Filed 9/4/26 Shin v. Lai CA2/5
NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN THE OFFICIAL REPORTS
California Rules of Court, rule 8.1115(a), prohibits courts and parties from citing or relying on opinions
not certified for publication or ordered published, except as specified by rule 8.1115(b). This opinion
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IN THE COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA
SECOND APPELLATE DISTRICT
DIVISION FIVE
JEFF SHIN, B349621
Plaintiff and Appellant, (Los Angeles County
Super. Ct. No.
v. 22STCV18323)
JAMES LAI et al.,
Defendants and
Respondents.
APPEAL from orders of the Superior Court of Los Angeles
County, Theresa M. Traber and Nicholas F. Daum, Judges.
Dismissed.
Jeff Shin, in pro. per., for Plaintiff and Appellant.
Tredway, Lumsdaine & Doyle, Brandon L. Fieldsted, and
Jonathan J. Coleman for Defendants and Respondents.
******
When a dispute arose between a corporate tenant and a
landlord over the tenant’s access to the leased commercial space,
the corporate tenant’s individual shareholder sued the landlord.
The trial court issued a minute order granting the landlord’s
summary judgment motion based on the individual shareholder’s
lack of standing, and later issued another minute order striking
the individual shareholder’s unauthorized amended complaint
filed after the summary judgment ruling. The individual
shareholder has appealed from those two rulings. Because the
trial court did not enter any final judgment or order dismissing
the individual shareholder’s action, and because the corporate
tenant’s separate complaint consolidated with the individual
shareholder’s action remains pending in the trial court, we lack
jurisdiction to consider this appeal. The appeal is accordingly
dismissed.
FACTS AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND
I. The Lease
On December 2, 2021, JC Business Center, Inc. entered
into a lease agreement to rent a commercial space in Los Angeles
from Broadway Hill Investment Group LLC (Broadway Hill). JC
Business Center was required to pay $4,900 in rent per month, in
addition to a security deposit. The term of the lease was one
year, expiring on December 31, 2022.
Jeff Shin, who was the CEO and sole shareholder of JC
Business Center, signed the lease on behalf of JC Business
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Center. Shin agreed to serve as the guarantor of JC Business
Center’s obligations under the lease.
Shin also does business under the fictitious business name
Alpha Sewing. At the premises leased by JC Business Center,
Shin operates a store that sells sewing machines.
II. Shin’s Lawsuit
A. The operative complaint
On June 6, 2022, Shin filed a lawsuit alleging he was
unable to operate his business profitably because Shin was not
provided with a remote control to open the gate to the leased
premises and the gate was unlocked from only 10:00 o’clock in the
morning until 1:30 in the afternoon.
In the operative second amended complaint filed in October
2023, Shin (doing business as Alpha Sewing) sued Broadway Hill
and two individuals associated with that entity—James Lai and
Kevin Lai (collectively, the landlord)—for (1) breach of the lease,
(2) breach of the covenant of good faith and fair dealing, and (3)
fraudulent concealment.1 Shin sought compensatory damages in
excess of $900,000 as well as punitive damages and attorney fees.
1 Shin filed a first amended complaint two days after
commencing his action, against which the landlord moved for
judgment on the pleadings. The trial court granted that motion
but afforded Shin leave to file what became the operative second
amended complaint.
Though the landlord demurred to that operative complaint
and moved to strike certain prayers for relief, the trial court
denied those motions.
The landlord never raised the issue of standing in its
motion for judgment on the pleadings or in its demurrer.
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B. The landlord’s cross-complaint
In July 2022, the landlord filed a cross-complaint against
JC Business Center and Shin for (1) breach of the lease, (2)
nuisance, and (3) trespass. The landlord alleged that JC
Business Center engaged in the following actionable conduct:
“taking up more than [its] allotted space”; “using the property for
unsafe storage”; “overus[ing] the parking lot”; and the business
was generally “being a nuisance to other tenants.”
III. Motion for Summary Judgment
The landlord moved for summary judgment in July 2024.
The landlord argued that it was entitled to judgment as a matter
of law because (1) Shin is not a party to the lease and therefore
cannot sue for any conduct associated with the lease, and (2) the
only potential damages shown in discovery were suffered by JC
Business Center, who is not a party to the action.
In opposition, Shin argued he was the proper plaintiff and
could seek damages because (1) he was the guarantor under the
lease, (2) he was the individual doing business as the tenant and
therefore is the real party in interest in the action, and (3) the
landlord was “aware of the true name of the contracting
[plaintiff]” based on the parties’ negotiations prior to executing
the lease.
