Judge: Alison Mackenzie, Case: BC459703, Date: 2024-07-19 Tentative Ruling

Case Number: BC459703    Hearing Date: July 19, 2024    Dept: 55

NATURE OF PROCEEDINGS:  Motion for Reconsideration

This is a post-judgment matter in which the judgment creditor Dennis Gawant (“Creditor”), Assignee of Record, seeks to enforce the judgment against the judgment debtor Arthur Sarkissian (“Debtor”). As part of those efforts, Creditor sought to levy bank accounts held by Debtor’s wife Valerie Hambas (“Hambas”). Hambas filed a claim of exemption and the Court ordered briefing on the issue. After considering the parties’ briefs, the Court denied Hambas’s claim of exemption. Hambas has now file a motion for reconsideration, which Creditor opposes.

Code of Civil Procedure Section 1008 provides that a party may move for reconsideration of an order “based upon new or different facts, circumstances, or law.” CCP § 1008(a). The moving party must state such new or different facts, circumstances, or law in an affidavit, see id., “which it could not, with reasonable diligence, have discovered and produced at the time of the prior motion....  A motion for reconsideration will be denied absent a strong showing of diligence.” Forrest v. Dept. Of Corps. (2007) 150 Cal. App. 4th 183, 202, disapproved on other grounds by Shalant v. Girardi (2011) 51 Cal. 4th 1164, 1172.

Disagreement with a ruling is not a new fact that will support the granting of a motion for reconsideration. Gilberd v.  AC Transit (1995) 32 Cal. App. 4th 1494, 1500.  A new fact that is collateral to the merits, such as counsel’s desire to argue further, does not warrant reconsideration. Id., 32 Cal. App. 4th at 1500.

Here, Hambas seeks reconsideration of the Court’s order denying her claim of exemption. The Court denied the exemption after concluding that (1) Hambas did not provide any exemption code statute in the Code of Civil Procedure that applies to the levy on her accounts, (2) the evidence she submitted to purportedly show that the money she seeks to exempt is inheritance was weak and unconvincing, and (3) even if Hambas’s evidence did establish that she received the money as inheritance (and it did not), no legal basis exists to support Hambas’s argument that the characterization of an inheritance for purpose of a dissolution case under the Family Code has any relevant to Code of Civil Procedure Section 700.160, which provides that a judgment creditor can go after spouse’s money. 

Hambas’s motion fails to comply with Code of Civil Procedure section 1008 requirements because she has not demonstrated new facts or circumstances that warrant reconsideration of the Court’s denial of the claim of exemption. The moving papers state, “there are no new facts or discoveries (Such as depositions). (Mot. p. 7:6.) On its face, therefore, Hambas’s motion is deficient. The declaration of Hambas’s counsel likewise does not provide evidence of any new facts. (Beitchman Decl.) Counsel implies that based on the questions posed by the Court the April 16, 2024, hearing the Court lacked familiarity with the briefs submitted. (Id. ¶¶ 8-9.) These are not new or different facts, circumstances, or laws. Furthermore, counsel misrepresents statements made by this Court during the hearing. Nothing in the Court’s line of questioning indicated that it was not properly briefed on the claim of exemption. The fact that Hambas disagrees with the Court’s order does not, of course, provide a basis for reconsideration.

The motion is denied.