Court Opinion

ID: 9901085
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-11-21 00:03:34.67489+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:21:25.527728
License: Public Domain

Filed 11/20/23 Sheats v. Sheats-Okaidjan CA2/1
    NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN THE OFFICIAL REPORTS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This opinion has not been certified for publication or ordered published for purposes of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 ONE

 SHAWENTI SHEATS,                                                B319734

          Plaintiff and Respondent,                              (Los Angeles County
          v.                                                     Super. Ct. No. BC664896)

 PATRICIA SHEATS-OKAIDJAN,

          Defendant;

 GOLTHA GREEN,

          Appellant.

     APPEAL from an order of the Superior Court of Los Angeles
County, Malcolm H. Mackey, Judge. Dismissed.
     Law Office of Freddie Fletcher and Freddie Fletcher for
Appellant Goltha Green.
     Gordon │ Gordon │ Lawyers and Errol J. Gordon for Plaintiff
and Respondent Shawenti Sheats.
                                      _______________
       Appellant Goltha Green, as the successor in interest to
Joseph Gonzalez, challenges an order from an action for partition
between four siblings, including plaintiff and respondent Shawenti
Sheats. The challenged order required the court clerk to execute,
on Gonzalez’s behalf, a full reconveyance of Gonzalez’s deed of trust
encumbering the property at issue in the partition action, as well
as a beneficiary demand seeking payment under the corresponding
promissory note held by Gonzalez. We agree with respondent that
this order is not appealable and dismiss the appeal.

                    FACTUAL BACKGROUND
      A.    Underlying Lawsuit for Partition
      In 1996, four siblings—Shawenti Sheats, Patricia Sheats-
Okaidjan, Brian Dent and Roxanne Hart—were each granted
a quarter ownership interest, as tenants in common, in real
property (the property). Sheats-Okaidjan forged a series of deeds
transferring title to the property solely to herself, then procured
a series of loans secured with deeds of trust on the property. The
three defrauded siblings commenced an action against her, the
operative complaint in which alleged causes of action for partition
and declaratory relief. In 2019, the court entered an interlocutory
judgment reinstating the siblings’ interests in the property. The
case, however, continued for several years thereafter, in connection
with efforts to partition the property by selling it and distributing
the sale proceeds.

      B.    Loan to Appellant’s Predecessor in Interest
            Secured by the Property
      In 2018, Hart and respondent borrowed $45,000 from
Gonzalez, and executed a promissory note. They also executed a
junior deed of trust encumbering “the one-quarter (1/4) title interest
held by each [respondent and Hart] [i]n the real property . . . [¶] . . .

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[¶] . . . for the purpose of securing payment of: [¶] a) the
indebtedness evidenced by [the] promissory note . . . and [¶]
b) the performance of each agreement contained in [the] deed
of trust.” (Capitalization omitted.) The deed gave Gonzalez
the right to take certain steps to protect the property and avoid
foreclosure, should respondent and Hart fail to fulfill their duties
under the deed and do so. Gonzalez never formally intervened
in the siblings’ partition action, although he did seek and obtain
various types of relief.

      C.    Respondent’s Ex Parte Application To Appoint an
            Elisor To Sign Documents on Behalf of Gonzalez
       In January 2021, the court issued an order requiring,
inter alia, that the clerk sign as an elisor1 on behalf of anyone
refusing to do so any documents necessary to effectuate the sale
of the property. Respondent then filed an ex parte application
asking that the clerk execute on behalf of Gonzalez (1) a demand
to payoff Gonzalez’s promissory note and (2) a full reconveyance of
the deed of trust. The ex parte application alleged it was necessary
to appoint an elisor to sign for Gonzalez, because Gonzalez had
obstructed the sale of the property by making a beneficiary demand

      1 “[I]n common legal parlance[,] the term elisor is used
to designate persons appointed to perform functions such as the
deed and document execution” (Rayan v. Dykeman (1990) 224
Cal.App.3d 1629, 1635, fn. 2) “on behalf of a recalcitrant party
in order to effectuate [the court’s] judgments or orders, where the
party refuses to execute such documents.” (Blueberry Properties,
LLC v. Chow (2014) 230 Cal.App.4th 1017, 1020; accord, Rayan,
supra, at p. 1635.) The power of the court to appoint an elisor
in this way derives from the court’s inherent authority to compel
compliance with its orders. (See Rayan, supra, at p. 1635; see also
Code Civ. Proc., § 128, subd. (a)(4).)

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to the escrow company for an amount beyond that reflected
in the promissory note, based on his expenditures to maintain
the property, reimbursement for which he argued the deed of
trust both required and secured. Gonzalez opposed the ex parte
application, arguing it raised issues that should be resolved via a
noticed hearing, and that the documents respondent was asking
the court to execute effectively reduced his entitlement to recover
under the deed of trust.
      In a January 7, 2022 order, the court granted respondent’s
application, required the court to execute the documents on
Gonzalez’s behalf, and set a hearing “on the issue of the
confirmation of the sale of the property and the disbursement of
sale proceeds.” As successor in interest to Gonzalez,2 appellant
(Green) filed a notice of appeal from the January 7, 2022 order.

