Superior Court of California 

County of Los Angeles – West District  

Beverly Hills Courthouse / Department 205 

 

 

MOVING PARTY: Plaintiff Ray Payman  

RESPONDING PARTY: Defendants Farshad Okhovat and Faramarz Okhovat 

 

BACKGROUND 

This action arises from a landlord-tenant dispute.  Defendants Farshad Okhovat and Faramarz Okhovat own commercial real property located at 1461 Westwood Blvd, Los Angeles, California 90024 (the “Property”).  Plaintiff Ray Payman leases the Property pursuant to purported oral lease agreements. 

Plaintiff alleges Defendants have knowingly and willfully breached all of the oral lease agreements for the Property by (1) failing to obtain a mandatory Certificate of Occupancy before leasing the Property to Plaintiff, and (2) failing to convey the Property in a commercially habitable condition while ignoring Plaintiff’s repeated notices of property defects. 

Plaintiff filed the instant action alleging five causes of action for: (1) declaratory relief, (2) untenantable dwelling, (3) breach of implied warranty of habitability, (4) fraud and (5) financial elder abuse (the “Civil Case”).   

Plaintiff claims that in retaliation for his instituting the Civil Case, Defendants filed an unlawful detainer action (the “UD Action”).  Plaintiff claims Defendants seek to evict him although he has never missed a single monthly payment to Defendants until Defendants stopped accepting Plaintiff’s monthly rental payments in February 2023.  Since February 2023, Plaintiff has been keeping the monthly rental payments in a separate bank account until the conclusion of this matter or until a time when Defendants accept Plaintiff’s monthly rental payments, whichever comes sooner.     

This hearing is on Plaintiff’s motion to stay the UD Action and to consolidate the cases for trial.  Plaintiff argues that there are common questions of law and fact, and absent a stay, it would be subject to res judicata on its claims if Defendants prevail on the UD Action.  Also absent a stay, Plaintiff claims he would suffer extreme undue hardship in that he would lose a business he has spent 13 years building at the Property.       

REQUEST FOR JUDICIAL NOTICE  

Plaintiff requests that the Court take judicial notice of the complaint filed in the UD Action pursuant to Evid. Code § 452(d), as a record of “any court in this state.”  The Court grants the request for judicial notice.   

MOTION TO CONSOLIDATE  

“When actions involving a common question of law or fact are pending before the court, it may order a joint hearing or trial of any or all the matters in issue in the actions; it may order all the actions consolidated and it may make such orders concerning proceedings therein as may tend to avoid unnecessary costs or delay.” (Code Civ. Proc. § 1048(a).)  “Ordinarily, consolidated actions may be determined by a single set of findings and a single judgment [and] ‘the allegations of the various complaints may be taken together and treated as one pleading.’” (McClure, on Behalf of Caruthers v. Donovan (1949) 33 Cal.2d 717, 721-22.)  

The decision to consolidate is entirely within the Court’s discretion. (E.g., Todd-Stenberg v. Dalkon Shield Claimants Trust (1996) 48 Cal.App.4th 976, 978-979.) Thus, “it is possible that actions may be thoroughly ‘related’ in the sense of having common questions of law or fact, and still not be ‘consolidated,’ if the trial court, in the sound exercise of its discretion, chooses not to do so.” (Askew v. Askew (1994) 22 Cal.App.4th 942, 964.) 

Regarding unlawful detainer cases specifically, “[T]he trial court has the power to consolidate an unlawful detainer proceeding with a simultaneously pending action in which title to the property is in issue. That is because a successful claim of title by the tenant would defeat the landlord’s right to possession.” (Martin-Bragg v. Moore (2013) 219 Cal.App.4th 367, 385; see also Wilson v. Gentile (1992) 8 Cal.App.4th 759.) 

Unless the parties stipulate to consolidate cases, a noticed and written motion to consolidate is required. (CRC 3.350.)  A motion to consolidate requires that the parties in each case be listed and that a notice of consolidation be filed in all cases to be consolidated. (Id.) Additionally, “[c]ases may not be consolidated unless they are in the same department.  A motion to consolidate two or more cases may be noticed and heard after the cases, initially filed in different departments, have been related into a single department, or if the cases were already assigned to that department.” (LASC 3.3 (emphasis added).) 