Following the filing of a reply and a hearing, the trial court
issued a minute order on February 18, 2025, granting the
landlord’s summary judgment motion. The court reasoned that
JC Business Center is the “named tenant under the lease
agreement” but “did not bring the present action in any capacity”
and all of Shin’s arguments for why he has standing to sue the
landlord failed. Specifically, Shin did “not present[] any
applicable legal authority which stands for the proposition that a
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guarantor under a lease may bring suit against the landlord”,
and even if the court considered Shin to be the agent of JC
Business Center, Shin “has no evidence that [the landlord]
breached a duty owed to him personally.” The court also noted
that Shin failed to show “which entity was damaged by the
[landlord’s] actions.”
The trial court did not issue any judgment or order of
dismissal following the summary judgment ruling.
IV. JC Business Center’s Separate Lawsuit
A. The complaint
While the landlord’s summary judgment motion was
pending—indeed, a month before Shin filed his opposition to that
motion—JC Business Center filed its own, separate lawsuit
against the landlord. Aside from the named plaintiff being JC
Business Center, the complaint was largely identical to Shin’s
operative complaint, alleging the same facts regarding the locked
gate, asserting the same causes of action, and claiming the same
damages.
B. Consolidation
After ordering Shin’s lawsuit and JC Business Center’s
lawsuit related, the trial court on October 25, 2024, consolidated
the two lawsuits over the landlord’s opposition
C. Demurrer
Also while the summary judgment motion was pending, the
landlord demurred to JC Business Center’s complaint on the
ground that the plain language of the lease did not require the
leased premises to be open for specific hours of operation. Shin,
representing himself, filed an opposition that argued he would be
dissolving JC Business Center to transform it into a sole
proprietorship.
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On January 31, 2025, the trial court overruled the
landlord’s demurrer to JC Business Center’s contract-based
claims, but sustained the demurrer to the fraudulent
concealment claim with leave to amend. In a nunc pro tunc order
issued on February 3, 2025, the court explained that JC Business
Center’s complaint “does not allege with specificity any
information concealed by [the landlord]” but gave JC Business
Center 20 days to file an amended complaint that “offer[s]
specifics” as to the landlord’s “affirmative misrepresentations”
about JC Business Center’s access to the premises.
JC Business Center did not file an amended complaint.
V. Shin’s Unauthorized Complaint
A. Third amended complaint
A week after the trial court granted the landlord’s
summary judgment motion on Shin’s complaint, Shin filed a third
amended complaint without leave of court.
B. Order striking complaint
The landlord demurred, pointing out that, procedurally,
Shin should have caused JC Business Center to file an amended
complaint per the court’s demurrer ruling. Shin opposed the
demurrer,2 and also filed an “assignment and ratification of
claims” stating that he mistakenly dissolved JC Business Center
and has been assigned the entity’s rights under the lease.
2 Shin also proffered a proposed fourth amended complaint
that included totally new causes of action against the landlord—
namely, (1) constructive eviction, (2) intentional interference with
contractual relations, (3) abuse of process, (4) intentional
infliction of emotional distress, (5) breach of the covenant of quiet
enjoyment, and (6) violation of California’s unfair competition
law.
6
Following a reply by the landlord and a hearing, the trial court
issued an order on August 25, 2025, striking Shin’s third
amended complaint. The court explained that because “[n]o leave
to amend was given” to Shin to file the third amended complaint,
the court was exercising its discretion to strike that pleading
which was “filed in direct contravention of the laws of th[e] state.”
The landlord’s demurrer was overruled as moot.
VI. Appeal
Shin filed a notice of appeal, indicating he was appealing
the trial court’s rulings granting the landlord’s summary
judgment motion and striking Shin’s third amended complaint.3
DISCUSSION
Shin’s appeal must be dismissed due to several
jurisdictional defects. (See Shpiller v. Harry C’s Redlands (1993)
13 Cal.App.4th 1177, 1179-1180 [noting how courts of appeal
“have repeatedly admonished appellants about the failure to
make the preliminary and fundamental determination that what
they are appealing from is, in fact, an appealable order or
judgment” and that litigants nevertheless “continue to ‘appeal’
from nonexistent orders and judgments and/or from documents
which are not even orders or judgments”].)
First, as to both the trial court’s order granting the
landlord’s summary judgment motion and the trial court’s order
striking Shin’s third amended complaint, there is no final order
or appealable judgment. “The right to appeal is wholly statutory.
