Filed 10/6/21 Castanon v. Long Beach Lesbian and Gay Pride CA2/8

NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN THE OFFICIAL REPORTS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 This opinion has not been certified for publication or ordered published for purposes of rule 8.1115.

IN THE COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA

SECOND APPELLATE DISTRICT

DIVISION EIGHT

ALEXA CASTANON

,
Plaintiff and Appellant,

v.

LONG BEA CH LESBIAN AND GAY PRIDE, INC., et al.

,

Defendant s and Respondent s

. B 303662

(Los Angeles County Super. Ct. No. 18LBCP00073 )

APPEAL from a judgment of the Superior Court of Los Angeles County, Michael P. Vicencia , Judge

. Affirmed

.

Leslie R. Smi th for Plaintiff and Appellant.

Krieger & Krieger, Lawrence R Cagney, Linda Guthmann Krieger and Terrence B. K rieger for Defendant s and Respondent s

.

_________________________2 Appellant Alexa Castanon was voted out of membership in
and thus off the board of directors of Long Beach Lesbian & Gay Pride, Inc. (LBLGP) in its August 2018 election . Shortly
thereafter

, she filed this action for fraud against LBLGP

, its

p resident

, Dorothea Newman

, and a vice

- president

, La R honda Slaughter (respondents)

. The frau d action sought Newman’s and Slaughter’s removal from the board of directors and appellant’s

own reinstatement. While th e fraud action was pending,

a ppellant filed a petition for writ of mandate seeking, among other things, to stay LBLGP’s annual August 2 019 elections. With the stipulation of the parties in the writ proceedings , the

court supervised a new election , in which a ppellant was again voted out of LBLGP. Then, in this action, the trial court granted respondents’ motion for judgment on the pleadi ngs on the second
cause of action to reinstate appellant, finding it moot after the

court

- supervised elections. After losing a series of discovery disputes, appellant dismissed her first and only remaining cause of action with prejudice. This appeal, whi ch concerns appellant’s membership only, f

ollowed. Appellant contends the trial court erred in granting judgment on the pleadings, in denying her motion to quash a subpoena by which respondents sought the identity of the owner
of the website “LongBeachGay Pride.org

, ” and in compelling her to respond substantively to R equests for Admission (RF A s)

, which she contends invade her right to privacy. We affirm the judgment of dismissal.3 BACKGROUND Appellant filed her complaint in this matter on December 5,
2018. The complaint contains two causes of action. The first is entitled “Removal of Directors for Fraud, Malfeasance and Gross Misconduct [Cal

. Corp. Code §5223]

, ” the second “Declaration of Member’s Rights [Cal. Corp. Code §5617]. ” 1 A key claim of the compl aint was that LBLGP’s August 18, 2018 election was rigged by Newman and Slaughter to remove appellant from membership. The details of the election rigging were set forth in the general allegations. The first cause of action alleged 14 wrongful acts by Ne wman and Slaughter, including two broad allegations about the conduct of elections. In the second cause of action, appellant alleged: “As a consequence of defendants’ wrongful actions, Plaintiff has been denied the right to participate at or vote in any meetings, including board of director’s meetings.” Immediately after appellant filed this action

, LBLGP restored her to a voting seat on the board of directors. On February 20, 2019, appellant filed a petition for writ of
mandate (LASC c ase No. 19STCV 0 535 9)

. Initially, appellant complained in the petition of improprieties by LBLGP’s leaders, particularly denying appellant’s requests to review and copy LBLGP’s financial records . T he petition named LBLGP’s treasurer as respondent. T he Superior Court deeme d the cases related and assigned both cases to the same judge.

1 F urther unspecified statutory references are to the Corporations Code.4 While the writ proceedings were pending, respondents undertook discovery in the fraud action. They served a subpoena on GoDaddy.com to discover the identity of the owner of the LongBeachGayPr ide.org website, which had a confusing ly similar name to LBLGP’s website LongBeachGayPride.org and which
contained statements respondents asserted were defam atory. Respondents also contended identification of the owner was necessary to prove their affirma tive defense of unclean hands

. A ppellant brought a motion to quash the subpoena

. The trial court limited the subpoena to require GoDaddy.com to respond only if the owner of the website were appellant or her attorney ; it
otherwise denied the motion

