CA Unpub Decisions

David A. Reta and Patricia Diaz filed a putative class action lawsuit against Be., LLC (Be), a company that promoted itself as providing management services for children pursuing careers in the entertainment industry, and Monterey Financial Services, Inc. (Monterey), which financed Be’s advance-fee contracts with its customers. Their complaint alleged causes of action for fraud and for violations of the Advanced Fee Talent Services Act (AFTSA) (former Lab. Code, § 1701 et seq.),[1] in effect at the relevant time, and various other consumer protection statutes. The trial court denied Reta and Diaz’s motion for a preliminary injunction to impose a constructive trust on all funds Monterey had collected from Be customers, to prohibit Monterey from reporting unpaid sums as bad debts to credit reporting agencies and to require it to expunge any negative reports it had previously made.[2] We affirm.

The Chapter 11 Trustee for Leonard M. Ross and The Leonard M. Ross Revocable Trust (U/D/T 12-20-85) appeals from an amended judgment in favor of Carolina Casualty Insurance Co. (Carolina Casualty) entered after the trial court granted in part a motion to amend the original judgment against L.M. Ross Law Group, LLP (Ross Law Group) to include Ross individually as a judgment debtor. (The court denied the motion to the extent it sought also to add The Leonard M. Ross Revocable Trust and the L.M. Ross Professional Law Corporation as judgment debtors.) The Trustee contends the trial court lacked any factual or legal basis to make Ross personally responsible for the judgment against Ross Law Group and prejudicially erred in denying his request to conduct discovery in connection with the motion to amend the judgment. We affirm.

Giligia College appeals from the judgment entered in favor of the People of the State of California, ex rel. Department of Transportation (Caltrans) following a bench trial in which the court found Giligia College was not entitled to compensation for loss of goodwill in this eminent domain action. We affirm.

Francisco Javier Vasquez appeals from a judgment sentencing him to a term of 29 years for assault on a peace officer, consecutive to four concurrent terms of life, plus 20 years for four attempted murders of a single civilian victim. Appellant contends (1) the imposition of four concurrent life sentences for the attempted murder convictions violates the Penal Code section 654 prohibition of multiple punishments for a single act, and (2) his sentence constitutes cruel and unusual punishment under state and federal law.[1]
We affirm.

William Edson Kingsland appeals the judgment entered following his conviction by jury of desertion of a child under the age of 14 years with the intent to abandon (child abandonment) and misdemeanor child endangerment. (Pen. Code, §§ 271, 273a, subd. (b).)[1] We order the judgment modified to stay, pursuant to section 654, the concurrent six-month term imposed with respect to misdemeanor child endangerment in count 1. At the request of the People, we further order the judgment modified to reflect a $40 court security assessment (§ 1465.8, subd. (a)(1)) and a $30 court facility assessment (Gov. Code, § 70373) as to count 1. As so modified, the judgment is affirmed.

Dennis R. (father) appeals from the trial court’s order granting O.O.’s (mother) request to be allowed to relocate with their children to Israel.

N.L. appeals an order declaring him a ward under Welfare and Institutions Code section 602 based on the finding he committed robbery and his admission he discharged a firearm with gross negligence. (Pen. Code, §§ 211, 246.3, subd. (a).) On appeal, he claims the evidence is insufficient to support the finding he committed a robbery in which a wallet, a cell phone and an MP3 player were taken. However, appellant was detained approximately half an hour after the robbery and two blocks from the scene. He generally matched the description of one of the robbery suspects and he had the victim’s cell phone and MP3 player. He told the arresting officer he found the property in an alley. The juvenile court concluded the robber would not have discarded the property in an alley so soon after the commission of the offense and sustained the robbery allegation. We find the evidence sufficient to support the juvenile court’s finding and affirm the order under review.

Brian Geovanni Quintanilla was convicted following a jury trial of first degree murder. On appeal Quintanilla contends his incriminating statements to police officers should have been suppressed because they were obtained through custodial interrogation after he had invoked his right to counsel and were involuntary. He also contends the evidence of premeditation was insufficient to support the verdict. We affirm.

