Judge: Michael Small, Case: 23STCP00557, Date: 2023-05-17 Tentative Ruling

Case Number: 23STCP00557    Hearing Date: May 17, 2023    Dept: 57

On February 16, 2023, Plaintiff Andrew Charles Keiller filed a “Complaint for Registration and for Entry of Judgment Based on a Foreign Judgment” under the Uniform Foreign-Country Money Judgments Recognition Act. (Code Civ. Proc., § 1713, et seq.)  Keiller seeks to enforce a judgment entered in the County Court of Victoria at Melbourne, Australia on December 6, 2019 in Keiller v. Thomas, Case No. CI-19-02058 ("the Australia Judgment").   Defendant Randy Thomas has demurred to the Complaint and moved to strike the Complaint.   The demurrer is overruled and the motion to strike is 
denied.

Thomas contends that Keiller’s Complaint is a sham pleading or a pleading intended to circumvent a ruling of the Court (per Judge Steven Kleifield) in a prior action that Keiller brought against Thomas, Case Number 20STCV ("the Prior Action").  This contention provides an insufficient basis for the demurrer and motion to strike.  Initially in the Prior Action,  Keiller sought to enforce the Australia Judgment.   Keiller then amended the complaint in the Prior Action.  The amended complaint did not seek to enforce the Australia Judgment.  Instead, it asserted common law causes of action against Thomas.  The Court sustained Thomas's demurrer to the amended complaint in the Prior Action on statute of limitations grounds, without leave to amend.   The Court did not in the Prior Action rule on the enforceability of the Australia Judgment.  Thus, at least this stage, the Court cannot conclude that the Complaint is a sham pleading or a pleading intended to circumvent the ruling in the Prior Action. (The Court is not addressing whether the ruling in the Prior Action has preclusive effect under the doctrine of res judicata because Thomas did not make that argument in support of the demurrer and motion to strike.)

Thomas reliance on Ricard v. Grobstein, Goldman, Stevenson, Siegel, LeVine & Mangel (1992) 6 Cal.App.4th 157, is misplaced.  In Ricards, the Court held that the plaintiff's filing of a lawsuit alleging conspiracy was a sham pleading or pleading designed to circumvent a ruling that precluded the plaintiff from asserting a conspiracy claim in an earlier action the plaintiff brought.  Here, by contrast, the ruling on the demurrer in the Prior Action did not address the cause of action to enforce the Australia Judgment.  It addressed other causes of action, which the Court concluded were time-barred.

Thomas also argues that Keiller stipulated in the Prior Action that he would  “not to take any further action in the State of California or any other court of any jurisdiction in the United States, including but not limited to the filing of any new action or seeking to amend the instant action, to enforce the judgment entered by the County Court of Victoria at Melbourne, Australia on December 6, 2019 in Keiller v. Thomas, Case No. CI-19-02058.”  Thomas urges the Court to treat this stipulation as a release, and, on this basis, sustain the demurrer and grant the motion to strike.  The Court declines to do that at this stage because the enforceability of the stipulation in the Prior Action, which is beyond the four corners of the Complaint, cannot be determined.