. The owner was found to be appellant’s attorney. Appellant has not provided this c ourt with a reporter’s transcript of the hearing on the motion to quash. On August 7, 2019, the trial court held a lengthy hearing on the writ petition, which included testimony by Slaughter and Wayne Manous. Appellant had previously sought a stay of LBLGP’s annual election in her writ petition, but d uring this hearing, appellant agreed to LBLGP’s proposal to hold the organization’s August 2019 election under court supervision. Appellant has not provided this c ourt with a reporter’s transcript of the hearing.
A court

- supervised election was held pursuant to the stipulation of the parties. On August 15, 2019, the court presided

at a hearing to count the votes cast the previous day

. Among other results, LBLGP members voted 12 to 8 against renewing appellant’s membership, which rendered her ineligible to sit on the board of directors. Appellant has not provided this c ourt with a reporter’s transcript of the proceedings.5 On Octo ber 23, 2019, the court denied appellant’s writ petition in its entirety. Appellant appealed. The court’s denial
was affirmed by on November 2, 2020 in case No. B303237. 2 On December 5, 20 1 9, the trial court held a hearing on respondents ’ motion for jud gment on the pleadings on the second
cause of action that prayed for relief as to appellant’s personal membership. The court granted the motion , finding the ca u se of
action moot in light of the court

- supervised election . The trial court granted responden ts’ motions to compel substantive responses to certain form interrogatories and RFAs. The court
also i mposed sanctions against appellant and her counsel in the amount of $1

, 500 per motion. Appellant has not provided this

c ourt with a reporter’s transcrip t of the hearing. On December 30, 2019, appellant filed a request to dismiss with prejudice her first case of action to remove Newman and Slaughter as directors. This was appellant’s only remaining cause of action. On January 3, 2020, the trial court si gned and entered a judgment of dismissal in favor or respondents and found them to be the prevailing parties entitled to recover costs. This appeal followed.

2 We deny respondents’ request that we take judicial notice of the prior appeal. Judicial notice is unnecessary to the resolution of this appeal.6 DISCUSSION

A

. The Trial Court Did Not Err in Granting Judgment on the
P leadings on the Ground of Mootness. The trial court granted judgment on the pleadings as to appellant’s second cause of action on the ground that it was moot. Appellant contends the trial court erred in finding the second
cause of action moot because that cause of action challeng ed the validity of the entire 2018 election and so was not rendered moot by changes to her individual membership status

. She contends, in the alternative, that the trial court abused its discretion in failing to permit her to amend her complaint.
The stan dard of review of a motion for judgment on the pleadings is the same as that for a general demurrer. ( Dunn v. County of Santa Barbara (2006) 135 Cal.App.4th 1281, 1298.) Thus, we review an order granting judgment on the pleadings de novo. ( Moore v. Rege nts of University of California (1990)
51 Cal.3d 120, 125.) We treat as true “ ‘ all material facts properly pleaded, but not contentions, deductions or conclusions
of fact or law. [Citation.] We also consider matters which may be judicially noticed.’ [ Citation.] Further, we give the complaint a reasonable interpretation, reading it as a whole and its parts in their context.” ( Blank v. Kirwan (1985) 39 Cal.3d 311, 318.) Generally, when judgment on the pleadings is sustained without leave to amend, “we decide whether there is a reasonable possibility that the defect can be cured by amendment: if it can be, the trial court has abused its discretion and we reverse; if not,
there has been no abuse of discretion and we affirm. [Citations.] The burden of p roving such reasonable possibility is squarely on the plaintiff.” ( Blank v. Kirwan

, supra , 39 Cal.3d at p. 318.)7 Moot cases are “ ‘ [t]hose in which an actual controversy did exist but, by the passage of time or a change in circumstances,
ceased to exist.’ ” ( Wilson & Wilson v. City Council of Redwood City (2011) 191 Cal.App.4th 1559, 1573 ( Wilson ) .) 3 “ Regardless of the nature of the intervening events that lead to a finding
of mootness , a common denominator in mootness cases is that the court expressly o r impliedly concludes there is no longer an existing controversy before it upon which effectual relief may be granted. ” (