                           DISCUSSION
      On appeal, appellant argues the court abused its discretion in
ordering the clerk to sign the reconveyance and beneficiary demand
on his behalf. He seeks reversal of this order and, ultimately, to
recover the expenses he incurred and that he argues were secured
by the deed of trust, in addition to the amount owed him under the
promissory note.3

      2 Gonzalez filed a “notice of assignment of note and deed of
trust” giving notice that he assigned his promissory note “together
with the claim for payment thereof presently pending in the
partition action” to appellant. (Capitalization omitted.)
      3 The property has since been sold and the proceeds placed
in trust accounts, based on the court’s allocation thereof between
the siblings and Green / Gonzalez. Specifically, “[t]he sum of
$49,500.00, which represents the payoff of the promissory note
secured by a deed of trust on the property in favor of Joseph
Gonzales, which was purportedly assigned to [appellant], [has been]

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       Respondent argues that we may not reach the merits of the
instant appeal because the January 7, 2022 order is not appealable.
Appellant does not argue that the order is statutorily appealable,
but instead relies on a California Supreme Court decision, In re
Marriage of Skelley (1976) 18 Cal.3d 365, 368 (Skelley), under which
“certain ‘collateral’ orders may be appealable even if not specifically
listed in [the] Code of Civil Procedure.” (Koshak v. Malek (2011)
200 Cal.App.4th 1540, 1545 (Koshak).) We agree with the doctrine
but disagree that it applies here.
       To qualify as an appealable collateral order, the interlocutory
order must (1) be a final determination (2) of a collateral matter and
(3) direct the payment of money or performance of an act. (Koshak,
supra, 200 Cal.App.4th at p. 1545; see Skelley, supra, 18 Cal.3d
at p. 368 [“[w]hen a court renders an interlocutory order collateral
to the main issue, dispositive of the rights of the parties in relation
to the collateral matter, and directing payment of money or
performance of an act, direct appeal may be taken. [Citations.] . . .
Such a determination is substantially the same as a final judgment
in an independent proceeding”].)
       “[An] order is deemed final if further judicial action is not
required on the matters dealt with by the order.” (Koshak, supra,
200 Cal.App.4th at p. 1545.) The January 7 order instructs the
clerk to execute, on behalf of Gonzalez, a full reconveyance of
the deed of trust, thereby extinguishing his security interest in
the property. No further judicial action is necessary for this to
become effective; the clerk need only perform the ministerial act
of executing the court’s order by signing the grant deed. This order

deposited into the jointly controlled trust account . . . until the
resolution of the dispute regarding [appellant’s] claim is reached by
settlement or trial.”

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is thus final to the extent it requires reconveyance of the deed of
trust. As to the portion of the order requiring the court to execute
a demand for payoff of the promissory note, however, the order is
not final. Because this document is only a demand, it by definition
does not finally address the issue of the amount owed Gonzalez
under the promissory note.
        We must therefore consider whether the order, to the extent
it requires reconveyance of the deed of trust, is collateral, meaning
it addresses a matter “distinct and severable . . . from the general
subject of the litigation.” (Koshak, supra, 200 Cal.App.4th at
p. 1545.) “[An] order is not ‘collateral’ if it is a ‘necessary step’
to the determination of the issue in the case.” (Ibid.; San Joaquin
County Dept. of Child Support Services v. Winn (2008) 163
Cal.App.4th 296, 300 [“[i]f an order is ‘ “important and essential
to the correct determination of the main issue” ’ and ‘ “a necessary
step to that end,” ’ it is not collateral”].) Here, the general subject
matter of the case is the partitioning of interests in the property
as between the siblings. Because the lien reflected in Gonzalez’s
deed of trust is on the interests of only two of the four tenants in
common, the court could not partition the property in kind subject
to the lien. (See Wernse v. Dorsey (1935) 2 Cal.2d 513, 515 [“[w]hile
it is allowable to decree a sale in partition subject to a lien, where
the lien is upon the united interests of all claimants to the property,
we cannot see how such a decree can properly be made where only
one undivided interest is subject to the lien”]; see also Code Civ.
Proc., § 873.260 [“[w]here a lien is on an undivided interest of a
party, the lien shall, upon division of the property, become a charge
only on the share allotted to that party”].) Rather, where a lien
encumbers the interest of only some of the property’s joint owners,
“[t]he only just procedure would seem to be to sell the property free
of liens and satisfy the lien against the interest of the joint owner

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by deducting from his share of the proceeds the amount of his
indebtedness.” (Wernse, supra, at p. 515; accord, Cathcart v.
Redlands Security Co. (1945) 67 Cal.App.2d 591, 593–594.) In
order to “sell the property free of liens” (Wernse, supra, at p. 515),
the court needed to remove the lien on the property reflected in
the deed of trust. To this end, it appointed an elisor to execute
the grant deed that removed the lien on the property. Thus,
the challenged order to this effect is not collateral, but rather
a necessary step to partitioning the property, the subject matter
of the instant action. Therefore, it is not an appealable collateral
order.

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                         DISPOSITION
      The appeal is dismissed. The parties shall bear their own
costs on appeal.
      NOT TO BE PUBLISHED.

                                     ROTHSCHILD, P. J.
We concur:

                 BENDIX, J.

                 WEINGART, J.

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