Judge: Armen Tamzarian, Case: 23STCV13385, Date: 2025-05-08 Tentative Ruling

Case Number: 23STCV13385    Hearing Date: May 8, 2025    Dept: 52

Tentative Ruling:

Defendant/Cross-Complainant Hector Macias Corrales’s Motion to Enforce Settlement Agreement

Defendant/cross-complainant Hector Macias Corrales moves to enforce the parties’ settlement agreement.  Defendant seeks an order appointing an elisor to sign a listing agreement to sell the subject property pursuant to the interlocutory judgment for partition and the settlement agreement.  In the alternative, defendant moves for an order requiring plaintiff Victor Reyes to sign the listing agreement.  Defendant also seeks $14,225 in attorney fees pursuant to the settlement agreement.

Defendant has not shown adequate proof of service of this motion on plaintiff.  The proof of service shows defendant served the motion by mail on R. Grace Rodriguez, Esq., counsel for plaintiff.  (Motion, p. 14.)  Plaintiff’s counsel of record in this action, however, is Mark Gomez of Gomez Law, APC.  Plaintiff did not file a substitution of attorney to make Rodriguez counsel of record.  Changing the attorney in an action requires either “consent of both client and attorney, filed with the clerk, or entered upon the minutes” or an “order of the court, upon the application of either client or attorney… .”  (Code Civ. Proc., § 284.)  “Until” an attorney is changed pursuant to section 284, opposing parties “must recognize the former attorney.”  (Code Civ. Proc., § 285.)

To ensure adequate notice to plaintiff, the court will require defendant to serve papers on (1) counsel of record Mark Gomez, (2) purported new counsel R. Grace Rodriguez, and (3) plaintiff directly. 

Defendant/cross-complainant Hector Macias Corrales’s motion to enforce settlement agreement is denied without prejudice.