Court Opinion

ID: 9608126
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 03:06:42.478387+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:02:43.891031
License: Public Domain

MOSK, J., Concurring and Dissenting.
I agree with the majority that the issue before us is not whether Senate Bill No. 1612 (1993-1994 Reg. Sess.) (hereafter Senate Bill No. 1612) has retrospective application. It does not. *255Rather, we must determine what the law was before Senate Bill No. 1612 was enacted to provide, in effect, a “standby letter of credit exception” to the antideficiency statutes.
I disagree with the majority that Senate Bill No. 1612 did not change prior law. In my view, far from merely “clarifying” the “true” meaning of prior law—as the majority implausibly assert—its numerous amendments and additions to the statutes reversed what the Court of Appeal aptly referred to as “the fifty years of consistent solicitude which California courts have given to the foreclosed purchase money mortgagee.”1
As the majority concede, a legislative declaration of an existing statute’s meaning is neither binding nor conclusive. “The Legislature has no authority to interpret a statute. That is a judicial task.” (Del Costello v. State of California (1982) 135 Cal.App.3d 887, 893, fn. 8 [185 Cal.Rptr. 582]; see also California Emp. etc. Com. v. Payne (1947) 31 Cal.2d 210, 213 [187 P.2d 702]; Bodinson Mfg. Co. v. California E. Com. (1941) 17 Cal.2d 321, 326 [109 P.2d 935].) As the majority also concede, the legislative interpretation of prior law in this case is particularly unworthy of deference: Nothing in the previous legislative history of letter of credit statutes suggests an intent to create an exception to the antideficiency statutes. Indeed, it is apparently only recently that standby letters of credit have been used in real estate transactions.
Accordingly, unlike the majority, I conclude that before Senate Bill No. 1612, standby letters of credit were not exempt from the antideficiency statutes precluding creditors from obtaining a deficiency judgment from a creditor following nonjudicial foreclosure on a real property loan.
I.
As the Court of Appeal emphasized, before Senate Bill No. 1612, the potential conflict between the letters of credit statutes and the antideficiency statutes posed a question of first impression, arising from the relatively recent innovation of the use of standby letters of credit as additional security *256for real estate loans. Does the so-called “independence principle”—under which letters of credit stand separate and apart from the underlying transaction—constitute an exception to the antideficiency statutes that bar deficiency judgments after a nonjudicial foreclosure on real property?
The majority conclude that even before Senate Bill No. 1612, there was no restriction on the right of a creditor to demand payment on a standby letter of credit after a nonjudicial foreclosure on real property. They are wrong.
Under the so-called “independence principle,” the issuer of a standby letter of credit “must honor a draft or demand for payment which complies with the terms of the relevant credit regardless of whether the goods or documents conform to the underlying contract for sale or other contract between the customer and the beneficiary.” (Cal. U. Com. Code, former § 5114, subd. (1), as amended by Stats. 1994, ch. 611, §4.) In turn, the issuer of a standby letter of credit “is entitled to immediate reimbursement of any payment made under the credit and to be put in effectively available funds not later than the day before maturity of any acceptance made under the credit.” (Id.., subd. (3).)2
A standby letter of credit specifically operates as a means of guaranteeing payment in the event of a future default. “A letter of credit is an engagement by an issuer (usually a bank) to a beneficiary, made at the request of a customer, which binds the bank to honor drafts up to the amount of the credit upon the beneficiary’s compliance with certain conditions specified in the letter of credit. The customer is ultimately liable to reimburse the bank. The traditional function of the letter of credit is to finance an underlying customer’s beneficiary contract for the sale of goods, directing the bank to pay the beneficiary for shipment. A different function is served by the ‘standby’ letter of credit, which directs the bank to pay the beneficiary not for his own performance but upon the customer’s default, thereby serving as a guarantee device.” (Note, “Fraud in the Transaction”: Enjoining Letters of Credit During the Iranian Revolution (1980) 93 Harv. L.Rev. 992, 992-993, fhs. omitted.)
