Judge: Maurice A. Leiter, Case: 23STLC01469, Date: 2024-03-12 Tentative Ruling

Case Number: 23STLC01469    Hearing Date: April 16, 2024    Dept: 54

Hearing Date: April 16, 2024

Department 54, Judge Maurice A. Leiter

Motion to Deposit Bond Funds and Discharge Plaintiff Western Surety Company

Moving Party: Plaintiff Western Surety Company

Responding Party: None

T/R:      PLAINTIFF’S MOTION IS GRANTED.     

PLAINTIFF TO NOTICE.

If the parties wish to submit on the tentative, please email the courtroom at SMCdept54@lacourt.org with notice to opposing counsel (or self-represented party) before 8:00 am on the day of the hearing.

The Court considers the moving papers. No opposition has been received.

Plaintiff requests to deposit with the Court the full penalty of the Bond in the sum of $15,000 and to be discharged from all liability asserted against it with respect to the Bond, with any legal actions pending against the proceeds of the Bond on behalf of any claimant to be dismissed as to Plaintiff.  Plaintiff also asks to be awarded reasonable attorney’s fees and court costs in the sum of $2,000 as allowance for its expenses incurred by the filing of its Complaint in Interpleader. 

Code of Civil Procedure, section 386, subdivision (b) provides that: “Any person, firm, corporation, association or other entity against whom double or multiple claims are made, or may be made, by two or more persons which are such that they may give rise to double or multiple liability, may bring an action against the claimants to compel them to interplead and litigate their several claims.”  (Code Civ. Proc., § 386, subd. (b).)  “When the person, firm, corporation, association or other entity against whom such claims are made, or may be made, is a defendant in an action brought upon one or more of such claims, it … may bring a separate action against the claimants to compel them to interplead and litigate their several claims.  The action of interpleader may be maintained although the claims have not a common origin, are not identical but are adverse to and independent of one another, or the claims are unliquidated and no liability on the part of the party bringing the action or filing the cross–complaint has arisen.”  (Ibid.)

“Where the only relief sought against one of the defendants is the payment of a stated amount of money alleged to be wrongfully withheld, such defendant may, upon affidavit that he is a mere stakeholder with no interest in the amount or any portion thereof and that conflicting demands have been made upon him for the amount by parties to the action, upon notice to such parties, apply to the court for an order discharging him from liability and dismissing him from the action on his depositing with the clerk of the court the amount in dispute and the court may, in its discretion, make such order.”  (Id. § 386.5.)

Plaintiff has filed a Complaint for Interpleader, asserting that it does not know and cannot determine the respective merits of the remaining claimants who assert conflicting claims against the subject bond, and that plaintiff has no safe, expedient, or economical remedy other than this proceeding in interpleader.  (Decl. Stratton.)  Stratton attests that the subject of the motion is a $15,000 contractor’s state license bond issued to Zenernet Installation Company, LLC as principal.  This declaration is sufficient to comply with the requirements of section 386.5. 

Plaintiff’s motion is GRANTED.