CA Unpub Decisions

During an argument at their home, fourteen-year-old B.Y. threatened his brother with violent injury while they were standing in close proximity. B.Y. seized an 18-inch long metal pole and raised it to strike, but his stepfather pinned his arms to prevent contact. It was an incipient battery sufficient to sustain an assault charge. The juvenile court found that the metal pole could be used to inflict great bodily injury.

Following a suitability hearing under the Three Strikes Reform Act of 2012, enacted by the voters as Proposition 36 (Pen. Code, § 1170.126), the trial court found Jose Luis Madrigal posed an unreasonable risk of danger to public safety and denied his petition for recall of his prison sentence and request for resentencing. Almost a year later, Madrigal petitioned for reconsideration. The court denied the petition. We affirm.

A juvenile court declined to exercise dependency jurisdiction over a seven-year-old girl alleged to be the victim of “sexual abuse” or to be at “substantial risk” of such abuse. The dependency petition alleged, and the evidence showed, that her father “sometimes” showered with the girl and regularly complimented her physical features; that he had once told friends that she would be a “knockout” when she was a teenager and that he would have a hard time resisting her sexually if she came on to him; and that he had previously had a positive sexual relationship with a cousin when they were both children and saw nothing wrong with incest. However, there was no evidence that the father had ever touched his daughter inappropriately. The Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services (Department) and the child appeal the juvenile court’s refusal to exercise jurisdiction. Although we may have come to a different conclusion had this issue been presented to u

Following his conviction for attempted murder pursuant to a negotiated plea agreement, Zoltan Ivanyi, Jr., received a suspended sentence of nine years in state prison and was placed on formal probation for five years. Several months later Ivanyi’s probation was revoked for violating the no-contact provision in an unrelated criminal protective order issued in a domestic violence case involving his estranged wife. On appeal Ivanyi argues the court’s finding he violated the no-contact provision in the protective order, which had been incorporated by reference as a condition of probation, was not supported by substantial evidence and the no-contact provision was unconstitutionally vague. We affirm.

Kennedy Evans appeals after a jury convicted him on three counts of resisting an executive officer (Pen. Code, § 69), and two counts of battery by a prisoner on a non-confined person (§ 4501.5). In a bifurcated proceeding, the trial court found true allegations that appellant had three prior strike convictions (§§ 667, subds. (b)-(i), 1170.12, subds. (a)-(d)). The court sentenced him to 25 years to life in state prison. Appellant contends the court erred in failing to provide him the correct number of peremptory challenges. We affirm.

Defendant Guadalupe N. Cabrera pled no contest to a felony, receiving stolen property, after the police recovered from her home numerous electronic items, including several computers, that were stolen from a local school. After California voters passed the Safe Neighborhoods and Schools Act, commonly known as Proposition 47, defendant petitioned the trial court to reduce her conviction to a misdemeanor. Following a hearing, the court denied defendant’s petition, finding the total value of the stolen property in her possession exceeded $950. We affirm.

After their venture to subdivide and develop a parcel of residential real estate fell apart, one venturer sued the other and lost. The other then turned around and sued for malicious prosecution of the prior lawsuit, and a jury awarded $1 million in compensatory damages and $500,000 in punitive damages. The party facing that verdict now appeals. Both parties’ briefs on appeal misrepresent the facts and the law. Our careful review of approximately 5,000 pages of record spawned by the parties’ near-decade of nonstop litigation nevertheless leads us to conclude that there is no basis to disturb the trial court’s and jury’s rulings on liability or the jury’s award of punitive damages.

Appellant Timothy Allen Ziegler pled no contest to one count of criminal threats (Pen. Code, § 422, subd. (a)). He noticed an appeal from his sentence or other matters not affecting the validity of his plea. His counsel on appeal filed an opening brief pursuant to People v. Wende (1979) 25 Cal.3d 436. Having independently reviewed the record, we affirm the judgment

Jose German Menjivar appeals from his judgment of conviction of two counts of second degree robbery (Pen. Code, § 212.5, subd. (c)). On appeal, Menjivar challenges the sufficiency of the evidence supporting each robbery conviction. He also contends that the trial court erred in denying his motions for a new trial based on juror misconduct and to disclose personal juror identification information. We affirm.

An elderly man initially created a trust that would, upon his death, split his estate evenly between his godson and his apartment manager. Several years later, the man amended the trust to award nearly all of the estate to the apartment manager. After the man died, the godson sued to invalidate the amendment on the grounds of undue influence. The probate court found that the apartment manager had exerted undue influence, and reformed the trust to treat the apartment manager as if he had predeceased the elderly man, thereby leaving the entire estate to the godson. The apartment manager appeals, arguing that the court’s ruling is infected by evidentiary error and unsupported by substantial evidence. The godson cross-appeals, but only if we reverse the probate court’s ruling. Because we find no error in the probate court’s ruling, we affirm and do not reach the merits of the cross-appeal.

In a marital dissolution action, Kirk Wendelburg sought a determination that the community had property rights in a business that his wife, Bliss Wendelburg, owned with her father. Kirk argued the business was community property because it had been incorporated during the marriage. The trial court, however, found the property was separate in character because the evidence established that the business had merely continued the operations of an identical business Bliss had owned and run with her father prior to the marriage. Alternatively, the court found that even if the business was deemed to have been started during the marriage, the evidence showed Bliss had received her interest in the business as a gift. On appeal, Kirk argues there is insufficient evidence to support either finding.

In August 2006 Blue Rider Finance, Inc. made a $4.2 million bridge loan, personally guaranteed by Robert Geringer, the principal of Geringer Capital, Inc. (GCI), to several production companies to fund preproduction of the motion picture, “Boot Camp.” After the production companies defaulted on the bridge loan and Blue Rider sought to enforce Geringer’s personal guaranty, Geringer proposed GCI purchase the loan from Blue Rider. In early 2009, after months of negotiations, GCI delivered a series of payments totaling $300,000 to Blue Rider in anticipation of Blue Rider’s acceptance of the terms of a purchase loan agreement. When the deal fell through, Blue Rider informed GCI in May 2009 it was retaining the money as partial payment of the outstanding debt owed by Geringer and related parties as guarantors.

A property owner obtained a permit to build a three-story house on a hillside overlooking Pacific Coast Highway. A neighbor whose view would be partially blocked challenged the issuance of the permit, contending that it violated the City of Los Angeles’s zoning ordinances regarding a structure’s maximum height and minimum setback from the street. After the administrative agency with the last word invalidated the permit, the property owner petitioned for a writ of mandate to reinstate the permit on both grounds. The trial court granted the petition in part and denied it in part, ruling that the permit complied with the rules governing maximum height but did not comply with the rules governing minimum setback. Both the property owner and neighbor appeal. We conclude there was no error, and affirm.

Estevan Mendoza appeals from the order denying his application to reclassify his felony conviction for second degree burglary as misdemeanor shoplifting (Pen. Code, § 459.5), a new offense added to the Penal Code in 2014 by Proposition 47. We vacate the order and remand for further proceedings.