CA Unpub Decisions

Plaintiffs Jose R. Carnero and Marta C. Carnero (the Carneros) appeal from a judgment entered in favor of defendant National Default Servicing Corporation (NDSC) after the trial court sustained NDSC’s demurrer to their second amended complaint without leave to amend. The Carneros’ action arose out of a mortgage they obtained in June 2007 in the amount of $650,000 secured by residential property located at 1558 Minnesota Avenue in San Jose, California. The second amended complaint listed seven causes of action: (1) request for declaratory judgment; (2) wrongful foreclosure; (3) quiet title; (4) fraud; (5) unfair business practices; (6) equitable estoppel; and (7) accounting.
On appeal, the Carneros raise the following claims of error: (1) the trial court overlooked NDSC’s references in its demurrer to “the first amended complaint,” rather than “the second amended complaint”; (2) the demurrer should have been overruled because NDSC presented “undeclared, untimely,

Appeal from an order of the Superior Court of Orange County, Julie A. Palafox, Judge. Motion to dismiss appeal granted in part, denied in part.
Sitzer Law Group, P. C., Michael Ferdinand Sitzer; Blanchard Krasner & French and Mark A. Krasner for Appellant.
Seastrom Seastrom & Tuttle and Thomas W. Tuttle; Law offices of Marjorie G. Fuller and Marjorie Gross Fuller for Respondent.

Jeremy Campbell Owen appeals from the trial court’s judgment committing him to a state hospital following a jury’s finding he was a sexually violent predator (SVP) within the meaning of the Sexually Violent Predators Act (SVPA) (Welf. & Inst. Code, § 6600 et seq.) Owen raises two claims: (1) he was prejudiced both by the introduction of inadmissible lay-witness hearsay evidence and by case-specific expert witness hearsay evidence elicited in violation of People v. Sanchez (2016) 63 Cal.4th 665 (Sanchez); and (2) the SVPA provision permitting admission of multi-level hearsay documents to prove the details underlying certain prior convictions (§ 6600, subd. (a)(3)), is unconstitutional — both facially and as applied to him in this case.
We find most of Owen’s hearsay claims are without merit. Further, any actual evidentiary errors were either forfeited by a failure to object or were harmless in light of other properly admitted evidence. Consequently, it is not reasonabl

APPEAL from a judgment and order of the Superior Court of Stanislaus County. Roger M. Beauchesne, Judge.
Law Office of Thomas N. Lippe and Thomas N. Lippe for Plaintiffs and Appellants.
Shute, Mihaly & Weinberger, Matthew D. Zinn, Sarah H. Sigman, Peter J. Broderick; John P. Doering, County Counsel, and Thomas E. Boze, Assistant County Counsel, for Defendants and Respondents.
Dennis Bunting, County Counsel (Solano), and Peter R. Miljanich, Deputy County Counsel, and Jennifer Henning for the California State Association of Counties as Amicus Curiae on behalf of Defendants and Respondents.
Herum Crabtree Brown and Steven A. Herum for Real Parties in Interest.

In December 2015, defendant Omar Hernandez-Perez threatened to kill his mother while kicking in her front door. A jury found him guilty of making a criminal threat (Pen. Code, § 422) and vandalism (Pen. Code, § 594, subd. (a)). The trial court placed him on probation for 36 months. On appeal, defendant contends the trial court erred by admitting evidence that he battered his mother in 2013, which the prosecution argued was relevant to the intent element of the current criminal-threat charge. (See Evid. Code, § 1101, subd. (b).) He further contends the court erred by instructing the jury it could consider the evidence for this purpose. We reject these contentions, and affirm.

APPEAL from a judgment of the Superior Court of San Bernardino County, Ronald M. Christianson, Judge. Affirmed as modified.
Melissa Hill, under appointment by the Court of Appeal, for Defendant and Appellant.
Xavier Becerra, Attorney General, Gerald A. Engler, Chief Assistant Attorney General, Julie L. Garland, Assistant Attorney General, A. Natasha Cortina and Annie Featherman Fraser, Deputy Attorneys General, for Plaintiff and Respondent.
A jury convicted Donald Lewis Winn of criminal conspiracy (Pen. Code, § 182, subd. (a)(1)) and found true a related criminal street gang enhancement (id., § 186.22, subd. (b)(1)). The object of the conspiracy was to possess phencyclidine (PCP) for sale, in violation of Health and Safety Code section 11378.5. In bifurcated proceedings, the court found that Winn had two prior serious felony convictions. (Pen. Code, § 667, subds. (a), (c).) The court sentenced Winn to a total term of 35 years to life imprisonment, consisting of 25 years to l

A jury found Ramiro Gonzalez, Sr. guilty of one count of aggravated sexual assault of a child under 14 by sodomy (Pen. Code, § 269, subd. (a)(3)), one count of aggravated sexual assault of a child under 14 by rape (§ 269, subd. (a)(1)), two counts of committing a forcible lewd and lascivious act upon a child under 14 (§ 288, subd. (b)(1)), and one count of aggravated sexual assault of a child under 14 by oral copulation (§ 269, subd. (a)(4)). The trial court sentenced Gonzalez to a determinate prison term of 16 years and a consecutive indeterminate prison term of 45 years to life.
Gonzalez contends that the trial court erred in admitting evidence of statements that he made to an investigator while in jail awaiting trial. As we will explain, we conclude that Gonzalez has forfeited the argument because no objection was made at trial, and we accordingly affirm the judgment.

