Court Opinion

ID: 9955944
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-03-29 19:02:27.310286+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:15:41.301977
License: Public Domain

Filed 3/29/24 Gael v. California Physicians’ Service 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   NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN THE OFFICIAL REPORTS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has not been certified for publication or ordered published for purposes of rule 8.1115.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

MICHAEL GAEL et al.,                                            B327266

         Plaintiffs and Appellants,                             Los Angeles County
                                                                Super. Ct. No. 19TRCV00386
         v.

CALIFORNIA PHYSICIANS’
SERVICE,

         Defendant and Respondent.

      APPEAL from a judgment of the Superior Court of
Los Angeles County, Gary Y. Tanaka, Judge. Affirmed.
      Law Office of Josiah Young, Josiah Young and Michael D.
McClelland for Plaintiffs and Appellants.
      Manatt, Phelps & Phillips, Ileana M. Hernandez, Craig S.
Rutenberg and Joanna S. McCallum for Defendant and
Respondent.
                       ____________________
      Two men were injured while visiting Costa Rica. They
spent six days in a hospital there, then took an air ambulance to
a hospital in California. The ambulance company billed the
men’s health insurance company, which denied coverage on the
ground that the air ambulance was not medically necessary. The
men and the ambulance company sued the insurance company.
The trial court granted summary judgment for the insurance
company. On appeal, the men and the ambulance company
exclude pertinent documents from their record, do not cite
evidence of a disputed fact, and raise new theories. We affirm.
       We review an order granting summary judgment under the
familiar standard. (Aguilar v. Atlantic Richfield Co. (2001) 25
Cal.4th 826, 843, 850–851, 860 (Aguilar).) We presume
judgments are correct and appellants have the burden
affirmatively to demonstrate error. (Claudio v. Regents of the
University of California (2005) 134 Cal.App.4th 224, 230 & 252
(Claudio).)
       Although appellate courts independently review orders
granting summary judgment (Aguilar, supra, 25 Cal.4th at p.
860), the appellants have provided an insufficient record to do so.
Appellants must furnish appellate records sufficient to consider
the issues on appeal and our review is limited to matters in that
record. (People v. Neilson (2007) 154 Cal.App.4th 1529, 1534
(Neilson).) The appellants excluded from the appellate record
many pertinent documents, most notably the insurance
company’s summary judgment motion and evidence and the
appellants’ opposition evidence. We therefore presume the trial
court correctly found the insurance company met its burdens.
       The appellants have not identified a triable issue of fact.
Appellants must identify a triable issue by citing the record.
(Claudio, supra, 134 Cal.App.4th at p. 230; Cal. Rules of Court,
rule 8.204(a)(1)(C) [briefs must support references to matters in

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the record by citing the volume and page number where the
matter appears].) Specifically, to establish a disputed fact,
parties must point to evidence in the record. (Jackson v. County
of Los Angeles (1997) 60 Cal.App.4th 171, 178, fn. 4.) The fact
section of the appellants’ opening brief exclusively cites the
unverified complaint rather than evidence. The appellants say
they produced expert testimony that opposed the insurance
company’s evidence and point to pages 446 to 456 of their
appendix. These pages are not in the appendix. If they had been
included, this single citation without an explanation of the
supposed disputed fact would be insufficient. The appellants also
cite pages 863 and 865 of their appendix to argue they presented
evidence that established a disputed fact. Those are pages of the
trial court’s ruling and are not evidence. The appellants fail to
identify a triable issue of fact.
       In their reply brief, the appellants blame the insurance
company for “any issue with the record,” but this belated point is
incorrect. The record is their burden. (Neilson, supra, 154
Cal.App.4th at p. 1534.) The appellants complain the insurance
company made an “unjustified and overbroad” request to seal
records in the trial court. Their briefs do not attempt to explain
this issue further. In the trial court, they did not file an
opposition to the motion to seal and they skipped the hearing on
it. On appeal, they have not provided redacted versions or sealed
versions of the missing records. Nor have they moved to unseal
records. (See Cal. Rules of Court, rule 8.46(f).) Their appendix
also excludes nonsealed records, such as their own opposition
evidence. It is unclear how the insurance company would be at
fault for that omission. The insurance company’s submission of
its own appendices, which the appellants never cite, is

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inconsequential. These appendices do not change that the
appellants provided an insufficient record and have not cited a
triable issue of fact.
       The appellants forfeited theories they failed to raise in the
trial court. On appeal from a grant of summary judgment, we
need not consider arguments or theories that plaintiffs did not
advance in the trial court. (DiCola v. White Brothers Performance
Products. Inc. (2008) 158 Cal.App.4th 666, 676.) The appellants
argue the trial court erred by failing to apply the “prudent
layperson standard.” They did not raise this theory in the trial
court. They argue other new theories, including theories about a
contractual provision being ambiguous and arguments about
different statutory provisions, which they also forfeited.
                          DISPOSITION
       We affirm and award costs to California Physicians’
Service.

                                           WILEY, J.

We concur:

             STRATTON, P. J.

             GRIMES, J.

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