Thus, in practical effect, a standby letter of credit constitutes a promise to provide additional funds in the event of a future default or deficiency. As such, prior to passage of Senate Bill No. 1612, it potentially came up against the restrictions of the antideficiency statutes barring a creditor from obtaining additional funds from a debtor after a nonjudicial foreclosure. Indeed, as *257the parties concede, nothing in the applicable statutes or legislative history prior to the amendments and additions enacted by Senate Bill No. 1612 created any specific exception to the antideficiency statutes for standby letters of credit. Nor did anything in the applicable statutes or legislative history “imply” that the antideficiency statutes must yield to the so-called “independence principle,” based on public policy or otherwise.
We have previously summarized the history and purpose of the antideficiency statutes as follows.
“Prior to 1933, a mortgagee of real property was required to exhaust his security before enforcing the debt or otherwise to waive all rights to his security [citations]. However, having resorted to the security, whether by judicial sale or private nonjudicial sale, the mortgagee could obtain a deficiency judgment against the mortgagor for the difference between the amount of the indebtedness and the amount realized from the sale. As a consequence during the great depression with its dearth of money and declining property values, a mortgagee was able to purchase the subject real property at the foreclosure sale at a depressed price far below its normal fair market value and thereafter to obtain a double recovery by holding the debtor for a large deficiency. [Citations.] In order to counteract this situation, California in 1933 enacted fair market value limitations applicable to both judicial foreclosure sales ([Code Civ. Proc.,] § 726) and private foreclosure sales ([id.,] § 580a) which limited the mortgagee’s deficiency judgment after exhaustion of the security to the difference between the fair [market] value of the property at the time of the sale (irrespective of the amount actually realized at the sale) and the outstanding debt for which the property was security. Therefore, if, due to the depressed economic conditions, the property serving as security was sold for less than the fair [market] value as determined under section 726 or section 580a, the mortgagee could not recover the amount of that difference in this action for a deficiency judgment. [Citation.]
“In certain situations, however, the Legislature deemed even this partial deficiency too oppressive. Accordingly, in 1933 it enacted section 580b [citation] which barred deficiency judgments altogether on purchase money mortgages. ‘Section 580b places the risk of inadequate security on the purchase money mortgagee. A vendor is thus discouraged from overvaluing the security. Precarious land promotion schemes are discouraged, for the security value of the land gives purchasers a clue as to its true market value. [Citation.] If inadequacy of security results, not from overvaluing, but from a decline in property values during a general or local depression, section 580b prevents the aggravation of the downturn that would result if defaulting *258purchasers were burdened with large personal liability. Section 580b thus serves as a stabilizing factor in land sales.’ [Citations.]
“Although both judicial foreclosure sales and private nonjudicial foreclosure sales provided for identical deficiency judgments in nonpurchase money situations subsequent to the 1933 enactment of the fair value limitations, one significant difference remained, namely property sold through judicial foreclosure was subject to the statutory right of redemption ([Code Civ. Proc.,] § 725a), while property sold by private foreclosure sale was not redeemable. By virtue of sections 725a and 701, the judgment debtor, his successor in interest or a junior lienor could redeem the property at any time during one year after the sale, frequently by tendering the sale price. The effect of this right of redemption was to remove any incentive on the part of the mortgagee to enter a low bid at the sale (since the property could be redeemed for that amount) and to encourage the making of a bid approximating the fair market value of the security. However, since real property purchased at a private foreclosure sale was not subject to redemption, the mortgagee by electing this remedy, could gain irredeemable title to the property by a bid substantially below the fair value and still collect a deficiency judgment for the difference between the fair value of the security and the outstanding indebtedness.
“In 1940 the Legislature placed the two remedies, judicial foreclosure sale and private nonjudicial foreclosure sale on a parity by enacting section 580d [citation]. Section 580d bars ‘any deficiency judgment’ following a private foreclosure sale. ‘It seems clear . . . that section 580d was enacted to put judicial enforcement on a parity with private enforcement. This result could be accomplished by giving the debtor a right to redeem after a sale under the power. The right to redeem, like proscription of a deficiency judgment, has the effect of making the security satisfy a realistic share of the debt. [Citation.] By choosing instead to bar a deficiency judgment after private sale, the Legislature achieved its purpose without denying the creditor his election of remedies. If the creditor wishes a deficiency judgment, his sale is subject to statutory redemption rights. If he wishes a sale resulting in nonredeemable title, he must forego the right to a deficiency judgment. In either case his debt is protected.’” (Cornelison v. Kornbluth (1975) 15 Cal.3d 590, 600-602 [125 Cal.Rptr. 557, 542 P.2d 981], fns. omitted.)