Defendant Jack Moreno pled no contest to four felony counts based on his sexual activities with a minor under the age of 14. Relying on a verbal misstatement by the trial judge in referencing the correct statutory subdivision during the plea colloquy, Moreno now argues that he actually pled to a misdemeanor in count 3. But as we read the record, despite the judge's misstatement Moreno was reasonably aware at all times that he was pleading to a felony in count 3. Under these circumstances, his felony conviction does not violate due process and we affirm the judgment.

APPEAL from a judgment of the Superior Court of San Diego County, John Meyer, Judge. Affirmed and remanded with directions.
Suhair F. Khouri, in pro. per.; Burke, Williams & Sorensen and Rafael Ramon Garcia-Salgado for Defendant and Appellant.
Niddrie Addams Fuller Singh and David A. Niddrie for Plaintiff and Respondent.
Suhair Khouri appeals from a judgment quieting title between her and her sister, Shadia Khouri, and ordering the partition by sale of their property in Santee. In her complaint to quiet title and to seek a partition by sale, Shadia claimed that the ownership interests in the property were not clear from the face of recorded documents. After a bench trial, the court determined that the sisters each owned an undivided 50 percent interest in the property as tenants in common, the property should be partitioned by sale, and each owner should pay 50 percent of the costs of partition. The court further determined that Suhair "shall pay the reasonable expenses, in

APPEAL from a judgment of the Superior Court of San Diego County, Joel M. Pressman, Judge. Affirmed.
Law Office of Michael A. Conger and Michael A. Conger for Plaintiff and Appellant.
Doyle Schafer McMahon, Bruce J. Quilligan; Cole Pedroza, Kenneth R. Pedroza, and James L. Canto II for Defendants and Respondents.
Perkins was terminated from his job as an automotive mechanic for the City of San Diego (City) after failing an employer-mandated drug test administered by defendants U.S. HealthWorks and Jerry Jackson. He appeals from judgment entered in favor of defendants after the court found that his negligence claim failed as a matter of law because no relationship between the parties supported the imposition of a legal duty and further found his action was time-barred by the two-year statute of limitations applicable to negligence claims, Code of Civil Procedure section 335.1. On appeal, Perkins contends the trial court erred when it concluded that defendants do not owe him a leg

APPEAL from a judgment of the Superior Court of San Diego County, Patricia Garcia, Judge. Affirmed.
Marianne Harguindeguy, under appointment by the Court of Appeal, for Defendant and Appellant.
Xavier Becerra, Attorney General, Gerald A. Engler, Chief Assistant Attorney General, Julie L. Garland, Assistant Attorney General, Arlene A. Sevidal, Andrew Mestman and Collette C. Cavalier, Deputy Attorneys General, for Plaintiff and Respondent.

A jury found Eduardo Contreras guilty of evading a peace officer with reckless driving (Veh. Code, § 2800.2, subd. (a)) and driving without a valid license (§ 12500, subd. (a)). The trial court sentenced him to three years eight months in prison. On appeal, Contreras contends the trial court prejudicially erred by allowing the officer who pursued him to testify about the meaning of certain Vehicle Code sections and whether Contreras violated them. Contreras further contends the trial court prejudicially erred in the manner in which it i

APPEAL from an order of the Superior Court of San Diego County, Katherine A. Bacal, Judge. Affirmed.
Charles L. Abrahams, in pro. per., and for Defendant and Appellant Yolanda Balderacchi.
Troutman Sanders, Martin W. Taylor, and Nicholas J. Schuchert for Plaintiff and Respondent.
Attorney Charles Abrahams appeals on behalf of himself and defendant Yolanda Balderacchi, raising a number of issues—most of which are outside the scope of this appeal—including our dismissal of a prior appeal, proceedings in various other state and federal courts, and the entry of an order appointing a receiver. We allowed the appeal to proceed only as to the receiver order, which we now affirm.

APPEAL from a judgment of the Superior Court of San Diego County, Blaine K. Bowman, Judge. Affirmed in part; reversed in part and remanded for resentencing.

Jill Kent, under appointment by the Court of Appeal, for Defendant and Appellant.
Xavier Becerra, Attorney General, Gerald A. Engler, Chief Assistant Attorney General, Julie L. Garland, Assistant Attorney General, Charles C. Ragland, and Brendon W. Marshall, Deputy Attorneys General, for Plaintiff and Respondent.
In a prior criminal proceeding, a jury convicted Pedro Rodriguez of committing sexual acts with a minor, Rebecca. The trial court in that case issued a protective order prohibiting Rodriguez from contacting Rebecca, yet Rodriguez nevertheless arranged for phones to be sent to Rebecca, called those phones hundreds of times, and asked Rebecca to retract statements that she had made to law enforcement regarding her relationship with Rodriguez. Rodriguez also convinced his brother to file an unemployment benefits ap

A jury found defendant William James Skeen guilty of two counts of opening or maintaining a place for using or selling a controlled substance (counts 1 and 6), two counts of possession for sale of a controlled substance (counts 2 and 7—Health & Saf. Code, § 11378 ), two counts of possession of a device used for smoking a controlled substance (counts 4 and 9), one count of being a felon in possession of ammunition (count 5), one count of possession of marijuana for sale (count 11), and one count of manufacturing a controlled substance (count 12). The offenses charged in counts 1 through 5, and 12, occurred on March 2, 2016, while counts 6 through 11 related to October 1, 2015. In a bifurcated proceeding, the trial court found true the allegations with respect to counts 2 and 7 that defendant had previous convictions for violating sections 11378 and 11379. The court later struck one of these allegations in the interests of justice pursuant to Penal Code section 1385.