Judge: Armen Tamzarian, Case: 19STCV41708, Date: 2024-11-20 Tentative Ruling

Please notify Department 52 via email at smcdept52@lacourt.org and indicate that the parties are submitting on the tentative ruling. Please provide the attorney's name and represented party. Please notify the opposing side via email if submitting on the Court's tentative ruling.

Case Number: 19STCV41708    Hearing Date: November 20, 2024    Dept: 52

Defendant City of Baldwin Park’s Motion for Order Requesting the Court to Retain Jurisdiction of Enforcement of Settlement Agreement

Defendant City of Baldwin Park moves under Code of Civil Procedure section 664.6 for an order that this court retain jurisdiction to enforce the parties’ settlement agreement. 

The court has no jurisdiction to issue such an order now.  Defendant’s motion is too late.  “ ‘[V]oluntary dismissal of an action or special proceeding terminates the court’s jurisdiction over the matter.’  [Citation.]  ‘If requested by the parties,’ however, ‘the [trial] court may retain jurisdiction over the parties to enforce [a] settlement until performance in full of the terms of the settlement.’  [Citation.]  ‘Because of its summary nature, strict compliance with the requirements of section 664.6 is prerequisite to invoking the power of the court to impose a settlement agreement.’ ”  (Mesa RHF Partners, L.P. v. City of Los Angeles (2019) 33 Cal.App.5th 913, 917 (Mesa).) 

“A request for the trial court to retain jurisdiction under section 664.6 ‘must conform to the same three requirements which the Legislature and the courts have deemed necessary for section 664.6 enforcement of the settlement itself: the request must be made … during the pendency of the case, not after the case has been dismissed in its entirety.’ ”  (Mesa, supra, at p. 917; accord DeSaulles v. Community Hospital of Monterey Peninsula (2016) 62 Cal.4th 1140, 1155–1156 [“where a stipulated judgment includes a dismissal, the parties must ask the trial court to retain jurisdiction before the dismissal deprives the court of that jurisdiction”]; see also Wackeen v. Malis (2002) 97 Cal.App.4th 429, 433, 438-440.)

On May 6, 2022, plaintiff Baldwin Park Tale Corp. filed a request for dismissal of the entire action with prejudice.  Counsel for cross-complainant Rukli, Inc. signed the request to consent to the dismissal.  The dismissal was entered as requested on May 9.  That same day, the court also issued orders of dismissal with prejudice as to the complaint and cross-complaint pursuant to the parties’ oral requests.  The entire case was dismissed.  Over two years later, defendant City of Baldwin Park filed this motion to request the court to retain jurisdiction to enforce the parties’ settlement.  Defendant did not make this request during the pendency of the case.  The court has no jurisdiction to retain. 

Defendant’s moving papers assert, “[T]here is a court order in place issued by this Court whereby the Court retained jurisdiction over the Settlement Agreement.”  (Motion, p. 2.)  Defendant also argues, “Judge Tamzarian’s order previously decided the issue.”  (Id., p. 9.)  Defendant does not identify or attach any such order.  The court found no such order when reviewing its own files.  Moreover, this motion seeks an order that this court retains jurisdiction to enforce the settlement agreement.  If the court already issued such an order, this motion would be superfluous.  Defendant’s papers thus conflate two things: (1) the parties’ agreement that this court would retain jurisdiction under section 664.6, which is in the record (Sylva Decl., Ex. 1, p. 5, ¶ 7.h), and (2) an order by this court stating that it retains jurisdiction under section 664.6, which is not in the record.

As the Court of Appeal stated in Sayta v. Chu (2017) 17 Cal.App.5th 960, though the parties’ agreement “provides that the parties would request the superior court to retain jurisdiction pursuant to section 664.6, … nothing in the record before us indicates that any party” made such a request until now.  (Id. at p. 965.)  “The parties were required to present to the trial court a proper request to retain jurisdiction for purpose of section 664.6 motions.”  (Ibid.)  This court therefore does “not have subject matter jurisdiction to entertain a section 664.6 motion on the merits ‘because it lost such jurisdiction over the case’ ” upon dismissal.  (Ibid.)

Defendant City of Baldwin Park’s motion for the court to retain jurisdiction to enforce the parties’ settlement agreement is denied.