Over the several decades since their enactment, our courts have construed the antideficiency statutes liberally, rejecting attempts to circumvent the proscriptions against deficiency judgments after nonjudicial foreclosure. “It is well settled that the proscriptions of section 580d cannot be avoided through artifice . . . .” (Rettner v. Shepherd (1991) 231 Cal.App.3d 943, *259952 [282 Cal.Rptr. 687]; accord, Freedland v. Greco (1955) 45 Cal.2d 462, 468 [289 P.2d 463] [In construing the antideficiency statutes, “ ‘that construction is favored which would defeat subterfuges, expediencies, or evasions employed to continue the mischief sought to be remedied by the statute, or ... to accomplish by indirection what the statute forbids.’ ”]; Simon v. Superior Court (1992) 4 Cal.App.4th 63, 78 [5 Cal.Rptr.2d 428].)
Nor can the antideficiency protections be waived by the borrower at the time the loan was made. (See Civ. Code, § 2953 [such waiver “shall be void and of no effect”]; Valinda Builders, Inc. v. Bissner (1964) 230 Cal.App.2d 106, 112 [40 Cal.Rptr. 735] [The debtor’s waiver agreement was “contrary to public policy, void and ineffectual for any purpose.”].)
In this regard, as the Court of Appeal observed, two decisions are of particular relevance here; Union Bank v. Gradsky (1968) 265 Cal.App.2d 40 [71 Cal.Rptr. 64] (hereafter Gradsky), and Commonwealth Mortgage Assurance Co. v. Superior Court (1989) 211 Cal.App.3d 508 [259 Cal.Rptr. 425] (hereafter Commonwealth).
In Gradsky, the Court of Appeal held that Code of Civil Procedure section 580d operated to preclude a lender from collecting the unpaid balance of a promissory note from the guarantor after a nonjudicial foreclosure on the real property securing the debt. It concluded that if the guarantor could successfully assert an action against the borrower for reimbursement, “the obvious result is to permit the recovery of a ‘deficiency’ judgment against the [borrower] following a nonjudicial sale of the security under a different label.” (Gradsky, supra, 265 Cal.App.2d at pp. 45-46.) “The Legislature clearly intended to protect the [borrower] from personal liability following a nonjudicial sale of the security. No liability, direct or indirect, should be imposed upon the [borrower] following a nonjudicial sale of the security. To permit a guarantor to recover reimbursement from the debtor would permit circumvention of the legislative purpose in enacting section 580d.” (Id. at p. 46.)
In Commonwealth, borrowers purchased real property with a loan secured by promissory notes provided by a bank. At the bank’s request, they obtained policies of mortgage guarantee insurance to secure payment on the promissory notes. They also signed indemnity agreements promising to reimburse the mortgage insurer for any funds it paid out under the policy. When the borrowers defaulted on the promissory notes, the bank foreclosed nonjudicially on the real property. It then collected on the mortgage insurance; the mortgage insurer then brought an action for reimbursement on the indemnity agreements.
*260The Court of Appeal in Commonwealth held that reimbursement was barred by Code of Civil Procedure section 580d. It rejected the argument that the indemnity agreements constituted separate and independent obligations: “The instant indemnity agreements add nothing to the liability [the borrowers] already incurred as principal obligors on the notes .... To splinter the transaction and view the indemnity agreements as separate and independent obligations ... is to thwart the purpose of section 580d by a subterfuge [citation], a result we cannot permit.” (Commonwealth, supra, 211 Cal.App.3d at p. 517.)
The majority’s attempt to distinguish Gradsky and Commonwealth, by characterizing them as grounded in subrogation law, is unpersuasive. Indeed, in Commonwealth, subrogation law was not directly in issue; the indemnity obligation provided a contract upon which to base collection.3
The majority miss the point. As the Court of Appeal in this matter explained: “Gradsky and Commonwealth reflect the strong judicial concern about the efforts of secured real property lenders to circumvent section 580d by the use of financial transactions between debtors and third parties which involve post-nonjudicial foreclosure debt obligations for the borrowers. Their common and primary focus is on the lender’s requirement that the debtor make arrangements with a third party to pay a portion or all of the mortgage debt remaining after a foreclosure, i.e., to pay the debtor’s deficiency.”
