Quashing Service in Unlawful Detainer

Stancil v. Superior Court, No. S253783 (Cal. May 3, 2021)

Unlawful detainers—eviction proceedings—are among the most common civil litigations in California state courts. More than 150,000 of them get filed in any given year. 

UD procedure is, however, a wreck. It is super-expedited—a response to a complaint needs to be served within five days. Summary judgment motions can be heard on five days notice. Trial can be set in twenty days.

At the same time, it is also very complicated. The substance and procedure are governed by numerous vaguely worded statutes, strewn across multiple codes in seemingly random fashion. There are overlapping layers of law at the city, county, state, and sometimes even the federal level. Many of the defenses are extremely technical. And, despite the enormous volume of filings, there is very little case law on anything. 

And then on top of all that, many of the litigants are pro se, and even the represented ones often aren’t paying their lawyers for hours of work to figure it all out.

This case, however, made it to the Supreme Court. The question presented is whether and how the tenant can use a motion to quash to challenge a UD complaint. It’s an interesting one.

In ordinary civil procedure, a motion to quash is used to challenge a defect in service or the lack of personal jurisdiction. The relevant statute, Code of Civil Procedure § 418.10, also addresses forum nonconveniens. It permits a defendant to make a special appearance to challenge service. No responsive pleading is required unless and until the motion is denied. The time to respond is further tolled if the defendant takes writ petition—specifically authorized by § 418.10(c)—until ten days after it is denied.

This has an unusual significance in UD cases because it potentially creates a avenue the tenant to really slow things down. Instead of five days to respond, the tenant gets the time spent to brief and argue the motion, ten days to take a writ, whatever time it takes to get decided, and then, if denied, ten days after the denial to answer.   

That creates a lot of incentive for the tenant to move to quash. Even when personal jurisdiction, as such, is not really at issue. Which is what happened here. Plaintiff—who appears to be the renter of a boat slip at a Marina of the S.F. Bay—argued in his motion that the wrong public entity was the name plaintiff. The trial court denied his motion, and then the appellate division and the Court of Appeal denied his writs. But the Supreme Court granted review, due to a longstanding perceived split of authority between Delta Imports, Inc v. Municipal Court, 146 Cal. App. 3d 1033, 1036 (1983) and Borsuk v. Superior Court, 242 Cal. App. 4th 607, 610 (2015).

The Court, in a unanimous opinion by Justice Cuellar, takes an interesting tack. Plaintiff loses, but the rule the Court lays winds up being relatively favorable to tenants. As the Court explains, a motion to quash under § 418.10 can only raise issues with personal jurisdiction or service. Tenant’s effort here—which entails a challenge to the truth of some of the facts alleged in the complaint—is not that. So a motion to quash is not an appropriate vehicle in his case.

But while that was enough to end the case, it doesn’t end the analysis. As the Court explains, UD is a creature of statute, with a bunch of special procedures. One of them is the right to serve a summons that requires a response within five days. In order to serve that kind of summons, however, the case needs to be a legit UD case. Were you to serve a five-day summons in an ordinary tort case, that service would be defective, it would be inadequate for the court to take jurisdiction over the defendant, and thus it could be subject to a motion to quash.

So, reasons the Court, a condition of serving a five-day notice in a legit UD case is pleading a legit UD case. A complaint that doesn’t state facts, if assumed true, that make out all the elements of an actionable UD claim is thus amenable to attack by a motion to quash.*

The upshot of all this is that although the tenant can’t use a motion to quash in a UD case to accomplish what he could with a summary judgment motion, he can use the motion to serve the same essential function of a general demurrer. And because the landlord’s strict compliance with the statutory procedures are elements of a UD claim, that means many of the kind of technical defects that trip up landlords and their counsel are amenable to resolution on on a motion to quash, even if they don’t raise what one would ordinary consider to be defects in service or personal jurisdiction.

Writ denied.

*This case shows the value of a well placed amicus brief. The link between stating a claim and jurisdiction thorough a five-day notice that the Court drew is not all that apparent from the tenant’s brief—it comes directly out of an amicus brief filed by the Western Center on Law & Poverty.

A Little Victory for the Freedom of Anonymous Speech on the Internet

Roe v. Halbig, No. H043248 (D6 Nov. 20, 2018)

Some foil-hatted deplorable claims to be getting at the “truth” of the 2012 Sandy Hill school shootings. He started a GoFundMe campaign and, in testament to the general awfulness of the times in which we live, raised more than $30k. But then GoFundMe shut him down because, well, he’s raising money to spread false conspiracy theories about the murders of innocent children.

California Law's Empire

Moncrief v. Clark, No. H040098 (D5 Jul. 21, 2015)

During negotiations over the sale of some farm equipment, seller’s attorney in Arizona made statements regarding his client’s title to the equipment. Those statements turned out to be untrue, and the deal failed. Purchaser then sued its California-based attorney for legal malpractice. Purchaser’s Lawyer turned and cross claimed against Arizona Attorney for equitable indemnity. Arizona Attorney filed a motion to quash service due to lack of personal jurisdiction, which the trial court granted.

The court of appeal applies the standard three-step analysis for specific personal jurisdiction. (1) Did the defendant purposefully avail himself of the California forum; (2) Does the controversy relate to the defendant’s contacts; and (3) Would notions of fair play and substantial justice be offended by hailing the defendant into court in California? Arizona Attorney argued only a lack of purposeful availment. But AA had called Purchaser’s Lawyer on the phone—while PL was in California—in order to close the deal. AA then followed up with an email reiterating that his clients had clear title. That’s not much, but it’s enough for personal availment in California.

Reversed.

Sanctions Stick for Failure to Withdraw Moot Motion to Quash

Evilsizor v. Sweeney, No. A140059 (D1d1 Oct. 28, 2014)

Interesting discovery issue that comes up a lot. In a divorce case, husband subpoenaed some bank docs from wife. The docs, however, also contained private information about wife’s dad, who filed a motion to quash, without bothering to meet and confer. As soon as he found out, husband amended the subpoena to exclude dad’s info, and made various efforts to resolve any dispute.

But dad did not withdraw the motion to quash, and the husband was required to file an opposition, which sought sanctions under Code of Civil Procedure § 1987.2 for pursuing a substantially unjustified discovery motion. Dad then withdrew the motion before the hearing, which the trial court nonetheless held to address potential sanctions. The trial court ruled that, although the initial motion was not unjustified, husband went to lengths to address dad’s concerns and to avoid litigating the issue, but dad declined to resolve the issue after the subpoena was amended. It awarded a sanction of $2,225 against the father.

The court first addresses an issue of appealability.  Generally, under Code of Civil Procedure § 904.1, orders imposing sanctions of less than $5,000 are appealable under only upon final judgment.  The statute is ambiguous in that it addresses “parties,” but it isn’t clear whether it is directed to the parties to the action or the parties to the discovery motion. The court declines to resolve the issue and exercises its discretion—expressly afforded by § 904.1(b)—to take up the matter on a writ.

On the merits, § 1987.2, the quashal statute, permits the imposition of sanctions when a “motion was made” without substantial justification.  The court decides that “made” means not only when the motion was filed, but includes the time during which it was pursued. So by failing to withdraw the motion after it was no longer substantially justified, dad came within in the ambit of the court’s power to issue sanctions. Further, the trial court was within its rights to order attorneys’ fees, even though husband’s counsel was pretty quick to threaten sanctions and could have avoided the hearing and opposition just by informing the court that he had amended the subpoena to address the objections. Judging that was all within the sound discretion of the trial court and would not be second guessed on appeal.

Affirmed.