Judge: Thomas Falls, Case: KC069267, Date: 2023-02-22 Tentative Ruling

Case Number: KC069267    Hearing Date: February 22, 2023    Dept: O

HEARING DATE:                 Wednesday, February 22, 2023

RE:                                          LILIAN DEMONTEVERDE HOATS VS MARIA FELIX BRICENO (KC069267)

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PLAINTIFF’S MOTION TO SET ASIDE OR VACATE JUDGMENT ON MAY 23, 2022

Responding Party: Unopposed as of Wed. 2/8 [due 9 court days before hearing (Tues. 2/7)]

Tentative Ruling

PLAINTIFF’S MOTION TO SET ASIDE OR VACATE JUDGMENT ON MAY 23, 2022

is DENIED because there is neither extrinsic fraud nor excusable mistake.

Background

This is a contracts case.

On April 26, 2017, Plaintiff Lilian Hoats filed suit against Defendant Maria Felix Briceno alleging that Defendant failed to pay her attorney’s fees and costs per the parties’ April 25, 2016 agreement and the balance due was $135,485.97.

On May 23, 2022, the court issued the following minute order: Off the record, settlement discussions commence. The matter settles in its entirety. According to the order signed by the court, judgment was entered in favor of Plaintiff in the amount of $157,405.97.

On November 17, 2022, Plaintiff filed the instant Notice of Motion and Motion to Set Aside or Vacate Judgment on 5/23/2022, Memorandum of Points and Authorities and Declaration of Lilian Demonteverde Hoats (CCP 473 and Extrinsic Fraud).

Discussion[1]

As a prefatory matter, it is unclear under what statute Plaintiff brings forth the instant motion, hence the court’s inability to provide a legal standard.

The motion makes references to both fraud and mistake; but the majority of the motion is dedicated to case law and discussion about extrinsic fraud. In fact, the premise of Plaintiff’s motion is predicated upon Defendant’s purported misrepresentation during settlement discussions that the value of three properties in Mexico were sufficient to satisfy the judgment. With that, the court will mainly focus its analysis on whether extrinsic fraud is sufficient to set aside this judgment.

Extrinsic fraud or mistake encompass almost any set of circumstances extrinsic or collateral to the litigation that have deprived a party of a fair adversary hearing. The particular circumstances need not be fraudulent or mistaken in the strict sense. These circumstances must, however, have occurred before, not after, entry of the judgment. (Advanced Bldg. Maintenance v. State Compensation Ins. Fund (1996) 49 Cal.App.4th 1388, 1395.) Examples of extrinsic fraud may arise when a party does not appear at trial because of the opposing party's false promise of a compromise; An attorney fraudulently or without authority purports to represent a party; An attorney employed by a party corruptly sells out the party's interest to the other side; In a proceeding for dissolution of marriage, one spouse fails to disclose the existence or value of a community property asset. (See 1. [§ 3.45] Examples:, Cal. Judges Benchbook Civ. Proc. After Trial § 3.45.) Additionally, the facts constituting the extrinsic fraud in obtaining a judgment must be pleaded with particularity and specificity. (Kuehn v. Kuehn (2000) 85 Cal.App.4th 824, 831-832.)

Plaintiff explains that after the judgment, Plaintiff discovered that the three Mexico properties were not sufficient to satisfy judgment because “Plaintiff’s attorney failed to advise [Plaintiff] to make sure that the three Mexico properties were valued enough to satisfy the judgment” but that the “Plaintiff did not know the current appraised values of the properties when the settlement was mistakenly entered.” (Motion p. 11.)[2]

Here, the court finds no fraud because Plaintiff’s own recitation of facts belies fraud by arguing her attorney (or herself) was negligent. In fact, there is no evidence (let alone pleaded with particularity and specificity) that Defendant misrepresented the properties’ values.

Therefore, finding no extrinsic fraud, the court turns next to whether there is adequate showing of mistake to set aside the judgment under CCP section 473 (b), as that statute is cited by Plaintiff for her proposition that her attorney made a mistake by not researching the properties’ values.

Under CCP 473(b), a judgment may be set aside due to mistake, inadvertence, surprise, and excusable neglect. The terms are defined as follows:  

Mistake is not a ground for relief under section 473, subdivision (b), when ‘the court finds that the “mistake” is simply the result of professional incompetence, general ignorance of the law, or unjustifiable negligence in discovering the law ....’ [Citation] Further, ‘[t]he term “surprise,” as used in section 473, refers to “some condition or situation in which a party ... is unexpectedly placed to his injury, without any default or negligence of his own, which ordinary prudence could not have guarded against.” [Citation] Finally, as for inadvertence or neglect, ‘[t]o warrant relief under section 473 a litigant's neglect must have been such as might have been the act of a reasonably prudent person under the same circumstances. The inadvertence contemplated by the statute does not mean mere inadvertence in the abstract. If it is wholly inexcusable it does not justify relief.’ [Citation] 

(Henderson v. Pacific Gas & Electric Co. (2010) 187 Cal.App.4th 215, 229-230.) 

Here, however, the onus appears to solely be placed on Plaintiff for failing to engage in due diligence, which a reasonably prudent person would do under the same circumstances.

All in all, the motion fails to set forth fraud or excusable mistake. Plaintiff had the opportunity to investigate the property values but chose not to do so. Effectively, if the court were to grant the motion, it would allow parties to abandon the necessary attention to litigation and merely engage in the required due diligence after judgment.

Conclusion

Based on the foregoing, the motion is denied.