As a procedural issue, the two actions, Case No. 22SMCV02673 and Case No. 23SMUD00270, have not been related. These actions are currently being heard in different departments and, therefore, the motion is procedurally defective.  

Even setting aside the procedural defect, the circumstances in which an unlawful detainer action can be consolidated to a civil unlimited case are limited to when the civil case involves a dispute over the ownership of the Property.  Here, even assuming Plaintiff were to prevail entirely on his claims, it would not affect who owns the Property.   

Plaintiff’s citation to Asuncion v. Superior Court (1980) 108 Cal.App.3d 141, is unavailing.  There, a corporation which had acquired title to the homeowners’ property through a loan transaction after the homeowners had defaulted on a prior home loan, filed an action for unlawful detainer, claiming a lawful sale of the property to it.  The homeowners successfully moved in the municipal court for a transfer of the action to the superior court on the ground title to real property worth more than $ 15,000 was an issue, a subject not within the jurisdiction of the municipal court.  The homeowners also filed a complaint against the corporation in superior court alleging fraud, usury, unfair business practices, truth-in-lending violations, and undue influence, and requesting title to the property be quieted in their favor.  After transfer of the eviction action to superior court, the corporation obtained an order of the superior court retransferring the action to the municipal court, and petitioners sought a writ of mandate.  The Court of Appeal issued the writ directing the superior court to retain jurisdiction over the matter “so long as substantive issues of ownership remained to be litigated.”  (Id. at 147 (emphasis added).)  The court held the homeowners cannot be evicted, “consistent with due process guarantees, without being permitted to raise the affirmative defenses which if proved would maintain their possession and ownership.”  (Id. at 146 (emphasis added).)  Here, unlike Asuncion, Plaintiff’s claims do not relate to ownership. 

Plaintiff’s argument that any verdict on the UD Action would be res judicata to his claims in the Civil Case is also without merit.  An unlawful detainer judgment has a limited res judicata effect because the claim preclusion aspect of the res judicata doctrine applies only to matters that were raised or could have been raised in the earlier action on matters that were litigated or litigable.  (Hong Sang Market, Inc. v. Peng (2018) 20 Cal. App. 5th 474, 491.)  A necessary corollary to this statement of the law relating to claim preclusion is that a prior judgment generally does not bar a subsequent claim if the matter could not have been raised or litigated in the earlier action. Thus, in a situation in which a “court in the first action would clearly not have had jurisdiction to entertain the omitted theory or ground … , then a second action in a competent court presenting the omitted theory or ground should be held not precluded.” (Id. (citation and internal quotations omitted).)  Because the scope of an unlawful detainer proceeding is limited, the preclusive effect of an unlawful detainer judgment is likewise limited.  Accordingly, to the extent Plaintiff cannot raise any issues, defenses or cross-claims in the UD Action (given the summary nature of the proceeding), it is not barred by res judicata from raising them in a related action.   

As such, the motion to consolidate is DENIED. 

MOTION TO STAY  

Staying the unlawful detainer action is an appropriate alternative to consolidating two cases. “When an unlawful detainer proceeding and an unlimited action concerning title to the property are simultaneously pending, the trial court in which the unlimited action is pending may stay the unlawful detainer action until the issue of title is resolved in the unlimited action, or it may consolidate the actions.” (Martin-Bragg v. Moore, 219 Cal.App.4th at 385.) 

As with consolidation, however, a stay would require that both actions were before this Department.  Otherwise, the Court would have no jurisdiction to issue orders on a case not before it.   

Likewise, as with consolidation, unlawful detainer proceedings can only be stayed pending the resolution of an unlimited action where the latter action involves the issue of ownership.  As discussed above, Plaintiff’s claims, even if they prevailed, would not entitle him to ownership of the Property.          

 

 

CONCLUSION 

For the foregoing reasons, the Court DENIES Plaintiff’s motion for a stay and to consolidate cases for trial.   

 

IT IS SO ORDERED. 

 

DATED: May 17, 2023 ___________________________ 

Edward B. Moreton, Jr. 

Judge of the Superior Court