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Filed 12/19/13

CERTIFIED FOR PUBLICATION

IN THE COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA

FIRST APPELLATE DISTRICT

DIVISION THREE

KAUSHIK DATTANI, et al.,

Plaintiffs and Appellants,

v.

GEEN HONE LEE,

Defendant and Respondent.

 A138582

 (San Francisco County

 Super. Ct. No. CGC-11-509290)

Defendant and respondent Geen Hone Lee has moved to dismiss the appeal of 

plaintiffs and appellants Kaushik Dattani, et al. (Dattanis) on the ground that their notice 

of appeal was not timely filed. We conclude that an appealable judgment was created 

when Dattanis filed a request for dismissal without prejudice of all of their causes of 

action that remained after a grant of summary adjudication against them. Thus, the notice 

of appeal filed more than 180 days after the date of this judgment, was untimely. We 

therefore grant the motion to dismiss.

I. BACKGROUND

Dattanis filed a four-count complaint against respondent. By order dated June 27, 

2012, the court granted respondent’s motion for summary adjudication of Dattanis’s first 

cause of action. On September 10, 2012, Dattanis filed a request for dismissal of all the 

remaining causes of action. According to counsel’s uncontested declaration in support of 

the motion to dismiss this appeal, she appeared on September 10, 2012, for trial of the 

second, third, and fourth causes of action. Dattanis’s attorney appeared and told her that 

he was dismissing those causes of action “in order to pursue an appeal.” 

The request for dismissal was filed on the requisite Judicial Council form with a 

section to be completed by the clerk showing whether or not dismissal was entered as 
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requested. This section of the form was never completed by the clerk. The court’s 

register of actions for September 10, 2012, states: “Removed from master court calendar 

set for Sep-10-2012 – off calendar. Plaintiff’s counsel represented to the court that the 

1st cause of action was adjudicated on 6/27/12 and a dismissal of all the other causes of 

action was filed on 9/10/12.” 

On April 16, 2013, the court filed a “Judgment by the Court Under C.C.P. § 437c” 

prepared by Dattanis’s counsel. The judgment states: “On June 27, 2012, this Court 

granted [respondent’s] motion for summary adjudication on the first cause of action . . . . 

On September 10, 2012, [Dattanis] dismissed their remaining causes of action . . . . 

Accordingly, [Dattanis] have no further claims to prosecute, and the Court orders that 

judgment shall be entered in favor of [respondent]. [Dattanis] shall recover nothing on 

their complaint.” 

On May 6, 2013, Dattanis filed a notice of appeal from the April 16 judgment. 

They checked the box on the form stating that the appeal was from a “[j]udgment after an 

order granting a summary judgment motion.” 

II. DISCUSSION

Respondent contends that Dattanis’s request for dismissal was the equivalent of a 

judgment on the day it was filed, and appealable. If respondent is correct, then Dattanis’s

notice of appeal was untimely. Under California Rules of Court, rule 8.104(a)(1)(C), the 

latest possible time to file a notice of appeal is 180 days after entry of judgment. If the 

request for dismissal was tantamount to a judgment, then judgment was entered on 

September 10, 2012, the date the request was filed by the clerk. (Palmer v. GTE 

California, Inc. (2003) 30 Cal.4th 1265, 1268, fn. 2 [“a judgment’s date of filing, as 

shown on a file stamp, is the judgment’s date of entry”].) The notice of appeal was filed 

more than 180 days later, in May 2013.

 “Ordinarily, a plaintiff’s voluntary dismissal is deemed to be nonappealable on 

the theory that dismissal of the action is a ministerial action of the clerk, not a judicial 

act.” (Stewart v. Colonial Western Agency, Inc. (2001) 87 Cal.App.4th 1006, 1012 

(Stewart).) However, a series of cases beginning with Ashland Chemical Co. v. Provence
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(1982) 129 Cal.App.3d 790 (Ashland) recognized an exception to this rule and “allowed 

appeals by plaintiffs who dismissed their complaints after an adverse ruling by the trial 

court, on the theory the dismissals were not really voluntary, but only done to expedite an 

appeal.” (Id. at p. 793; see id. at p. 792 [the plaintiff asked the clerk to dismiss the 

compliant with prejudice “ ‘only for the purpose of expediting appeal’ ” after the court 

sustained the defendant’s demurrer without leave to amend]; Denney v. Lawrence (1994) 

