Judge: Mark H. Epstein, Case: 22SMCV01197, Date: 2023-03-10 Tentative Ruling

Case Number: 22SMCV01197    Hearing Date: March 10, 2023    Dept: R

This is a breach of contract action.  Plaintiff seeks leave to plead additional damages under the contract theory and to add a cause of action for fraud.  Defendant does not really oppose the amendments to the contract theory.  Defendant does oppose amending to include the fraud cause of action.

The gist of the amendment is that defendant induced plaintiff to agree to allow defendant to terminate the lease and thereby forego claims for future lost rent if defendant agreed not to contest plaintiff’s claim for back rent and to pay the back rent.  Defendant’s promise was allegedly made by Mr. Simpson.  The back rent was not paid and plaintiff sued, limiting its claim to the rent that accrued before defendant vacated.  In its answer, however, defendant contested that it owed the money and raised various affirmative defenses.  That position was reiterated in its discovery responses.  Plaintiff now claims that defendant and Mr. Simpson—who is newly added and being sued only for fraud—had no intention of keeping the promise recited above when the promise was made, which plaintiff asserts is sufficient to allege fraud. 

Plaintiff’s burden is not a heavy one.  Leave to amend is liberally granted absent prejudice or meaningful undue delay.  (Higgins v. Del Faro (1981) 123 Cal.App.3d 558; Atkinson v. Elk Corp. (2003) 109 Cal.App.4th 739.)  The court sees no prejudice here.  No trial date has been set and the case is fairly recent, having been filed less than a year ago.  Further, plaintiff only discovered the alleged fraud when the answer was filed, and maybe as late as the discovery responses.  The moving papers substantially comply with the rules and the reply cures any deficiency.

Simpson claims that plaintiff was aware of his identity and role when the complaint was filed.  But absent a statute of limitations issue (and there does not seem to be one here, although the court is not so holding), that is not a critical point.  More importantly, at the time the complaint was filed, plaintiff presumably thought that defendant would honor its promise not to contest the back rent.  Only when defendant raised the defenses and confirmed its position was the purported fraud at issue.

That is enough to allow the amendment.  The court is not holding that defendant cannot demur, although defendant might decide to keep its powder dry and save its arguments for a later time.  For now, however, the motion for leave to amend is GRANTED.  The proposed First Amended Complaint will be deemed filed.  Defendants have 30 days to answer or otherwise respond to the FAC.