Court Opinion

ID: 9546224
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 17:26:25.592684+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:16:10.546780
License: Public Domain

LUCAS, J.
I respectfully dissent.
The majority has failed to conform to the fundamental principles applicable to appellate review of a trial court decision to grant or deny relief pursuant to section 473 of the Code of Civil Procedure. (All further references are to this code.) I cannot agree that the trial court abused its discretion in denying plaintiffs’ motion and that it erred as a matter of law.
When a motion for relief is brought, the burden is upon the moving party to show entitlement to such relief. (Marcotte v. Municipal Court (1976) 64 Cal.App.3d 235, 239 [134 Cal.Rptr. 314]; Goodson v. The Bogerts, Inc. (1967) 252 Cal.App.2d 32, 38 [60 Cal.Rptr. 146].) The motion is “addressed to the sound discretion of the trial court and in the absence of a clear showing of abuse thereof the exercise of that discretion will not be disturbed on appeal. [Citations.]” (Coyne v. Krempels (1950) 36 Cal.2d 257, 263 [223 P.2d 244]; see Carroll v. Abbott Laboratories, Inc. (1982) 32 Cal.3d 892, 897-898 [187 Cal.Rptr. 592, 654 P.2d 775].) Further “the discretion to be exercised is that of the trial court, not that of the reviewing court. Thus, even if the reviewing court might have ruled otherwise in the first instance, the trial court’s order will yet not be reversed unless, as a matter of law, it is not supported by the record. (Coyne v. Krempels, [supra] 36 Cal.2d 257, 263.)” (Martin v. Johnson (1979) 88 Cal.App.3d 595, 604 [151 Cal.Rptr. 816]; see also Willett v. Schmeister Mfg. Co. (1926) 80 Cal.App. 337, 341 [251 P. 932].)
In amending section 2033 to provide that a party seeking relief shall have 30 days in which to bring a section 473 motion, the Legislature did not evidence any intent to depart from long-held interpretations of the application of section 473, any more than it “evince[d] a legislative intent to deny relief to parties whose neglect would otherwise be excusable under section 473.” (Ante, pp. 236-237.) Thus, in accordance with the usual practice, it was incumbent upon the plaintiffs to “demonstrate that such mistake, inadvertence, or general neglect [assertedly attributable to his counsel] was excusable . . . .” (Carroll v. Abbott Laboratories, Inc., supra, 32 Cal.3d at p. 898.)
A review of the affidavits presented and the “excuses” offered therein reveal no sufficient justification. The original motion for relief was accom*240panied by an affidavit dated August 19, 1981, by plaintiffs’ counsel. In relevant part it stated that “Shortly after June 1, 1981, I received in my office . . . Request for Admission and Interrogatories. Our office has been shorthanded in the number of attorneys here since two attorneys left earlier this summer. I have been extensively engaged in litigation and business matters and because of my mistake and inadvertence did not prepare a response to these requests prior to July 1, 1981.” Counsel thus admitted in the affidavit receiving the request in a timely fashion. As to actual excuses for the failure to timely answer, he mentions only the “press of business” and, in conclusory terms, his “mistake and inadvertence.” The loss of two attorneys in the firm is recited, but the date and length of advance notice of their departure, whether they had been replaced, their role regarding this case, and, in short, the actual effect of the move on plaintiffs’ counsel and this matter are never described.
The attorney for the County of Stanislaus responded and objected to the affidavit “on the basis that it is conclusory and contains insufficient facts upon which the court can grant relief.” (Compare Nilsson v. City of Los Angeles (1967) 249 Cal.App.2d 976, 982 [58 Cal.Rptr. 20] [failure to object to “conclusional terms” in affidavits was found to render them competent evidence].)1 In a supplemental declaration plaintiffs’ counsel then asserted that he was not aware “of the exact date [the] Request for Admissions came into our office .... Because of the shorthandedness in our office the Request . . . became misplaced and I did not become aware of them until they were overdue.” This time, he offered no explanation of where, when, how, or by whom, the request was misplaced. Nor did he offer explanations regarding a standard business practice upon which he normally relied which for some reason was not followed. (See, e.g., H. G. B. Alexander & Co. v. Martz (1928) 90 Cal.App. 360, 361 [265 P. 881] [attorney’s regular calendar clerk taken ill and time for filing brief therefore not calendared]; Toon v. Pickwick Stages, Inc. (1924) 66 Cal.App. 450, 455 [226 P. 628] [failure “on the part of a new employee inconversant with the office routine was pardonable”].)