22 Cal.App.4th 927, 930, fn. 1 (Denney) [following Ashland; parties stipulated to a 

“judgment of dismissal” after a ruling adverse to the plaintiff in a defamation action]; 

Casey v. Overhead Door Corp. (1999) 74 Cal.App.4th 112, 116, fn. 2 (Casey), 

disapproved on another ground in Jimenez v. Superior Court (2002) 29 Cal.4th 473, 481, 

fn. 1 [following Ashland and Denney; court granted the defendant’s motion for summary 

adjudication and an in limine motion on the remaining cause of action; the defendant’s 

motion for “nonsuit/directed verdict” was granted and a “stipulated judgment” was 

entered for the defendant].)

Ashland, Denney, and Casey stand for the propositions that an appeal will lie 

“when a dismissal was requested after an adverse trial court ruling so that an appeal could 

be taken promptly,” and the request for such dismissal “operates as a request for an entry 

of judgment based on the adverse ruling.” (Denney, supra, 22 Cal.App.4th at p. 930, fn. 

1.) It is unclear whether a judgment was entered in Ashland (Ashland, supra, 129 

Cal.App.3d at p. 792), but judgments were entered in Denney and Casey from which the 

appellants appealed. (Denney, supra, at p. 930; Casey, supra, 74 Cal.App.4th at p. 116.) 

Here, no judgment was filed when the request for dismissal was made, and Denney, 

Casey, and possibly Ashland may be distinguished on that ground.

The distinction was eliminated in Stewart, where the reasoning of Ashland, 

Denney, and Casey was extended to permit an appeal even though the record “contain[ed] 

no judgment or order of dismissal and no indication that either was ever entered.” 

(Stewart, supra, 87 Cal.App.4th at p. 1012.) But Stewart may also be distinguishable. 

That appeal contested an order for sanctions, and the parties agreed “that a settlement had 

been reached and a request for voluntary dismissal [was] entered with a stipulation that 
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the sanction order would be appealed.” (Stewart, supra, at p. 1012.) “Since the parties 

[were] in agreement that [a] dismissal was entered with the stipulation that appeal from 

the trial court’s order imposing sanctions was to follow, [the appellate court was] 

satisfied that an appealable order exist[ed].” (Ibid.) There is no agreement about 

appealability in the record here.

The next relevant case, and the one that most directly supports our holding, is 

Gutkin v. University of Southern California (2002) 101 Cal.App.4th 967 (Gutkin). There, 

the plaintiff appellant sued a university and several individual defendants. A motion to 

dismiss the individual defendants was granted after their demurrers were sustained, and 

the case proceeded against the university. On August 10, 2001, in the face of a 

threatened motion directed at his remaining claims, the plaintiff appellant “filed a 

voluntary request for dismissal of his complaint ‘without prejudice’ ” (Gutkin, supra, 

101 Cal.App.4th at p. 973.) “[The appellant] filed a notice of appeal on August 17, 2001. 

He then twice sought entry of judgment of dismissal on the basis of the trial court’s 

orders sustaining the demurrers to five of the seven causes of action and dismissal of the 

individual defendants, as well as his own voluntary dismissal of the action. The court 

clerk rejected [the appellant’s] proposed judgment of dismissal because a dismissal of the 

complaint had been entered and notice of dismissal given. [The appellant] then followed 

with a ‘supplemental notice of appeal’ on October 4, 2001.” (Ibid.)

The Gutkin court held that the rulings on the demurrers could be contested in an 

appeal filed following the request for dismissal. The court reasoned that the appellant 

could not voluntarily dismiss the causes of action to which demurrers had been sustained

and, citing Ashland, Casey, and Stewart, held “that even though the trial court refused to 

enter judgment following his voluntary dismissal of the complaint, the court’s order 

sustaining the demurrers without leave to amend, combined with the dismissal of the 

action, had the legal effect of a final, appealable judgment.” (Gutkin, supra, 101 

Cal.App.4th at p. 974-975 [italics added].) We likewise conclude that the granting of 

summary adjudication on the first cause of action here, combined with Dattanis’s request 
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for dismissal of the remaining causes of action, created a “final, appealable judgment” 

that enabled Dattanis to contest the summary adjudication.

