer without leave to amend as to certain causes of action and granted summary judgment with respect to the remaining cause of action.
As discussed below, we perceive no error in the trial court’s rulings and affirm the judgment.

Herbert Alberto Alvarenga appeals a judgment following conviction of attempted murder, assault with a deadly weapon, street terrorism, first degree residential burglary, infliction of bodily injury upon a child, use and possession of tear gas, battery, and failure to appear while on bail, with findings of benefit to a criminal street gang, personal use of a deadly weapon, and personal infliction of great bodily injury. (Pen. Code, §§ 664, 187, subd. (a), 245, subd. (a)(1), 186.22, subd. (a), 459, 273d, subd. (a), 22810, subds. (a) & (g)(1), 242, 1320.5, 186.22, subd. (b)(1), 12022, subd. (b)(1), 12022.7, subd. (a).) We modify the judgment to impose and then stay sentence enhancements to counts 2 and 3, but otherwise affirm.

Defendant Contractors State License Board (the Board) appeals from a judgment granting in part a petition for writ of administrative mandamus (Code Civ. Proc., § 1094.5). The Board filed an administrative proceeding against plaintiff City Light Construction, which is owned solely by Faramarz Taghilou, for violation of Business and Professions Code section 7112. The Board found Taghilou violated section 7112 by failing to disclose a prior criminal conviction on his application for an addition to his general contractor’s license. It imposed a penalty of staying a license revocation and placing Taghilou on three years of probation. Plaintiff petitioned for a writ of administrative mandamus. The trial court agreed that plaintiff had violated section 7112 but vacated the penalty, concluding that the Board abused its discretion in imposing it.

Plaintiff and appellant Michael Omidi (Omidi) appeals (1) an order of dismissal following the sustaining of a demurrer by defendants and respondents Regents of the University of California, Maria Savoia, Stephen Hayden, and Cindy Slaughter (collectively, the UC defendants) to his first amended complaint (FAC) without leave to amend, and (2) an order granting a special motion to strike brought by defendants and respondents State of California, acting by and through the Medical Board of California (Medical Board), and Kevin Schunke (Schunke) (collectively, the Medical Board defendants).
As discussed below, we perceive no error in the trial court’s rulings and affirm the orders.

In this appeal from a juvenile dependency action, R.H. (Father) requests that we “reverse and/or find void the findings and orders made by the juvenile court on January 4, 2017.” According to Father, the order removing I.H. (Minor) from his care was procedurally improper and not supported by substantial evidence. Alameda County Social Services Agency (Agency) argues this appeal is moot because Minor has been returned to Father’s care and the dependency case has been dismissed. We agree with the Agency and dismiss this appeal.

After a contested jurisdictional hearing, the juvenile court found true allegations in a juvenile wardship petition that defendant A.C. committed two counts of assault by force likely to produce great bodily injury, and one count of simple battery. Defendant asserts the prosecution failed to meet its burden of disproving her affirmative defense—defense of another—beyond a reasonable doubt. We affirm.

Defendant Robert Fenton appeals from a judgment, entered after a bench trial of an unlawful detainer action, awarding the State of California past-due rent, holdover damages, and possession of property under a highway in San Rafael that Fenton had leased from the Department of Transportation (Caltrans). The lease authorized Fenton to use the property only for parking, while a use permit from the City of San Rafael (city) allowed parking on the property in connection with an adjacent business Fenton owned. After he sold the business, the city declared his continued use of the property for parking to be unlawful. The state thus required him to remove all vehicles from the property, and Fenton stopped paying rent. This action followed.

After Randy Christensen was terminated from his job as a splicing technician, he sued his former employer, Pacific Bell Telephone Company (PacBell), alleging age discrimination, disability discrimination, and retaliation in violation of the Fair Employment and Housing Act (FEHA, Gov. Code, § 12940 et seq.). He now appeals from the trial court’s award of summary judgment to PacBell. We conclude that PacBell is entitled to judgment on Christensen’s causes of action for age discrimination, but not on his causes of action for disability discrimination and retaliation and not on his claim for punitive damages. Accordingly, we shall affirm in part and reverse in part.

