Opinion ID: 1265458
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Tolling of Statute Under Section 583.340, Subdivision (c)

Text: (3a) Plaintiff claims that, even without the aid of the Moran case, the five-year statute had not yet expired at the time the motion to specially set was made, and that the trial court erred in dismissing the case on mandatory grounds. Specifically, plaintiff contends that the statute governing the tolling of the five-year period in this case is not section 1141.17, as defendant contends, but section 583.340, which provides that In computing the time within which an action must be brought to trial pursuant to this article, there shall be excluded the time during which any of the following conditions existed: [¶] ... [¶] (c) Bringing the action to trial ... was impossible, impracticable, or futile. Plaintiff argues that, from the date that the arbitration award became final on September 22, 1991 (30 days after the arbitrator's decision was rendered) until December 31, 1991, when defendant paid the sanctions on the motion to set aside the default and defendant's request for a trial de novo went into effect, it was impossible, impracticable, or futile to bring the case to trial, and therefore the five-year statute should be tolled for that entire one-hundred-one-day period. If that were the case, then the motion to specially set filed on July 7, 1992, was made not, as the trial court calculated it, and as defendant now contends, after the expiration of the five-year statute, but in fact forty-four days before that date. Defendant takes issue with plaintiff's calculations and her supporting legal arguments. Defendant's argument begins from the principle that, as noted above, section 1141.17 provides the sole means for the automatic tolling of a statute resulting from submission of an action to arbitration. Under section 1141.17, subdivision (a), such tolling will only commence if the action is or remains submitted to arbitration pursuant to this chapter more than four years and six months after the plaintiff has filed the action. Defendant then contends that, since the four-year six-month period after filing did not commence until November 12, 1991, no tolling of the statute occurred before that date. Defendant concedes that the tolling period continued until December 31, 1991, when the sanctions were paid. Thus, the tolling period only lasted for 49 days, which, when added on to the original May 12, 1992, date for the expiration of the 5-year period, brings the expiration date to June 30, 1992. Plaintiff's motion to specially set the case for trial on July 7, 1992, was therefore made, by defendant's reckoning, after the tolling date had expired, and the trial court had no choice but to deny it. We disagree, however, that section 1141.17 controls. As noted in part II of this opinion, section 1141.17 only governs actions that are tolled as the result of submission of an action to arbitration, and does not govern postarbitration tolling caused by other means. The present action remained submitted to arbitration until the 30-day period for requesting a trial de novo had run. (§§ 1141.17, subd. (b), 1141.20, subd. (a).) After that time, plaintiff entered into a postarbitration period during which, she claims, it was impossible, impracticable, or futile within the meaning of section 583.340, subdivision (c), for her to prosecute the action. This impossibility arose not because of the submission of the action to arbitration, as defendant contends, but because of the postarbitration state of the litigation, namely defendant's own default. We agree that a tolling due to a postarbitration condition of impossibility, impracticability or futility is controlled not by section 1141.17, but by section 583.340, subdivision (c). [4] As for the specifics of plaintiff's argument, we agree that the five-year statute was tolled from September 22, 1991, until December 31, 1991. (4) The determination whether it was impossible, impracticable, or futile to bring a case to trial within a given time period is generally fact specific, depending on the obstacles faced by the plaintiff in prosecuting the action and the plaintiff's exercise of reasonable diligence in overcoming those obstacles. (See Hughes v. Kimble (1992) 5 Cal. App.4th 59, 67 [6 Cal. Rptr.2d 616].) Nonetheless, there are some circumstances in which it can be said almost invariably that the exception applies. Such is the case when a default judgment has been entered in favor of the plaintiff, effectively bringing the litigation to a standstill. ( Id. at p. 68; Maguire v. Collier (1975) 49 Cal. App.3d 309, 313 [122 Cal. Rptr. 510]; Ford v. Superior Court (1973) 34 Cal. App.3d 338, 343 [109 Cal. Rptr. 844].) (3b) A judgment was entered on plaintiff's behalf on October 1, 1991, after defendant's failure to request a trial de novo. The case remained in a statutory limbo during the period in which defendant attempted to vacate the default, until defendant succeeded in that endeavor on December 31, 1991. The five-year statute must be considered tolled between those dates. The week prior to the entry of the judgment must also be excluded. On September 22, 1991, the 30-day period for requesting a trial de novo had expired. There was nothing left for plaintiff to do but to ensure that the court entered the arbitrator's award as a judgment on her behalf. This the court did one week later. In the context of a default judgment, courts have held that a reasonable period of time between the defendant's default and the entry of the default judgment should also be excluded from the calculation of the five-year period. ( Hughes v. Kimble, supra, 5 Cal. App.4th at p. 69; Maguire v. Collier, supra, 49 Cal. App.3d at p. 313; Vanyek v. Heard (1971) 18 Cal. App.3d 467, 471 [95 Cal. Rptr. 750].) In this case, the one week between the finalization of the arbitrator's award and the entry of judgment was an indubitably reasonable period. (Cf. Hughes v. Kimble, supra, 5 Cal. App.4th at p. 70 [gap of three years between default and judgment unreasonable and does not toll five-year statute].) We therefore find that the five-year statute was tolled as of September 22, 1991. As defendant now concedes, the date on which the tolling period ended was neither November 27, the day the default judgment was conditionally vacated, nor December 4, 1991, the date on which the defendant requested a trial de novo, but rather December 31, 1991, when defendant paid the $2,000 sanction that was the condition of vacating the judgment. [5] Thus, the five-year statute was tolled for 101 days. Adding this on to the May 12, 1992, date on which the five-year statute was originally supposed to have expired, the new five-year date was August 21, 1992. Therefore, when the motion to specially set was filed on July 7, 1992, the five-year statute had not expired, and in fact there were forty-four days remaining in the five-year period. We thus conclude that the trial court erred in dismissing the case on mandatory grounds under section 583.310.