Association of Irritated Residents v. Department of
Conservation (2017) 11 Cal.App.5th 1202, 1223 .) Simply put, “[a]
case becomes moo t when a court ruling can have no practical impact or cannot provide the parties with effective relief. ” ( Simi Corp. v. Garamendi (2003) 109 Cal.App.4th 1496, 1503 .) Since mootness does not arise from a pleading defect in the complaint
but from external events, it would be an unusual case in which mootness could be cured by amendment. Thus, when events render a case moot, courts should generally dismiss it. ( Parkford
Owne rs for a Better Community v. Cou nty of Placer (2020)
54 Cal.App.5th 714, 722.)
C on strued liberally, n othing in the complaint in any way
indicates appellant is challenging the validity of the entire 2018
election. In her general allegations, appellant does allege broadly
that New man and Slaughter attempted to have “select members

remove d from the organization by setting up an elaborate scheme to fix the organization’s recent annual election.” She further

3 “California courts will decide only justiciable controversies. [Citations.] The concept of justiciability is a tenet of common law jurisprudence and embodies ‘[t]he principle that courts w ill not entertain an action which is not founded on an actual controversy.’ ” ( Wilson

, supra , 191 Cal.App.4th at p. 1573.)8

alleges they disbanded the election committee so that they “could control the election process and achieve any outcome they
desired.” However, the only desired outcome alleged by appellant was removing appellant from membership : Newman and Slaughter planned and agreed to “to fix the outcome of the election by having Plaintiff voted out.” They “gave instructions to
the vote counters to take all necessary measures to ensure that the tally of votes in favor of Plaintiff did not reflect more than
50% of the votes cast.” Moreover, this is the only outcome allegedly achieved by the election fraud. Appellant alleges that after the election, she “was told she was not voted back into the organization or onto the board. Plaintiff was the only member
who was not voted back.” (Italics added.)
The second cause of action itself is entitled “De claration of Member’s Rights.” The word “member’s” i s singular, indicating it seeks the declaration of the rights of one member, appellant

. The only new allegation in the cause of action is: “As a consequence
of defendants’ wrongful actions, Plaintiff has been denied the right to participate at or vote in any meetings, including board of director’s meetings.” Nothing in this allegation suggests that appellant is seeking to invalidate the entire 2018 election or to obtain a declaration of the rights of other members

. In her prayer for relief, appellant as ks the court to declare “null and void the attempts to remove Plaintiff as a member
and/o r as a director in the August 8, 2018 election” and that “Plaintiff is a member in good standing of defendant corporation and thus entitled to vote at any board of dir ector’ s meeting ” and to enjoin certain actions by the board until her position and9

voting rights are restored. She sought no other relief related to
the 2018 election. 4
We see no error in the trial court’s determination that the
second cause of action wa s moot. A lmost immediately a fter appellant filed this lawsuit, respondents restored her membership and director voting rights, pending resolution of th e

a ction. Then, in the related writ proceedings, the trial court granted appellant a statutoril y approv ed remedy for her claim that she was wrongfully rejected from membership by the rigged
2018 election: a court

- supervised election in which members
voted on whether her membership should be renewed. (§ 5617, subd. (d).) 5 Appellant stipulated to this proc edure. She lost her membership in the court

- supervised election, and with it any eligibility to act as a director. These events left the court with no
effective relief to grant as to the second cause of action.

4 The only other re medy sought by appellant in her prayer for relief was removal o f Newman and Slaughter from office and a bar to t heir reelection, but this reli ef is unmistakably part of her First Cause of Action, entitled “Removal of Directors for Fraud, Malfeasance and Gross Misconduct.” There is no allegation that Newman and Slaughter rigged the 2018 to obtain their own seats as directors

.

5 Subdivision (d) of section 5617 provides: “ The court, consistent with the provisions of this part and in conformity with the articles and bylaws to the extent feasible, may determine the person entitled to the office of director or may order a new election to be held or appointment to be made, may determine the validity of the issuance of memberships and the right of persons to vote and may direct such other relief as may be just and proper.”10 Appellant contends that the trial court wa s statutorily required to set a hearing on the validity of the 2018 election before deciding any other matter , and the court’s failure to do so resulted in prejudicial error, specifically the mootness of her
second cause of action

