Filed 9/9/26 Tarzana Property v. Work 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NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN THE OFFICIAL REPORTS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
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IN THE COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA
SECOND APPELLATE DISTRICT
DIVISION FIVE
TARZANA PROPERTY, LLC, B341346
Plaintiff and Respondent, (Los Angeles County
Super. Ct. No.
v. 23VECV00647)
VINCENT WORK,
Defendant and Respondent;
RONALD REINSDORF,
Movant and Appellant.
APPEAL from an order of the Superior Court of Los
Angeles County, Shirley K. Watkins, Judge. Affirmed.
Ronald Reinsdorf, in pro. per.; Ashley Davis; and The Law
Office of Cliff Dean Schneider and Cliff Dean Schneider for
Movant and Appellant.
Grant Shenon Almaraz, David M. Almaraz and Gabriela
Gevorkian for Plaintiff and Respondent.
No appearance for Defendant and Respondent.
******
In this action for breach of a residential lease agreement
between a limited liability company who owns a residential
property and its tenant, the former owner and managing member
of the company filed a motion for leave to intervene under the
mandatory intervention provision in Code of Civil Procedure
section 387, subdivision (d)(1),1 asserting several rationales for
why intervention was necessary to protect his interests. The
former owner challenges the trial court’s order denying the
motion. Because the record is inadequate for a proper review of
the ruling and the former owner’s argument for intervention is
facially meritless, we affirm the trial court’s order.
FACTS AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND
I. Facts
Tarzana Property, LLC (the LLC) owns a residential
property (the property) in Tarzana, California. The LLC was at
one time solely owned and managed by Ronald Reinsdorf, who
was married to Sheri Reinsdorf. When Ronald2 and Sheri
divorced, they agreed Sheri would become the sole owner of the
LLC. It is unclear from the record properly before us when the
1 All further statutory references are to the Code of Civil
Procedure unless otherwise noted.
2 Because the parties share the same last name, we use first
names for clarity.
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transfer of ownership of the LLC was effectuated (see fns. 2 & 3,
post), but the parties agree that by at least January 27, 2024,
Ronald no longer had any ownership interest in the LLC.
II. Procedural History
A. Complaint
On February 10, 2023, the LLC filed a complaint against
the property’s former tenant, Vincent Work, for breach of a
residential lease based on Work’s failure to pay rent and damage
he caused to the property.
Work answered the complaint on August 21, 2023, claiming
among other defenses that the alterations he made to the
property were “approved and done by Ronald [] during his
ownership and control” of the LLC and that Sheri, the “person
responsible for filing this action[,] is not yet the official owner of”
the LLC. Work also filed a cross-complaint against the LLC and
Sheri individually for wrongful eviction, retaliation, and fraud,
which he later dismissed.
B. Motion for leave to intervene
On July 9, 2024, Ronald filed a motion for leave to
intervene in the action, arguing for mandatory intervention
under section 387, subdivision (d)(1). Ronald claimed he was the
managing member of the LLC, and that he needed to personally
intervene to protect himself from liability based on the actions
Sheri took in the LLC’s name in filing the action, and his own
actions in approving the alterations to the property that formed
the basis for the LLC’s property damage claim against Work.
Ronald filed a proposed complaint in intervention, asserting (1) a
cause of action against both the LLC and Work for declaratory
relief that he “is blameless for all acts taken by Sheri in [the
LLC]’s name”; and (2) a cause of action against Sheri individually
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for unfair business practices based on her alleged failure to
“officially file her managing member status with the Secretary of
State.” In support of his motion, Ronald submitted a request for
judicial notice of several documents concerning the transfer of
ownership of the LLC from Ronald to Sheri; he did not include
that request for judicial notice or the accompanying exhibits in
the record on appeal.3
3 Ronald designated the request in his notice designating the
record on appeal. However, in preparing the appellate record,
the trial court informed Ronald that the request for judicial
notice was not in the court’s files and notified him that he had 10
days to provide a conformed copy of the document for inclusion in
the clerk’s transcript.