Defendant Henry A. Smith, Jr., appeals a judgment convicting him of, among other things, the first degree murder of a police officer and second degree robbery and sentencing him to life in prison without the possibility of parole. He contends (1) the court erred in admitting, under the public safety exception to Miranda v. Arizona (1966) 384 U.S. 436 (Miranda), a statement he made to the police shortly after his arrest; (2) the court erred in dismissing a holdout juror for bias; and (3) the court erred in refusing to hold a hearing on the alleged misconduct of other jurors. In his consolidated habeas petition, defendant reasserts with additional evidence his argument that the court erred in dismissing the holdout juror and not conducting a hearing on the alleged misconduct of other jurors. Defendant also challenges his sentence in several respects. We find no error in the admission of defendant’s un-Mirandized statement.

Defendants A-One Janitorial, LLC (LLC) and Kenneth Alston (collectively, Buyers) appeal from the trial court’s order denying their motion to compel arbitration and to stay the action. LLC entered into an Asset Purchase Agreement (APA) with A-One Janitorial Services (A-One), James E. Massicotte, and Ricardo De Law O Lemos (collectively, Sellers) to purchase certain assets belonging to A-One. Under the APA, the parties agreed an independent accounting firm would render a conclusive and binding decision concerning any disagreement the parties had over a specific accounting issue. The Buyers contend the court erred in finding this provision of the APA was not an arbitration clause. We agree and therefore reverse and remand for the court to decide whether it should delay arbitration until the nonarbitrable claims are resolved.

Defendant Nancy Ann Strom (Nancy) appeals from the trial court’s decision declining to hear her special motion to strike plaintiff Barbara Leigh Strom Maurer’s complaint pursuant to Code of Civil Procedure section 425.16 (the anti-SLAPP statute). The court concluded the motion was untimely. Nancy argues the court abused its discretion by declining to hear her motion, which she filed more than six months after proceedings were initiated. Nancy, however, failed to address the timeliness issue below. She cannot raise her reasons as to why the court should have exercised its discretion to hear her untimely motion for the first time in this court. Based on the record the court had before it when it ruled, there was no abuse of discretion. Accordingly, we affirm the order.

Nhan Hoa Comprehensive Health Care Clinic, Inc., appeals from an order denying its petition to compel respondent Raymond Doan to arbitrate his employment-related claims. The trial court ruled that Nhan Hoa had failed to produce a valid arbitration agreement.
We affirm. The documents Nhan Hoa submitted to support its petition indicate that the agreement to arbitrate, part of Doan’s hiring paperwork, was a stand-alone agreement requiring execution to be binding; the company presented no evidence that Doan had ever signed the agreement. Accordingly Nhan Hoa did not carry its initial burden of showing a valid agreement to arbitrate.

This is the second appeal concerning a dispute arising out of the exercise of an option by Golden Hills Properties, LLC (defendant) to purchase the leasehold interest of plaintiff Harbor Marina, LLC (plaintiff) in a commercial property ground lease. In a nutshell, after the purchase price was determined, defendant refused to pay unless it received an offset for net operating income plaintiff earned before the transaction closed.
In the first appeal (Harbor Marina, LLC v. Golden Hills Properties, we reversed and remanded to the trial court with directions to enter a specific performance judgment in favor of plaintiff. We also directed the court to: (1) “determine and allocate income and expenses to place the parties in the same position they would have been in” but for defendant’s wrongful demand for an offset; and (2) calculate the date on which the sale should have closed, i.e.

After being convicted of possession for sale of methamphetamine and other charges, Jessica Evans was sentenced to probation, and Kemon Andreas Michalopoulos was sentenced to mandatory supervision. On appeal, Evans and Michalopoulos contend the trial court erred in failing to hold an in camera hearing before denying their motions to traverse the search warrant and suppress evidence discovered during a search of Evans’s residence. They also contend their trial counsel was ineffective for failing to object to the prosecution’s drug expert’s testimony that Evans and Michalopoulos possessed methamphetamine for sale. Finally, Evans contends that one of her probation conditions is unconstitutionally vague and should be modified to include an express knowledge requirement. For the reasons set forth below, we will modify the challenged probation condition. As modified, we affirm both judgments.