The Legislature, in enacting Senate Bill No. 1612, expressly abrogated the Court of Appeal decision in this matter and gave primacy to the so-called “independence principle” as against the antideficiency protections. Its additions and amendments to the statutes—lobbied for, and drafted by, the California Bankers Association—significantly altered prior law. Senate Bill No. 1612, therefore, should have prospective application only.
*261In their strained attempt to reach the conclusion that Senate Bill No. 1612 governs this case, the majority adopt the fiction that a standby letter of credit is an “idiosyncratic” form of “security” or the “functional equivalent” of cash collateral. They offer no sound support for such an approach. There is none.4
As the Court of Appeal observed, from the perspective of the debtor, a standby letter of credit is not cash or its equivalent. It is, instead, a promise to provide additional funds in the event of future default or deficiency and has the practical consequence of requiring the debtor to pay additional money on the debt after default or foreclosure.5 Moreover, unlike cash, which can be pledged as collateral security only once, a standby letter of credit does not require a debtor to part with its own funds until payment is made and thus permits a borrower to use standby letters of credit in a large number of transactions separately. Cash collateral, by contrast, does not impose personal liability on the borrower following a trustee’s sale and does not encourage speculative lending practices.
As the Court of Appeal observed: “For us to conclude that such use of a standby letter of credit is the same as an increased cash investment (whether or not from borrowed funds) is to deny reality and to invite the very overvaluation and potential aggravation of an economic downturn which the antideficiency legislation was originally enacted to prevent.”
*262II.
The Court of Appeal correctly concluded that, before Senate Bill No. 1612, there was no implied exception to the antideficiency statutes for letters of credit. It erred, however, in holding that Western Security Bank, N.A. (Western) could have refused to honor the letter of credit on the ground that the Beverly Hills Business Bank (Bank), in presenting the letters of credit after a nonjudicial foreclosure, worked an “implied” fraud on Vista Place Associates (Vista).
The Court of Appeal cited former California Uniform Commercial Code former section 5114, subdivision (2)(b), which provides that when there has been a notification from the customer of “fraud, forgery or other defect not apparent on the face of the documents,” the issuer “may”—but is not obligated to—“honor the draft or demand for payment.”(Cal. U. Com. Code, § 5114, subd. (2)(b) as amended by Stats. 1994, ch. 611, § 4.)6 The statute is inapplicable under the present facts.
Western, presented with a demand for payment on a letter of credit, was limited to determining whether the documents presented by the beneficiary complied with the letter of credit—a purely ministerial task of comparing the documents presented against the description of the documents in the letter of credit. If the documents comply on their face, the issuer must honor the draw, regardless of disputes concerning the underlying transaction. (Lumbermans Acceptance Co. v. Security Pacific Nat. Bank (1978) 86 Cal.App.3d 175, 178 [150 Cal.Rptr. 69]; Cal. U. Com. Code, former § 5109, subd. (2) as added by Stats. 1963, ch. 819, § 1, p. 1934.) Thus, in this case, Western was not entitled to look beyond the documents presented by the Bank and refuse to honor the standby letter of credit based on a potential violation of the antideficiency statutes in the underlying transaction.
In my view, the concurring and dissenting opinion by Justice Kitching in the Court of Appeal correctly reconciled the policies behind standby letter of credit law and the antideficiency provisions of Code of Civil Procedure section 580d, as they existed before Senate Bill No. 1612. Thus, I would conclude that Western was obligated, under the so-called “independence principle,” to honor the standby letter of credit presented by the Bank. None of the limited exceptions to that rule applied. Western was not, however, without recourse. It was entitled to seek reimbursement from Vista, pursuant *263to former California Uniform Commercial Code former section 5114, subdivision (3) and its promissory notes. Vista, in turn, could seek disgorgement from the Bank, if it has not legally waived its protection under Code of Civil Procedure section 580d—an issue that is not before us and should be remanded to the trial court. As Justice Kitching’s concurrence and dissent concluded, “[t]his procedure would retain certainty in the California letter of credit market while implementing the policies supporting section 580d.”