Roger Jesus Garcia appeals the judgment entered following his conviction by jury of attempted murder, two counts of attempted second degree robbery, attempted carjacking, two counts of assault with a deadly weapon, receiving stolen property and attempted extortion. (Pen. Code, §§ 664/187, subd. (a), 664/211, 664/215, subd. (a), 245, subd. (a)(1), 496, subd. (a), 664/524.)[1] The jury found Garcia committed each offense, except receiving stolen property, for the benefit of a criminal street gang (§ 186.22, subd. (b)(1)(C)), Garcia personally used a deadly weapon in the commission of attempted murder, attempted carjacking, one count of attempted robbery and both counts of assault with a deadly weapon (§ 12022, subd. (b)(1)), and Garcia personally inflicted great bodily injury in the commission of attempted murder, attempted carjacking, one count of assault with a deadly weapon and one count of attempted robbery (§12022.7, subd. (a)).
On appeal, Garcia contends the trial was marked by prosecutorial and judicial misconduct which deprived him of a dispassionate consideration of the impeachment of the victims, thereby denying him due process and a fair trial. However, none of the cited instances amounts to anything more than incivility and quite nearly all of the asserted misconduct occurred at the sidebar and thus could not have affected the jury. We therefore affirm the judgment.

Plaintiff and respondent Richard Steele moves to dismiss the appeal filed by defendant West Coat Metals, Inc. as untimely. West Coast maintains its time for appeal should properly be measured from the trial court’s modified judgment, not the judgment originally entered, and that, so measured, the appeal is timely. We agree with Steele that West Coast was required to timely appeal from the original judgment. Because it did not, we lack jurisdiction to entertain this appeal and must dismiss it.

R.E. (appellant), born in February 1993, challenges the juvenile court’s restitution order on the ground the court lacked jurisdiction to impose the order. For the reasons set forth below, we shall affirm.

Two-year-old A.S. (Minor), who was detained for child abuse and neglect at the age of four months, is a dependent child of the juvenile court. The court terminated parental rights of both parents, appellants T.S. (Mother) and A.S. (Father), and ordered a permanent plan of adoption. Despite acknowledging below they had no legal grounds to challenge termination, both Mother and Father appeal. They contend the juvenile court should have engaged in increased efforts to assist Mother in finding housing. For the reasons we discuss below, we find no merit in the contention and affirm.

A neighborhood dispute concerning the application of the Oakland View Ordinance (Oakland Mun. Code, § 15.52.010 et. seq.) led to litigation. Defendant Lelia Hernandez allegedly engaged in obstructive litigation tactics, including failing to comply with the trial court’s discovery orders. The court ultimately issued terminating sanctions and entered a default judgment granting a permanent injunction in favor of plaintiffs Robert Piechuta, Lynn Derderian, and Virginia Lew. As defendant’s appeal raises no cognizable legal issues, we affirm.

Kenneth Paul York was convicted of first degree murder (Pen. Code, § 187),[1] attempted residential robbery (§§ 211, 211.5, subd. (a), 664), residential burglary (§§ 459, 460, subd. (a)), and assault with a firearm. (§ 245, subd. (a)(2).) The jury also found true the special circumstances alleged in the information that the murder was committed while York was engaged in the commission or attempted commission of the crimes of burglary and robbery. (§ 190.2, subd. (a)(17)(A), (G).)
York seeks reversal of his conviction, arguing that the trial court improperly permitted the jury to hear evidence of prior home invasions York had allegedly committed and that the prosecutor engaged in misconduct by eliciting this evidence and referring to it in his closing argument. York also contends that various jury instructions on conspirator liability were legally erroneous. We find none of York’s contentions persuasive. We therefore affirm the judgment.
Factual and Procedural Background
On May 10, 2004, at approximately 1:10 a.m., officers from the Pleasant Hill Police Department responded to a report of a shooting at an apartment on Golf Club Road. When they arrived at the apartment, the police found Michael Fidler on the ground in the entryway. Fidler was suffering from a gunshot wound and was either dead or mortally wounded. He was later pronounced dead at the scene.
The officers entered a bedroom behind Fidler’s body and found a pistol-grip shotgun, marijuana scales, bundles of cash, a marijuana cigarette, and baggies of loose marijuana in plain sight. After obtaining a warrant, the officers searched the bedroom closet and found between six and seven pounds of marijuana and over $8,000 in cash.
James Connelly was Fidler’s roommate. He testified Fidler sold large quantities of marijuana out of the apartment and kept thousands of dollars in cash in his home. To protect himself, Fidler bought weapons, including a pistol-grip pump shotgun he kept under his bed. Fidler also studied martial arts.
On the night of May 9, 2004, Connelly was in bed with his girlfriend in the apartment he shared with Fidler. Shortly after Connelly went to sleep, someone pushed his bedroom door open. A black man with a bandana mask pointed a gun at Connelly, ordered him out of bed, and demanded that Connelly “[s]how [him] the shit.” The man put the gun—a small chrome revolver—on the back of Connelly’s neck as the latter walked to Fidler’s room. Connelly entered Fidler’s room where Fidler was asleep in bed.