Opinion ID: 774844
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Attorneys' Claims Were Untimely

Text: 25 Supplemental Rule C(6) provides a 10-day deadline for filing property claims after process has been executed. The claimants argue that they filed their claims and answers the first day possible after the district court enjoined enforcement of a state court writ of execution. But that was not the first day the attorneys could have filed their claims. Rather, this forfeiture action has been pending since 1989, and the attorneys' claims were perfected in October 1991. At that time, the claimants had notice of this action and could have intervened as judgment creditors. Their reason for not doing so is essentially that the government's interest was then senior to theirs. Just because their claims were not obviously winning ones does not excuse their failure to file in a timely fashion. The conduct of the attorneys seems to undermine their argument that filing claims would have been futile; while the attorneys' claims seemed to be junior to the government's, they actively attacked the government's seniority. Cal. Civ. Proc. Code §§ 405.61 provides that withdrawal of lis pendens relieves of actual knowledge all non-parties to an action at the time of recording of the notice of withdrawal. See Knapp Development & Design v. Pal-Mal Properties, Ltd., 240 Cal. Rptr. 920, 923 (Ct. App. 1987) (Recordation of an expungement order expressly eliminates binding knowledge of the pendency of an action to any person other than a party to the action who becomes a purchaser, transferee, mortgagee or other encumbrancer for value of any interest in subject real property prior to recordation of judgment in the action.). Had the attorneys filed their claims in a timely fashion, they would have been parties to the action, and their claims would not be superior to the government's. The logic of the attorneys' claim is therefore circular: They argue they did not have to follow Rule C(6)'s filing requirements until they had a plausible basis for seniority, but that basis (that the government's claim on the defendant real property lost seniority because of the withdrawal of lis pendens) is only plausible because they did not follow the filing requirements.