. Section 5617, subdivisio n (c) provide s : “Upon the filing of the complaint, and before any further proceedings are had, the court shall enter an order fixing a date for the hearing, which shall be within five days unless for good cause shown a later date
is fixed.” The record on appeal is silent as to whether good cause for a later date was shown, and we do not presume error on the part of the trial court. ( F o ust v. San Jose Construction Co. Inc. (2011) 198 Cal.App.4th 181, 18 7 .) Even assuming the trial court delayed such a hea ring without good cause, appellant was not prejudiced by the delay. She receiv ed membership and director voting rights pending resolution of her claim of wrongful rejection from membership. The court

- supervised 2019 election was a proceeding in the writ action, not this case. More importantly,

a ppellant stipulated to the court

- supervised election with full knowledge of the status of proceedings in this case. She cannot now complain about the election’s timing. Appellant also contends the trial court “re cognized” at the August 7, 2019 writ hearing that she could proceed with this
action c hallenging the validity o f the 2018 election regardless of
the results in the court

- supervised 2019 elections in the writ proceedings

. ~ (AOB 28

- 29)
~ Appellant raised this claim in her opposition to the motion for judgment on the pleadings in this
action so the trial court was aware of her claim . A ppellant has not provided a copy of the reporter’s transcript of the August 7, 2019 hearing nor has she p rovided a copy of the reporter’s11

transcript of the hearing on the motion for judgment on the pleadings

. It is appellant’s burden to provide a reporter’s transcript or an agreed or settled statement if one is necessary for appellate review. ( F o ust v. San Jose Construction Co. Inc.

, supra , 198 Cal.App.4th at p. 186.) A judgment or order of the trial court is presumed correct, and if appellant does not provide a record which is adequate for appellate review, the decision of the trial court will ordinarily be affirmed. ( Id . at p

. 187.) There is no basis to depart from that rule here. Although the record is clear that appellant stipulated to the court

supervised election proceedings, there is no written confirmation
of the details of the stipulation or of any representations by t he trial court. In addition, t he record show s the court granted the
motion for judgment on the pleadings with an awareness of appellant’s claim . This indicates to us that the court did not agree with appellant’s recollection of what occurred at the Augus t 7, 2019 writ hearing

. Appellant contends that even if the court did not “recognize” that she could proceed nonetheless with her second cause of action, the 2019 election could not resolve her claim that
the rigging of the 2018 election deprived her of a three

- year term

as a director

. We disagree. Appellant stipulated to having her membership status determined by the 2019 election and by so stipulating she necessarily agreed that this election would decide
whether she continued as a member and director

. Put differently, only members can serve as directors, and so by deciding her membership

, the 2019 election also determined her eligibility to serve as a director.12 Finally, appellant contends that in opposition to the motion, she “repeatedly requested th e court to grant [ her ] leave to amend if it deemed any allegation to be insufficiently pled.” 6 Appellant ’s problem is not that her requests for relief were unclear or her facts insufficiently pled

. Her requests for relief are crystal clear and her claims of election fraud are very specifically pled. Her problem is that she specifically alleged that the purpose of the 2018 election rigging was to get rid of her and that
she was the only person who was removed from membership as a result of that election

. The only election

- related relief she sought
related to herself

. The only directors she sought to remove were Newman and Slaughter , and that relief was part of the First
Cause of Action only

. It is this clarity and specificity which
resulted in the second cause of action becoming moot.

B. The Court’s Ruling Denying the Motion to Quash the GoDaddy.com Subpoena Is Moot. The owner of the website LongBeachGayPride.org took steps to conceal her identity. Accordingly, respondents served a

6 On pages 3 and 4 of her o pposition brief, appell ant stated generically that if the court found the facts in the complaint to be “insufficiently alleged” or the nature of the relief sought “unclear,” she “requests leave of court to amend the complaint to cure any deficiencies.” On appeal, appellant prov ides two additional record cites she claims show requests for leave to amend, but the lines cited do not show such request s . She has not provided any record cites showing she proffered specific facts in the trial court in connection with her request to am end. Even if leave to amend could be appropriate in moot cases, appellant did not meet her burden of showing a reasonable possibility that the defect could be cured. ( Blank v. Kirwan

, supra , 39 Cal.3d at

p. 318.)13

subpoena on GoDaddy.c om to discover the owner’s identity. Respondents asserted the information was needed for their
affirmative defense of unclean hands. Appellant contends the trial court erred in denying her motion to quash this subpoena

. Appellant ’s inaction after her mot ion was denied resulted
in the revelation that the owner was her own attorney . Her
inaction rendered this claim moot

