Judge: Matthew C. Braner, Case: 37-2023-00013600-CU-OR-CTL, Date: 2023-09-15 Tentative Ruling

SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA,

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HALL OF JUSTICE

TENTATIVE RULINGS - September 14, 2023

09/15/2023  09:00:00 AM  C-60 COUNTY OF SAN DIEGO

JUDICIAL OFFICER:Matthew C. Braner

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Civil - Unlimited  Other Real Property Demurrer / Motion to Strike 37-2023-00013600-CU-OR-CTL CUELLAR VS SPECIALIZED LOAN SERVICING LLC [IMAGED] CAUSAL DOCUMENT/DATE FILED:

Defendants Specialized Loan Servicing, LLC and Affinia Default Services, LLC's demurrer is SUSTAINED without leave to amend.

Defendants' request for judicial notice is granted.

A demurrer shall be sustained if the pleading 'does not state facts sufficient to constitute a cause of action.' (Code Civ. Proc., § 430.10, subd. (e).) To test the sufficiency of a cause of action, the court treats as true 'all material facts properly pleaded, but not contentions, deductions or conclusions of fact or law.' (Centinela Freeman Emergency Medical Associates v. Health Net of California, Inc. (2016) 1 Cal.5th 994, 1010.) The court may also consider matters that have been judicially noticed. (Id.) The court shall give the complaint a 'reasonable interpretation, reading it as a whole and its parts in their context.' (Blank v. Kirwan (1985) 39 Cal.3d 311, 318.) Defendants primarily argue that all of Plaintiff Mario Cuellar's claims are barred by the doctrine of res judicata, as Plaintiff filed an earlier case in a different department of this court (Case No.

37-2021-00030161-CU-OR-CTL) arising from the same nexus of facts and making the same or similar claims, and this case reached final resolution earlier this year. The court agrees.

For res judicata to apply to a subsequently filed case, three elements must be met: 1) a final decision issued on the merits in the prior case; 2) the subsequent case involves the same cause or causes of action as the prior case; and 3) the parties in the two proceedings are the same or in privity. (See Association of Irritated Residents v. Dep't of Conservation (2017) 11 Cal.App.5th 1202, 1219.) 'Under res judicata, a final judgment on the merits of an action precludes the parties or their privies from relitigating issues that were or could have been raised in that action.' (Allen v. McCurry (1980) 449 U.S.

90, 94; see also Eichman v. Fotomat Corp. (1983) 147 Cal.App.3d 1170, 1175 ['If the same primary right is involved in two actions, judgment in the first bars consideration not only of all matters actually raised in the first suit but also all matters which could have been raised.'].) Here, Plaintiff brought a litany of causes of action in the first case that all arose from an allegedly improper foreclosure process in connection with real property located at 3052 Thorn Street, San Diego, CA, 92104. This same property and the surrounding facts concerning a foreclosure are at the center of Plaintiff's new complaint. Indeed, some of the paragraphs in the first complaint mirror paragraphs in the new complaint. (Compare 2021 Complaint, ¶ 7, with new Complaint, ¶ 7.) The 2021 case reached a final decision on the merits earlier this year on May 15, 2023, after Defendants successfully demurred to Plaintiff's original 2021 complaint and then again to Plaintiff's amended 2021 complaint, filed in Calendar No.: Event ID:  TENTATIVE RULINGS

2989070  14 CASE NUMBER: CASE TITLE:  CUELLAR VS SPECIALIZED LOAN SERVICING LLC [IMAGED]  37-2023-00013600-CU-OR-CTL December 2021. (ROA #17, RJN, Ex. 7.) In opposition to the demurrer, Plaintiff argues that the two cases involve different claims because his damages have changed (i.e., he sought to prevent foreclosure in the first case, and now seeks monetary damages stemming from the allegedly wrongful conduct of Defendants) and he did not make a RESPA claim. However, the facts identified by Plaintiff as different (namely, failing to save his home and becoming homeless) occurred in October 2021, well before final judgment a year and half later in 2023 and two months before he amended the 2021 complaint.

Plaintiff has not, and cannot, present a legitimate argument that he was unable to make the claims he now makes, whether for different relief or based different legal or factual grounds, in the 2021 case. Res judicata applies not only to the matters raised in the first case that are raised again in the subsequent case, but also to matters that could have been raised in the first case.

Accordingly, Defendants' demurrer is sustained without leave to amend.

Defendants are instructed to submit a proposed judgment for the court's signature.

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