Judge: Joseph Lipner, Case: 22STCV08533, Date: 2025-02-06 Tentative Ruling

Case Number: 22STCV08533    Hearing Date: February 6, 2025    Dept: 72

SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA

COUNTY OF LOS ANGELES

DEPARTMENT 72

TENTATIVE RULING

            The Court grants Defendant’s ex parte application as follows.  The Court continues the trial in this matter to February 13, 2025 at 10 am.  This is the alternative date Defendant requested in Defendant’s application. 

Moreover, at Defendant’s option, the Court would also be willing to start the trial on either February 14, 2025 or February 18, 2025.

The parties should keep in mind that Monday February 17, 2025 is a court holiday and that the Court is dark on Wednesday February 19, 2025.  As the parties are aware, after voir dire, the trial is expected to last four court days.

Defendant has not proceeded appropriately with respect to its request to continue the trial date.  Defendant states that it was aware of the conflict between Mr. Hurrell’s schedule and the pending trial date as early as January 23, 2025.  Yet Defendant did not contact the Court about the issue until February 3, 2025, one week before the start of trial.  This delay is seriously disrespectful to the many other litigants who have business before the Court.  The Court has held the current trial dates for the parties in this case and has delayed other cases to accommodate the trial schedule in this case. 

Though not mentioned in Defendant’s ex parte application, the Court has already informed Defendant that it does not have any trial dates that could accommodate a “short continuance” of a few weeks.  Such a continuance would conflict with the many other cases which have been waiting for their day in court and are prepared and set for trial on those dates.  The Court informed the parties that it was able to grant a continuance to December 1, 2025, but Plaintiff understandably objected to the long delay—well over three-and-a-half-years from filing—in trying this case.

The Court explained many of its reasons for denying the request for a longer continuance in its February 3, 2025 minute order.  This included the following, which the Court has supplemented after reviewing the application:

1.      The Court has concerns that Defendant has failed to prepare diligently for this trial.  For reasons that are unclear, Defendant blew the deadline to take the deposition of a key witness for Plaintiff, Evan Everhardt, Plaintiff’s son and successor in interest.  The Court nevertheless granted leave to Defendant to take the deposition, which Defendant has now done. The Court is concerned, however, that the failure to timely depose this important witness until after the deadline illustrates Defendant’s failure to properly proceed with this case and Defendant’s willingness to put the burden of its lack of preparation on Plaintiff and the Court.

2.      This case has already been pending for almost three years.

3.      This Court previously granted Defendant’s request for a trial continuance to November 12, 2024.

4.      On November 12, 2024, with the agreement of both parties, the Court continued the trial again to February 10, 2025.

5.      The Court has held the trial dates open beginning on February 10, 2025 so that this case may be resolved.  The Court has delayed other trials so that this case can go forward.

6.      Defendant did not raise the issue of any asserted conflict with the February 10, 2025 trial date until the parties had appeared in person at the Final Status conference on February 3, 2025, one week before.  Defendant failed to raise this issue in a timely manner either by ex parte application or by stipulation.

7.      The Court does not have trial dates available to give Defendant a “short continuance” of the trial.

8.      Defendant is represented by a law firm with many able lawyers. 

9.      The lawyers who have represented Defendant in this matter thus far are attorneys other than Mr. Hurrell.  Mr. Hurrell has not appeared once in this case thus far. 

10.  The application makes clear that Defendant is willing to proceed on February 13, 2025.

11.   Delaying the trial to the next date available to the Court –December 1, 2025—would prejudice Plaintiff’s rights.

12.  Delaying the trial to December 1, 2025 threatens further potential loss of evidence by delay.

This case is unlike Oliveros v. County of Los Angeles (2004) 120 Cal.App.4th 1389.  Oliveros was a complex medical malpractice case that could be tried only by certain lawyers, that was expected to last three weeks, and where trial preparation had taken months.  This case is a simple employment dispute the trial of which is expected to last four days and where Defendant does not appear to have proceeded diligently in all respects.  Moreover, in Oliveros, the “judge’s reported comments suggest that the only factor he took into consideration . . .was the impact of a continuance on the court’s calendar.”  (Id.  at p. 1399.)  Here, the Court has considered multiple pertinent factors in arriving at its decision, including the weak showing of unavailability, the age of the case, the prior continuance, the potential loss of evidence by further delay, and prejudice to Plaintiff.  Moreover,  the Court is willing to move the trial by several days which should accommodate even Mr. Hurrell’s schedule.