Dattanis have filed an opening brief doing just that. They contend that summary 

adjudication of the first cause of action was erroneous. They do not contest the causes of 

action they voluntarily dismissed, and could not do so under Gutkin. Gutkin held that the 

appellant there could not challenge rulings on the causes of action that were not resolved 

by the demurrers in that case because, as to those causes of action, the appeal was barred

by the rule that voluntary dismissals are not appealable. (Gutkin, supra, 101 Cal.App.4th 

at p. 975.) We have no reason to question that aspect of Gutkin here.

Gutkin could be distinguished on the ground that, in that case, “a dismissal of the 

complaint had been entered and notice of dismissal given.” (Gutkin, supra, 101 

Cal.App.4th at p. 973.) Here, the trial court clerk merely filed and stamped Dattanis’s

request for dismissal on September 10, 2012. Dattanis do not contend that the dismissal 

was ineffective on that date, and they would be estopped from so arguing because the 

purported “judgment” they filed in April 2013 stated that they had “no further claims to 

prosecute” because they “dismissed their remaining causes of action” on that date. That 

estoppel aside, we hold that the mere filing of the request for dismissal, without further 

action by the clerk, dismissed the remaining claims from the suit and created an 

appealable judgment from which Dattanis could have contested the summary 

adjudication ruling. As recently confirmed by the decision in Kurwa v. Kislinger (2013) 

57 Cal.4th 1097 (Kurwa), the request for dismissal effectively ended proceedings in the 

trial court, even though the causes of action were dismissed without prejudice. (Compare 

Goldbaum v. Regents of the University of California (2011) 191 Cal.App.4th 703, 708 

[suggesting that a dismissal with prejudice is required to create an appealable judgment]).

In Kurwa, the plaintiff dismissed some of his causes of action with prejudice after 

an adverse pretrial ruling. The parties agreed to dismiss their remaining claims against 

each other without prejudice, and to waive the statute of limitations applicable to those 

claims. Judgment was entered for the defendant from which the plaintiff appealed. The

court held that the judgment was not final and appealable under the one final judgment 
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rule because the claims dismissed without prejudice were preserved for later litigation by 

the waiver of the statute of limitations. (Kurwa, supra, 57 Cal.4th at pp. 1100, 1105.)

Kurwa’s relevance here is that it did not attribute the lack of finality to the 

dismissal of some of the causes of action without prejudice. The judgment was not final 

because of the agreement to waive the statute of limitations as to those causes of action in 

order to preserve them for future litigation. Kurwa quoted with approval the decision in 

Abatti v. Imperial Irrigation Dist. (2012) 205 Cal.App.4th 650 (Abatti), where the court 

held: “Dismissal of some counts without prejudice, by itself, does not deprive a 

judgment of appealability, as ‘claims that are dismissed without prejudice are no less 

final for purposes of the one final judgment rule than are adjudicated claims . . . .’ 

(Abatti, supra, at p. 665.) But where the parties have reached an agreement that assures 

the potential for future litigation of the dismissed claims, the judgment ‘lacks sufficient 

finality to be appealable pursuant to the one final judgment rule.’ (Id. at p. 667.)” 

(Kurwa, supra, 57 Cal.4th 1097 at p. 1104.) “A plaintiff or cross-complainant has, of 

course, the right to voluntarily dismiss a cause of action without prejudice prior to trial. 

[Citations.] And as the Abatti court explained, such a dismissal, unaccompanied by any 

agreement for future litigation, does create sufficient finality as to that cause of action so 

as to allow appeal from a judgment disposing of the other counts.” (Id. at p. 1105.)

Here, Dattanis’s dismissal of the remaining claims without prejudice operated as a 

final judgment that resolved all the claims between the parties. Were we to conclude 

otherwise, there would be no consequence to a plaintiff who dismisses claims to facilitate 

appellate review but delays years before seeking entry of judgment. At some point a 

defendant is entitled to finality. The appeal was filed more than 180 days after judgment 

and is untimely.
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III. DISPOSITION

The appeal is dismissed.

_________________________

Siggins, J.

We concur:

_________________________

McGuiness, P.J.

_________________________

Jenkins, J.
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A138582

Trial Court: San Francisco County Superior Court

Trial Judge: Hon. Harold E. Kahn

Counsel for Plaintiffs and Appellants: Michael Timothy Heath, 

 and

Howard Olsen 

 of Law Office of Michael Heath

Counsel for Defendant and Respondent: Hannah C. Leung

 of Leung & Associates

Christine A. Chorney

 of Casalina & Disston