. As respondents point out, appellant did not seek a stay or writ review of the court’s ruling
and so GoD addy.com provided the name of the owner to respondents. The identity of the owner is no longer private. It is not possible to undo the unmasking. ( See Simi Corp. v. Garamendi, supra, 109 Cal.App.4th at p. 1503 [mootness occurs “when a court ruling can have no practical impact or cannot provide the parties with effective relief”].) Appellant contends that if this court f inds error , the matter could be remanded and the trial court could issue a protective order requiring re s pondents and their attorneys to destroy the “private information they received, seal the court files that might include that information” and “prohibit the use or disclosure of any information disclosed by GoDaddy.com” unless respondents filed a direct action against the owner. Appellant could have sought limitations o n the disclosure and use of the information to protect the owner’s privacy even if the trial court had correctly denied her motion. 7 Appellant has

7 Appellant has not identified what priv ate information GoDaddy.com might have provided apart from the identi ty of the owner, but a protective order limiting the use of any such information would have provided protection equivalent to its destruction. Similarly, a protective order could have li mited the use of any private information to this case or to a separate direct action.14

not provided any record citations showing she made such efforts. Further, this c ourt’s internal records do not show any efforts by appellant to protect the identity of the owner during this appeal. As a result, the information is no longer private. A protective order would have no practical impact at this point. Appellant urges us to exercise our discretion to decide this
claim even though it is moot because it involves issues of public
interest and questions of law. We decline to do so. The right to speak anonym ously is well established in case
law , and it is recognized in the context of speech on the inte rnet,

as appellant’s multiple case citations show. (See, e.g. Krinsky v.
Doe 6 (2008) 159 Cal.App.4th 1154.) This right to anonymity is not absolute and a speaker’s identity may be ordered disclosed if his or her statements are actionable. (See, e.g., G lassdoor, Inc. v. Superior Court (2017) 9 Cal.App.5th 623, 635.) The actionable
nature of a statement is fact

- dependent

, which will vary from

case to case , and so the issue cannot be decided as a matter of
law

. Although not determinati ve, an additional r eason not to decide the issue is th e state of the record on appeal. It does not appear to contain all documents relevant to the motion to quash,
and appellant has not provided a reporter’s transcript of the hearing on the motion to quash.
The requirement of notice to the anonymous speaker before disclosure of his or her identity is also well established in l aw. Further, the trial court in this case recognized the need for notice and limited the subpoena to require disclosure only if the owner/speaker were appellant or her attorney, who indisputably had notice of the subpoena. There is no need to decide any issue
of notice

.15

C

. The Trial Court’s Order Compelling Responses to Certain
RFAs Has No Further Force and Effect and the Record Is Not Adequate for Re view of the Sanctions Order. Appellant contends the trial court violated her First Amendment rights and those of non

- parties when it granted respondents’ motion to compel responses to R FAs 52 through 77.
She also contends the trial court abused its discr etion in granting
the motion because the RFAs sought ir relevant information. Appellant has expressly stated she has not appealed the first cause of action, which she voluntarily dismissed. Appellant dismissed the first cause of action without responding to the
RFAs. We have found no error in the trial court’s dismissal of her
second cause of action

. Accordingly, the trial court’s order compelling appellant to respond to the RFAs has no force or
effect. There is no more case.
The trial court did order appellant to pay sanctions in connection with the motion to compel responses to the RFAs

, but the record is inadequate to review this ruling. Even assuming the trial court abused its discretion in compelling responses to RFAs 52 through 77, the trial cour t’s order addressed more than RFAs 52 through 57: it compelled appellant to respond to other
RFAs a s well as to interrogatories. And in sanctioning appellant, the court imposed an amount less than that sought by respondent s

. Without the reporter’s transcr ipt , which a ppellant has not provided , the record is in adequate to permit appellate review. We have no way to determine the court’s reason for imposing sanctions, or even whether the sanctions were based only on appellant ’ s failure to respond to the chall enged RFAs, as opposed
to the other RFAs and interrogatories which she does not16

challenge on appeal. Accordingly, we uphold the trial court’s
order.
DISPOSITION The judgment is affirmed. Respondents to recover costs on appeal.

NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN T HE OFFICIAL REPORTS

STRATTON, J.

We concur:

GRIMES, Acting P. J.

WILEY , J.