[Citation.] Code of Civil Procedure section 904.1 lists appealable
3 Shin’s notice of appeal lists a third order, dated March 5,
2025, which denied the landlord’s discovery motion and request
for sanctions against Shin. But that order is not addressed in the
parties’ briefing on appeal.
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judgments and orders. Chief among them is a ‘judgment’ that is
not interlocutory, e.g., a final judgment.” (Dana Point Safe
Harbor Collective v. Superior Court (2010) 51 Cal.4th 1, 5 (Dana
Point); Maniago v. Desert Cardiology Consultants’ Medical
Group, Inc. (2026) 20 Cal.5th 91, 97-98.) Because “[t]he existence
of an appealable judgment [or order] is a jurisdictional
prerequisite to an appeal” (Jennings v. Marralle (1994) 8 Cal.4th
121, 126; Griset v. Fair Political Practices Com. (2001) 25 Cal.4th
688, 696), this court has a “‘duty to dismiss’” an appeal from a
nonappealable order (In re Mario C. (2004) 124 Cal.App.4th 1303,
1307). Here, Shin appealed from unsigned minute orders
granting the landlord’s summary judgment motion and striking
the unauthorized third amended complaint. Without a signed
order or judgment of dismissal of Shin’s lawsuit against the
landlord following those rulings, we lack jurisdiction to hear
Shin’s appeal. (Saben, Earlix & Associates v. Fillet (2005) 134
Cal.App.4th 1024, 1030 [“a summary judgment is appealable, but
an order granting summary judgment is not”]; Swain v. Burnette
(1888) 76 Cal.299, 302 [order striking pleading “is not mentioned
among the interlocutory orders which the statute makes the
subject of an appeal. Hence it is not itself appealable.”],
overruled on other grounds in Linehan v. Devincense (1915) 170
Cal.307, 311.)
Second, contrary to the landlord’s contention in response to
our request for supplemental briefing on the issue of
appealability, there is still a live dispute in the trial court. Based
on the record before us, the landlord’s cross-complaint against
Shin and JC Business Center has not been adjudicated. (See
Dang v. Smith (2010) 190 Cal.App.4th 646, 656 [“The general
rule is that no appeal will lie from a ‘purported final judgment . . .
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rendered on a complaint without adjudicating the issues raised by
a cross-complaint”]; Westamerica Bank v. MBG Industries, Inc.
(2007) 158 Cal.App.4th 109, 132 [same].) Nor has JC Business
Center’s complaint against the landlord been adjudicated. (Dana
Point, supra, 51 Cal.4th at p. 5 [judgment is final and therefore
appealable “‘“‘when it terminates the litigation between the
parties on the merits of the case and leaves nothing to be done
but to enforce by execution what has been determined’”’”].) To be
sure, the trial court sustained the landlord’s demurrer to JC
Business Center’s fraudulent concealment claim and JC Business
Center did not timely file an amended complaint pursuant to the
demurrer ruling. But the trial court overruled the landlord’s
demurrer to the other claims; as such, JC Business Center’s
claims for breach of the lease and breach of the implied covenant
of good faith and fair dealing are still active in the underlying,
consolidated matter.4
Third, even if we construed the trial court’s minute order
granting the landlord’s summary judgment motion as, effectively,
an appealable judgment, Shin did not timely appeal that ruling.
4 It is for the trial court to determine whether Shin can act
on the purported assignment of JC Business Center’s claims or
whether JC Business Center must litigate its complaint through
counsel. (See Merco Constr. Engineers, Inc. v. Municipal Court
(1978) 21 Cal.3d 724, 729-730 [corporation can only appear
through counsel]; CLD Construction, Inc. v. City of San Ramon
(2004) 120 Cal.App.4th 1141, 1149 [holding that “a corporation’s
failure to be represented by an attorney [is] a defect that may be
corrected, on such terms as are just in the sound discretion of the
[trial] court”].) Although Shin represents himself on appeal, both
Shin and JC Business Center were represented by counsel at
various points during the proceedings in the trial court.
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Shin filed his notice of appeal on September 10, 2025, which is
204 days after the court granted summary judgment for the
landlord based on Shin’s lack of standing. (Cal. Rules of Court,
rule 8.104(a)(1)(C) [setting 180 days as the outermost limit to
timely appeal].)
DISPOSITION
The appeal is dismissed. The landlord is entitled to costs
on appeal.
NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN THE OFFICIAL REPORTS.
KUMAR, J.*
We concur:
MOOR, Acting P. J.
KIM (D.), J.
* Retired Judge of the Superior Court of Los Angeles County,
assigned by the Chief Justice pursuant to article VI, section 6 of
the California Constitution.
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