Kennard, J., concurred.

 Among other things, Senate Bill No. 1612 amended Civil Code section 2787, added Code of Civil Procedure sections 580.5 and 580.7, and amended California Uniform Commercial Code former section 5114. (See Stats. 1994, ch. 611, §§ 1-6.) It appears, however, that our decision in this matter will have limited application. It will operate only when: (a) a lender obtained a standby letter of credit prior to September 15, 1994, the effective date of Senate Bill No. 1612, to support a transaction secured by a deed of trust against real property; (b) the creditor defaulted on the déed of trust; (c) the lender elected to foreclose by way of trustee’s sale rather than through judicial foreclosure; and (d) the lender thereafter demanded payment under the standby letter of credit. In view of the limited precedential value of this case, a better course would have been to dismiss review as improvidently granted.

 As the reference to “goods or documents” in the statute suggests, the drafters appear to have contemplated use of letters of credit in commercial financial transactions, not as additional security in real estate transactions.

 In any event, the analogy between standby letters of credit and guarantees is not as “forced” as the majority would suggest. As one commentator recently observed, “upon closer analysis, the borders between standby credits and contracts of guarantee are not so well settled as they may first appear.” (McLaughlin, Standby Letters of Credit and Guaranties: An Exercise in Cartography (1993) 34 Wm. & Mary L.Rev. 1139, 1140; see also Alces, An Essay on Independence, Interdependence, and the Suretyship Principle (1993) 1993 U. Ill. L.Rev. 447 [rejecting distinction between letters of credit and “secondary obligations,” i.e., guarantees and sureties].) Moreover, “courts have long recognized that, in a sense, issuers of credits ‘must be regarded as sureties.’ [Citation.] A seller of goods often insists on a commercial letter of credit because he is unsure of the buyer’s ability to pay. The standby letter of credit arises out of situations in which the beneficiary wants to guard against the applicant’s nonperformance. In both instances, the credit serves in the nature of a guaranty.” Dolan, The Law of Letters of Credit: Commercial and Standby Credits (2d ed. 1991) § 2.10[1], pp. 2-61 to 2-62.)

 The principal “authority” cited by the majority for the proposition that standby letters of credit are the “functional equivalent” of cash collateral is a student law review note published over a decade ago—and apparently never cited in any case in California or elsewhere. (Comment, The Independence Rule in Standby Letters of Credit (1985) 52 U. Chi. L.Rev. 218.) Significantly, the note nowhere discusses the use of standby letters of credit in transactions involving purchase money mortgages or the potential conflict between the so-called “independence principle” and antideficiency statutes. Indeed, it assumes that “[t]hose who engage in standby letter of credit transactions are usually large corporate or governmental entities with access to high-quality counsel and are thus in a position to evaluate and respond to the risks involved.” (Id. at p. 238.) Needless to say, that is often not the case in real property transactions, particularly those involving residential property. As a leading commentator observed: “the motivation of the parties to a real estate secured transaction is frequently other than purely commercial, and their relative bargaining power is often grossly disproportionate.” (Hetland & Hansen, The “Mixed Collateral” Amendments to California’s Commercial Code—Covert Repeal of California’s Real Property Foreclosure and Antideficiency Provisions or Exercise in Futility? (1987) 75 Cal.L.Rev. 185, 188, fn. omitted.)

 Although it appears to be uncommon, an issuer of a standby letter of credit may demand security from its customer in the form of cash collateral or personal property as a condition for issuing the letter of credit. In the event of a draw on the letter of credit, the issuer would then have recourse to the pledged security, up to the value of the draw, without requiring its customer to pay additional money. Whether a real estate lender’s draw on a standby letter of credit backed by security, and not by a mere promise to pay, would fall within the mixed security rule is a difficult question that need not be addressed here.

 An issuer’s obligations and rights are now governed by California Uniform Commercial Code section 5108, enacted in 1996 as part of Senate Bill No. 1599. (Stats. 1996, ch. 176, § 7.) The same legislation repealed section 5114, relating to the issuer’s duty to honor a draft or demand for payment, as part of the repeal of division 5, Letters of Credit. (Stats. 1996, ch. 176, §6.)