CA Unpub Decisions

Appellant Kay Ememas (Ememas) appeals from a judgment entered after the trial court sustained a demurrer to the complaint against Speedex Logistics, Inc. (Speedex) without leave to amend. The complaint alleged causes of action for breach of contract; conversion; trespass to chattels; intentional misrepresentation; negligent misrepresentation; loss of earnings; and negligence against Speedex based on an agreement between the parties that Speedex would ship Ememas’s belongings from Colombia to Los Angeles.
The trial court sustained Speedex’s demurrer in its entirety without leave to amend on the ground that each valid cause of action was barred by the applicable statute of limitations and laches. Finding no error, we affirm.

Eddie S., the paternal grandfather of P.S., appeals from the juvenile court’s denial of his petition under Welfare and Institutions Code section 388 (388 petition), requesting that P.S. be placed with him and his wife (paternal grandparents). We affirm.

Mike A. Calderon appeals the judgment entered following a jury trial in which he was convicted of two counts of first degree murder. The jury found true the special circumstance allegation that appellant committed multiple murders. As to count 1, the jury also found true the allegations that appellant personally used and intentionally discharged a firearm (a handgun), causing death. As to count 2, the jury found true the allegation that appellant personally used a deadly weapon (a knife), but returned a not true finding on the section 186.22, subdivision (b)(1)(C) gang allegation. Following a bench trial, the court found true the prior serious felony allegation pursuant to section 667, subdivision (a)(1).

After appellant Kurosh Chaman failed to appear for the final status conference before the trial court, which proceeding had been continued six times over the course of a year, the trial court dismissed Chaman’s complaint against respondent the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA). Five months later, Chaman filed a motion under Code of Civil Procedure section 473, subdivision (b) to set aside the dismissal, stating he had experienced medical problems that prevented him from attending the final status conference. The trial court denied Chaman’s motion for relief and Chaman appealed.
As explained below, Chaman has failed to provide an adequate record on appeal and has failed to support his position with either reasoned legal argument or citations to the abbreviated appellate record. Moreover, based on our review of the abbreviated record, we conclude the trial court did not abuse its discretion in denying Chaman relief from the dismissal. We affirm.

Janey Tang Ho (appellant) appeals from an order of the superior court granting the petition of Jeffrey Siegel, the conservator for her mother, and ordering appellant to return funds she received from her mother and to transfer property she purchased with the funds to the conservator. We agree with the trial court that appellant was not entitled to keep the funds. However, the amount that the court ordered appellant to return is not supported by the evidence. We therefore reverse in part and remand.

Akbar Omar sued Syed Madad and his wife Meher F. Tabatabai, among other defendants, for breach of contract, fraud, unjust enrichment, and other causes of action, all related to Omar’s more than $10 million investment in Madad’s investment pool. The third amended complaint alleged that Madad and Tabatabai lied about the investment pool, which was actually a Ponzi scheme, and returned only a small portion of Omar’s investment. At the close of evidence, the trial court granted Tabatabai’s motion for nonsuit on Omar’s cause of action for unjust enrichment. The jury found in favor of Tabatabai on all Omar’s remaining causes of action, and the court entered judgment in Tabatabai’s favor. Omar filed a timely notice of appeal from the trial court’s order dismissing the unjust enrichment cause of action against Tabatabai.

Defendant and appellant Enrique Villalobos (defendant) appeals from the judgment entered after he was convicted of murder and attempted murder. We remand to allow the trial court the opportunity to exercise its discretion under the amended statute. We further find that the omission of an accomplice jury instruction was harmless error, and defendant’s remaining contentions are without merit. We thus affirm the judgment of conviction.

Plaintiff Marlon Johnson Pryor appeals from judgments entered after the trial court granted summary judgment motions (Code Civ. Proc., § 437c) in favor of defendants/respondents in this discrimination and breach of fiduciary duty action Pryor filed after he was evicted from his apartment for failure to pay rent. For the reasons explained below, we affirm the judgment in favor of The Amerland Group LLC, Logan Property Management, Inc., Alexandria Housing Partners, LP, and Ruben Islas (the Amerland defendants) and the judgment in favor of Inner City Law Center, Dianne Prado and Javier Beltran (the ICLC defendants).

Defendant and appellant Michael Renteria (defendant) appeals from his conviction of two counts of attempted murder. In our original nonpublished opinion, filed October 26, 2017, we affirmed the judgment after finding no merit to defendant’s contentions that the trial court abused its discretion in denying his motion for new trial and that the denial resulted in a denial of his right to due process. On January 24, 2018, the California Supreme Court granted defendant’s petition for review and transferred the matter to this court with directions to vacate our decision and reconsider the cause in light of Senate Bill No. 620. (Stats. 2017, ch. 682.) After considering the parties supplemental briefs on the matter, we again affirm defendant’s convictions, but reverse the sentence and remand to the superior court for resentencing.

Kenneth Hammond and Eddie Garlin appeal from judgments entered after a jury convicted them of conspiracy to commit robbery and found not true an accompanying special allegation that the crime had been committed for the benefit of a criminal street gang. A companion charge of robbery was dismissed after the jury could not reach a unanimous verdict. Hammond and Garlin contend on appeal there was insufficient evidence apart from their own statements to support the conspiracy conviction in violation of the corpus delicti rule and the trial court abused its discretion by denying their motion to bifurcate trial on the gang allegation. We affirm.

Richard Gunter, who suffered major back problems, and Cathy Gunter, his wife, sued Michael Schneier, Richard’s neurosurgeon, for medical malpractice. After a jury trial, the jury found Schneier was not negligent and entered a defense verdict. The Gunters appeal from that judgment and from an order awarding Schneier costs. We affirm.

Appellant Sherry Hackney Cade (Sherry) appeals from a judgment in favor of respondent DACM Project Management, Inc. (DACM) in DACM’s action against Sherry and her husband, respondent Arthur Alan Cade (Alan), to set aside as fraudulent Alan’s execution of an interspousal grant deed transferring to Sherry his community interest in the parties’ family residence.
We affirm.

Autumn Christian was shot during a gang-related incident. Her companion, Robert Baker, tentatively identified defendant and appellant Lenard Charles Curtis as the shooter from a photographic six-pack, and Baker and Christian thereafter identified him at a stationhouse showup, which occurred within 44 hours of the shooting. At Curtis’s trial, the prosecution introduced those identifications and Christian’s in-court identification, and a jury convicted Curtis of shooting from a motor vehicle. On appeal, Curtis contends that his conviction must be reversed because the showup violated his due process rights. He further contends that evidence introduced to support the gang allegation violated the Confrontation Clause and there was insufficient evidence to support the allegation. We reject these contentions and affirm the judgment.

James Fayed (Fayed) arranged for the murder of his wife, Pamela Fayed, by paying one of the couple’s employees, Jose Luis “Joey” Moya, $25,000 to kill her. Moya enlisted the assistance of Gabriel Jay Marquez, the boyfriend of his niece, and Steven Vicente Simmons, Marquez’s nephew. On July 28, 2008 Pamela was stabbed to death in a Century City parking garage.
A jury convicted Moya, Marquez, and Simmons of first degree murder (Pen. Code, § 187, subd. (a)) and conspiracy to commit murder (§§ 182, subd. (a)(1), 187). The jury found true allegations that the three men committed the murder by means of lying in wait (§ 190.2, subd. (a)(15)) and that Moya committed the murder for financial gain (§ 190.2, subd. (a)(1)), but found not true the allegations Marquez and Simmons committed the murder for financial gain.