Ronald did not do so, instead waiting until July 8, 2026—
after the LLC filed its respondent’s brief and 422 days after the
record was prepared—to file a motion to augment the record with
the request for judicial notice and accompanying exhibits and
three other documents from the trial court’s file, including Sheri’s
declaration in support of the LLC’s opposition to his motion for
leave to intervene. Ronald claims he “recently located” the
conformed copy of the request for judicial notice in his files, but
provides no explanation for why he was unable to locate it sooner
or for the delay in providing the other documents. The LLC filed
an opposition to the motion.
Because Ronald has not established good cause for the
delay, we deny the motion to augment the record and evaluate
the appeal only on the record properly before us. (See Advisory
Com. com., Cal. Rules of Court, rule 8.155 [court may deny
motion to augment the record if not “made within a reasonable
time”]; Ct. App., Second Dist., Local Rules, rule 2(b) [request to
augment should be made within 40 days of filing the record;
motions filed after that deadline “will not be granted except upon
a showing of good cause”].)
4
The LLC opposed the motion, arguing that Ronald’s
“former role as managing member” of the LLC was an insufficient
basis for intervening. In support of its opposition, the LLC
submitted a declaration from Sheri along with several supporting
exhibits. Ronald did not include the declaration or exhibits in the
record on appeal. (See fn. 2, ante.)
In his reply in support of the motion for leave to intervene,
Ronald claimed that “legal documents . . . unequivocally establish
that [he] was the sole member and owner of [the] LLC during the
relevant periods.” He attached a declaration referencing four
exhibits, but did not include those exhibits in the record on
appeal. (See fn. 2, ante.)
C. The trial court’s ruling
On September 3, 2024, the trial court held a hearing and
denied Ronald’s motion for leave to intervene.4 The court
reasoned that mandatory intervention under section 387,
subdivision (d)(1) was inappropriate because Ronald “no longer
has any ownership interest or any other interest in” the LLC and
therefore has “no interest in the property or the transaction at
issue.” At most, the court reasoned, Ronald could establish “that
he may be a witness to the transaction at issue,” but having
knowledge that could support Work’s defense to the complaint “is
insufficient” to support intervention. The trial court noted that
because Ronald only sought mandatory intervention under
section 387, subdivision (d)(1), it “did not consider any arguments
related to permissive intervention.”
4 The court partially granted Ronald’s request for judicial
notice “as to the existence” of four documents, but “not as to any
hearsay or facts in dispute contained within them.”
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D. Appeal
Ronald filed a notice of appeal on September 30, 2024.5
DISCUSSION6
Section 387 provides that “[t]he court shall, upon timely
application, permit a nonparty to intervene in the action or
proceeding if . . . [t]he person seeking intervention claims an
interest relating to the property or transaction that is the subject
of the action and that person is so situated that the disposition of
the action may impair or impede that person’s ability to protect
that interest, unless that person’s interest is adequately
represented by one or more of the existing parties.” (§ 387, subd.
5 On September 9, 2024, Ronald moved the trial court to stay
the proceedings pending his appeal. That motion is not in the
record, but Ronald’s reply in support of the motion is, along with
Ronald’s supporting declaration and exhibits, which ostensibly
include several of the documents for judicial notice that Ronald
referenced in his motion for leave to intervene. Because Ronald
did not properly include the exact documents the trial court
considered at the time of its ruling on his motion to intervene, we
do not consider these ostensibly similar documents submitted to
the trial court after the fact. (See Reserve Insurance Co. v.
Pisciotta (1982) 30 Cal.3d 800, 813 [“It is an elementary rule of
appellate procedure that, when reviewing the correctness of a
trial court’s judgment, an appellate court will consider only
matters which were part of the record at the time the judgment
was entered.”].)
