Judge: Jon R. Takasugi, Case: 22STCV11232, Date: 2022-10-24 Tentative Ruling

Case Number: 22STCV11232    Hearing Date: October 24, 2022    Dept: 17

Superior Court of California

County of Los Angeles

DEPARTMENT 17

TENTATIVE RULING

Plaintiff’s motion for leave to amend is GRANTED.

            On 4/1/2022, Plaintiff Southern California Nessah Educational and Cultural Center (Plaintiff) filed suit against Shahin Sadik, Simon Etehad, Farhad Pourbaba, Parvis Benyamini, Dan Kahen, and Abraham Shofet, alleging: (1) declaratory relief; (2) injunctive relief; and (3) intentional interference with contractual relations.

            Now, Plaintiff moves for leave to amend to file an amended complaint.

Discussion

            Plaintiff seeks leave to amend to add a cause of action for malicious prosecution, and to add two new defendants (9418 Plaintiffs Ben Naim and Joseph Cohen) and new facts from the 9418 Action. Plaintiff contends that the need for these revisions did not arise until the recent conclusion of a separate pending action (the 9418 Suit), which was resolved in Plaintiff’s favor.

            In support, Plaintiff argues that no meaningful prejudice would result to Defendants if leave were granted—the Parties have not held an initial case management conference nor has discovery begun.

The Court agrees that leave to amend is warranted here, and that Defendants cannot show any meaningful prejudice if leave to amend were granted. In opposition, Defendants argue that the proposed amendments are for independent causes of action related to the 9418 Action which do not overlap with the facts and thus are purely supplemental. However, Defendant’s own conduct belies this, as they themselves filed a notice of related cases on 4/12/2022 indicating that the two cases involve the same parties and were based on the same or similar claims, arose from substantially similar transactions, and were likely to require substantial duplication of judicial resources if tried separately. Moreover, as demonstrated in Plaintiff’s reply on pages 3 and 4, while the proposed amendments are not all based on identical facts as the original Complaint, they all derive from the same course of wrongful conduct and expand the story of the original Complaint, i.e. that “Defendants spun a demonstrably false narrative of a legitimately conducted board election in order to illegally seize control of Nessah.” (Reply, 2: 13-.14)

Finally, while the 9418 Action was filed after the original Complaint was filed, the proposed amendments concern an ongoing pattern of conduct, rather than allege separate and isolated events. In Honig v. Financial Corp. of America (1992) 6 Cal.App.4th 960, a savings and loan executive filed a complaint while still employed. He alleged a “campaign of harassment, threats, humiliation, debasement and intimidation” in retaliation for his objection to being forced to misrepresent the nature of the certificates of deposit he was selling. (Honig, 6 Cal. App.4th at p .693.) He feared his discharge was imminent and filed suit as a “preventative measure.” (Ibid.) After the complaint was filed, the executive was called to a meeting of the company’s ethics committee. He requested his counsel be present, but the company refused to permit it. (Ibid.) He then refused to discuss the pending lawsuit, disputed the accusations against him, and was fired for insubordination. (Ibid.) More than two years after the original complaint was filed, the company moved for summary judgment. The executive opposed the motion and filed his own motion to amend the complaint to include additional paragraphs relating to the events leading up to the discharge. Further, the proposed complaint added a cause of action for defamation “based upon spreading to others the reason for the discharge.” (Id. at p. 965-966.) The trial court refused to allow the amendments to the complaint and granted the summary judgment motion.

The Second District Court of Appeal held that the trial court abused its discretion to refuse the request to amend the complaint. The Court of Appeal concluded that the facts in both the original and amended complaints “all related to [the executive’s] discharge.” So, the amended complaint came within the same general set of facts test which California courts use to determine whether amendments relate back to an earlier complaint. (Id. at p. 965-967.) The Court of Appeal reasoned that the proposed amendments were a “continuation of the events asserted in the initial pleading.” The proposed amendments “finished telling the story begun in the original complaint.” (Id. at p 966.) The Court of Appeal also noted that all the injuries alleged in the proposed amended complaint, including the new cause of action, were to be “expected” from the wrongful discharge alleged.

Here, like in Honig, the proposed amendments incorporate additional bad acts that Defendants—including proposed new Defendants Ben Naim and Joseph Cohen—allegedly committed in furtherance of their scheme to improperly seize control of Nessah. Given that these proposed amendments are a “continuation of the events asserted in the initial pleading” and contribute to the “story begun in the original complaint,” leave to amend is proper here. This is especially true given that unlike in Honig, where leave to amend was sought two years into litigation, this case is in its infancy.

 “Th[e] statutory provision giving the courts the power to permit amendments in furtherance of justice has received a very liberal interpretation by the courts of this state.” (Klopstock v. Superior Court (1941) Cal.2d 13, 19. The policy favoring leave to amend is so strong that it is an abuse of discretion to deny an amendment unless the adverse party can show meaningful prejudice, such as the running of the statute of limitations, trial delay, the loss of critical evidence, or added preparation costs.  (Atkinson v. Elk Corp. (2003) 109 Cal.App.4th 739, 761. 

            Based on the foregoing, Plaintiff’s motion for leave to amend is granted.

It is so ordered.

Dated:  October    , 2022

   Hon. Jon R. Takasugi
   Judge of the Superior Court

Parties who intend to submit on this tentative must send an email to the court at smcdept17@lacourt.org by 4 p.m. the day prior as directed by the instructions provided on the court website at www.lacourt.org.  If a party submits on the tentative, the party’s email must include the case number and must identify the party submitting on the tentative.  If all parties to a motion submit, the court will adopt this tentative as the final order.  If the department does not receive an email indicating the parties are submitting on the tentative and there are no appearances at the hearing, the motion may be placed off calendar. 

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