The above statements constitute the sum total of counsel’s claims regarding his “excusable neglect and inadvertence.” While one can speculate that the asserted shorthandedness in some way caused such confusion that counsel’s failure to become aware of the request for admissions was understandable, no facts supporting such a scenario have been supplied. One can equally well speculate that, as in Dow v. Ross (1891) 90 Cal. 562, 563-564 [27 *241P. 409] “ ‘in the press of business, and some confusion consequent thereon, [the relevant document] became covered over with papers in other cases, and neither that nor the subject of said [document] came to the affiant’s mind’ ” until he was reminded by another’s remark or action. This court in Dow found such a showing “altogether insufficient” to obtain relief. (P. 564.)
In a similar vein, the Court of Appeal recently found that it was not an abuse of discretion for the trial court to reject a request for relief where the client after being served with summons and complaint failed to take action to respond. Despite assertions that the failure to act was due to press of business during the Christmas season, the serious illness of the client’s father, and the recent death of his mother, the court found there was a complete failure to demonstrate any connection between these occurences and the client’s derelictions. Thus, the Court of Appeal observed, “[t]he only allegations that [the client] made regarding the effect of these factors, however, were that his parents’ illnesses and deaths ‘were very trying to me’ and that business pressures ‘caused me to forget about being served with [the] complaint. ’ ” (Bellm v. Bellia (1984) 150 Cal.App.3d 1036, 1038 [198 Cal.Rptr. 389]; see McManus v. Larson (1932) 122 Cal.App. 716, 720 [10 P.2d 523] [being occupied with other affairs not a sufficient excuse]; see Willett v. Schmeister Mfg. Co., supra, 80 Cal.App. at pp. 339-340 [accepting “press of business” as excuse “would be to discourage diligence . . . and establish a precedent that might lead to vexatious delays”]; 5 Witkin, Cal. Procedure (2d ed. 1971) Attack on Judgment in Trial Court §§ 139, 146, pp. 3714, 3720 [press of business not enough standing alone].)
One could speculate for pages about what actually occurred in plaintiffs’ counsel’s office; the affidavits by counsel invite such invention. But the bottom line is that they are utterly barren of factual underpinnings which tie even the meager mentions of possibly relevant facts to counsel’s failure to act. Plaintiffs failed to demonstrate either excusable ignorance due to a breakdown in office procedure, or an unusual press of business justifying relief. While recognizing the important policy favoring trial on the merits, I conclude that there simply was insufficient justification offered by plaintiffs’ counsel to warrant ignoring the important policy requiring that the trial court’s decision be given deference unless it is erroneous as a matter of law. No such error appears here. The differences in our approaches are best illustrated by the majority’s statement that “Unless inexcusable neglect is clear, the policy favoring trial on the merits prevails.” As the source of this formulation, my colleagues cite Witkin’s treatise on procedure. (Ante, p. 235.) What Witkin actually states in the course of discussion of review of orders denying relief is “if inexcusable neglect is clear the order will be affirmed. ” (5 Witkin, Cal. Procedure, supra, § 164, p. 3737, italics added.)
*242Here, there was no showing of excusable neglect making relief appropriate as a matter of law: counsel’s presentation of reasons for failing to respond were conclusory and unsupported by any factual specifics.
As Justice Kaus reiterated only two years ago in Carroll v. Abbott Laboratories, Inc., supra, 32 Cal.3d at page 900: “ ‘The policy that the law favors trying all cases and controversies upon their merits should not be prostituted to permit the slovenly practice of law or to relieve courts of the duty of scrutinizing carefully the affidavits or declarations filed in support of motions for relief to ascertain whether they set forth, with adequate particularity, grounds for relief. [Fn. omitted.] When inexcusable neglect is condoned even tacitly by the courts, they themselves unwittingly become instruments undermining the orderly process of the law.’ (Transit Ads, Inc. v. Tanner Motor Livery, Ltd. (1969) 270 Cal.App.2d 275, 282 [75 Cal.Rptr. 848].)”
I would affirm the trial court’s denial of the motion for relief and the subsequent entry of summary judgments.

Contrary to the majority’s use of Nilsson to imply that the affidavits here were sufficient despite the failure to describe usual office procedure (ante, p. 234), the Nilsson court explicitly relied upon the failure to object. Here, of course, a timely objection was made.