6 Because the only issue before us is the propriety of the trial
court’s order denying Ronald’s motion for leave to intervene, we
do not address Ronald’s arguments concerning whether the LLC
is the true plaintiff, whether the suit was brought by Sheri as an
alter ego, and whether Sheri lacks standing such that “the case
should be dismissed.”
6
(d)(1)(B).) Although the standard of review has not been squarely
decided, it has been suggested that an appellate court should
conduct a de novo review of an order denying a request for
mandatory intervention. (See State Water Bd. Cases (2023) 97
Cal.App.5th 1035, 1043.)7
Appealed orders are presumed correct, and the appellant
bears the burden of affirmatively showing error. (Denham v.
Superior Court (1970) 2 Cal.3d 557, 564.) Accordingly, it is the
appellant’s burden to provide the court with an adequate record
of the proceedings below. (Randall v. Mousseau (2016) 2
Cal.App.5th 929, 935.) “Failure to provide an adequate record
concerning an issue challenged on appeal requires that the issue
be resolved against the appellant[].” (Eureka Citizens for
Responsible Government v. City of Eureka (2007) 147 Cal.App.4th
357, 366.)
As an initial matter, Ronald has not satisfied his burden to
provide an adequate record because he has failed to include in
the record on appeal any of the documentary evidence considered
by the trial court in ruling on his motion to interevene. (See fns.
2 & 3, ante.) On the record properly before us, we are unable to
review the propriety of the trial court’s evidentiary findings and
must presume the court properly found that Ronald “no longer
has any ownership interest or any other interest in” the LLC.
Based on this finding, the trial court did not err in concluding
7 In State Water Bd. Cases, the court acknowledged that
whether an order denying mandatory intervention is reviewed de
novo or for abuse of discretion is unsettled but gave the
impression that California should track federal courts and
conduct a de novo review. (State Water Bd. Cases, supra, 97
Cal.App.5th at p. 1043.) We would reach the same result under a
review for abuse of discretion.
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that Ronald does not have an interest sufficient to justify
mandatory intervention. This case involves a straightforward
breach of a lease agreement between the LLC, as the landlord,
and Work, as the tenant. Absent a stake in the LLC or the
property, Ronald has no interest in the enforcement of the lease
agreement and therefore no “protectable interest in the subject of
the action.” (Carlsbad Police Officers Assn. v. City of Carlsbad
(2020) 49 Cal.App.5th 135, 148.)
Ronald nonetheless argues that because he, while he was
the managing member of the LLC, approved the alterations to
the property that form the basis for one of the LLC’s claims
against Work, it is “conceivable” that if Work is found to have
breached the lease agreement, Work could seek to hold Ronald
liable for any damages through an action for contribution or
equitable indemnity. However, contribution and equitable
indemnity are tools for apportioning damages among joint
tortfeasors; they do not apply to damages arising from breach of
contract, which is the only issue in this case. (§ 875; Stop Loss
Ins. Brokers, Inc. v. Brown & Toland Medical Group (2006) 143
Cal.App.4th 1036, 1040-1042.) Moreover, in the event Work
seeks to hold Ronald liable in a tort-based lawsuit for approving
the alterations, the determination in this action will not preclude
Ronald from adequately defending himself in that separate
action. (See Bullock v. City of Antioch (2022) 78 Cal.App.5th 407,
419-421 [issue preclusion only bars determination of issue in
subsequent action if party is in privity with party in prior action,
which requires “a close examination of the circumstances of each
case” and satisfaction of due process requirements].)
In sum, we are faced with a record that is inadequate to
properly review the trial court’s order denying mandatory
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intervention and, to the extent Ronald argues intervention was
necessary to absolve himself of hypothetical future liability, his
argument is meritless.
DISPOSITION
The order is affirmed. The LLC is entitled to costs on
appeal.
NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN THE OFFICIAL REPORTS.
KUMAR, J.
We concur:
BAKER, 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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