Judge Lee W. Tsao, Case Number: 22NWCV00716, Date: 2024-11-14 Tentative Ruling

Judge: Lee W. Tsao, Case: 22NWCV00716, Date: 2024-11-14 Tentative Ruling

Case Number: 22NWCV00716 Hearing Date: November 14, 2024 Dept: C

ANGELES v. HYUNDAI MOTOR AMERICA

CASE NO.: 22NWCV00716

HEARING: 11/14/24

Plaintiff’s motion to vacate this Court’s December 27, 2022 Order granting Defendant’s motion to compel arbitration and stay of this action is DENIED.

Defendant to give notice.

This lemon law action was filed by Plaintiff TIFFANY V. ANGELES (“Plaintiff”) against Defendant HYUNDAI MOTOR AMERICA (“Defendant” or “Hyundai”) on August 16, 2022.

On December 27, 2022, this Court granted Defendant’s Motion to Compel Arbitration and Stay this Action. This action is currently STAYED until conclusion of the arbitration.

JURISDICTION

“Once a court grants the petition to compel arbitration and stays the action at law, the action at law sits in the twilight zone of abatement with the trial court retaining merely a vestigial jurisdiction over matters submitted to arbitration. This vestigial jurisdiction over the action at law consists solely of making the determination, upon conclusion of the arbitration proceedings, of whether there was an award on the merits….” (Brock v. Kaiser Foundation Hospitals (1992) 10 Cal.App.4th 1790, 1796.) “The court also retains a separate, limited jurisdiction over the contractual arbitration which was the subject of the section 1281.2 petition: “After a petition has been filed under this title [i.e., “Title 9” (§§ 1280–1294.2) ], the court in which such petition was filed retains jurisdiction to determine any subsequent petition involving the same agreement to arbitrate and the same controversy, and any such subsequent petition shall be filed in the same proceeding. [Citations Omitted.]” (Ibid.)

On August 30, 2023, the Arbitrator issued an Order stating, which states: “The Arbitrator defers to the lower court to re-determine, in light of the subsequent cases that have come down since the court’s Order granting [Defendant’s] motion to compel arbitration, whether [Defendant] can compel this proceeding to binding arbitration or not; and (2) While the lower court re-decides this issue, this Arbitration will be in abeyance.” (Moses Decl., ¶10, Ex. 3.)

As such, the arbitration is not currently pending and this Court has limited jurisdiction over the arbitration under CCP §1292.6.

DISCUSSION

Plaintiff moves this Court to vacate it’s December 27, 2022 Order under CCP §1008(c), arguing that new case law warrants the Court to reconsider it’s prior order.

Defendant argues the following in Opposition: (1) Plaintiffs’ Motion is untimely; (2) Granting Plaintiff’s Motion for Reconsideration would result in extreme prejudice to Defendant because this matter has been in arbitration since January 3, 2023; and (3) The grant of review of the Ochoa/Ford Motor Warranty decision appears consistent with the California Supreme Court’s previous order denying the request from Plaintiff’s counsel to depublish the Felisilda decision as well as the denial of the petition for review in Felisilda.

Plaintiffs’ Motion is not untimely. Under CCP §1008(c), “[i]f a court at any time determines that there has been a change of law that warrants it to reconsider a prior order it entered, it may do so on its own motion and enter a different order.”

Thus, the Court may exercise its authority to reconsider a prior order based on a change in the law. The Court does have jurisdiction to reconsider its prior order.

On December 27, 2022, this Court granted Defendant’s Motion to Compel Arbitration and Stay this Action. The Court relied upon an opinion issued by the Third Appellate District in Felisilda v. FCA US LLC (2020) 53 Cal.App.5th 486. Felisilda held that a nonsignatory manufacturer can compel arbitration under equitable estoppel “when the causes of action against the nonsignatory are ‘intimately founded in and intertwined’ with the underlying contract obligations.” (Id. at 495.) In its December 27, 2022 ruling, this Court found that the arbitration provision at issue in this case was identical to the one in Felisilda, the only controlling authority at the time. (12/27/22 Minute Order.)

On April 4, 2023, little more than three months after this Court’s order compelling arbitration, the Second Appellate District decided Ford Motor Warranty Cases (Ford) (2023) 89 Cal.App.5th 1324 (review granted). Disagreeing with Felisilda, the court in Ford found that plaintiffs’ claims were not “intimately founded in and intertwined” with the sale contracts because the sale contracts did not intend to cover the manufacturer’s warranties. (Ford, supra, 89 Cal.App.5th 1324.) Equitable estoppel did not apply to compel plaintiffs to arbitrate their claims because plaintiffs were not making use of the terms of the sale contracts. (Ibid.) There is now a split of authority on this issue.

In deciding whether to exercise its discretion to reconsider its December 27, 2022 order, the Court considers the fact that Felisilda remains good law. The Court also considers the fact that this lawsuit was filed on August 16, 2022, nearly 27 months ago, and was compelled to arbitration nearly 23 months ago. Moreover, arbitration was stayed more than 14 months ago to provide plaintiff an opportunity to move this court for reconsideration, which Plaintiff did not do until just over two months ago. Under the circumstances here, the Court declines the invitation to reconsider its December 27, 2022 ruling.

The motion for reconsideration is DENIED.