Court Opinion

ID: 9747754
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-27 15:31:26.786496+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:25:26.539514
License: Public Domain

RYLAARSDAM, J.
I respectfully dissent and would affirm the decision of the trial court.
I agree with the majority that respondents’ continued representation of appellants should be dispositive and would reverse, if this issue had been properly presented to the trial court.
The requirement for a separate statement contained in Code of Civil Procedure1 section 437c, subdivision (b), when read in conjunction with the provisions of subdivision (o)(2), required appellants to assert the tolling of the statute of limitations based on the asserted “continued representation” in their separate statement of disputed facts. The trial court was entitled to decide the case on the basis of how it was presented and, specifically, to assume all relevant facts were presented in the statutorily required separate statement.
Respondents, the moving parties, submitted a separate statement containing only three material facts: (1) the complaint for legal malpractice was filed on December 16, 1991; (2) the underlying case was based on an automobile accident which occurred on January 12, 1989; and (3) the claims in this action were based upon a failure to sue Ford and Allied-Signal, the vehicle and seat belt manufacturers, and a failure to assert a loss of consortium claim. Appellants’ separate statement only responded to these factual assertions and admitted they were undisputed, except appellants expanded *118upon the claims asserted in their complaint in response to item (3). Appellants failed to assert any fact concerning continued representation in their separate statement. Therefore, an examination of the admitted facts leads to the conclusion that the statute of limitations in the underlying case ran on January 12, 1990, that the legal malpractice action was therefore barred after January 14, 1991 (January 12, 1991, was a Saturday), and that the legal malpractice action was not filed until the latter date had passed.
Once the facts asserted in respondents’ separate statement were conceded, respondents had met their burden under the provisions of section 437c, subdivision (o)(2) by showing that more than one year had elapsed between the accrual of the cause of action for legal malpractice and the filing of appellants’ complaint. Under this subdivision, the burden then shifted to appellants “to show that a triable issue of one or more material facts exists . ...” A plaintiff has the burden to establish facts supporting the tolling of a statute of limitations. (See Sullivan v. Shannon (1938) 25 Cal.App.2d 422, 427-428 [77 P.2d 498]; also see Union Bank v. Superior Court (1995) 31 Cal.App.4th 573 [37 Cal.Rptr.2d 653].) Under section 437c, subdivision (b) appellants were required to state such facts in their separate statement. The fact of continued representation, if supported by admissible evidence, would have satisfied their burden. They failed to make any reference to this fact in their separate statement. The very purpose of the separate statements as required in subdivision (b) is defeated if we impose an obligation on the trial court to consider evidence not referred to in a separate statement to determine whether the motion for summary judgment should be denied or granted.
The purpose of the separate statement is explained in the quotation from Weil and Brown, California Practice Guide: Civil Procedure Before Trial (The Rutter Group 1996) paragraph 10:94.1, pages 10-31 to 10-32 in the majority opinion: “This statement and the opposing separate statement. . . are intended to permit the judge to determine quickly whether the motion is supported by sufficient undisputed facts. If the opposing statement disputes an essential fact alleged in support of the motion, the judge merely has to review the evidence cited in support of that fact. This saves the judge from having to review all the evidentiary materials filed in support of and in opposition to the motion.” (Maj. opn., ante, at p. 113.) To ignore this practical device and treat it as a mere technicality serves to deprive the busy trial judge of an efficient tool specifically provided by the code to facilitate consideration of motions for summary judgment.
The majority reaches its conclusion by comparing permissive and mandatory language in separate parts of the much-amended section 437c. The portion of subdivision (b) dealing with the responding party’s obligations *119with respect to a separate statement, unambiguously permits the court to grant the motion upon a failure to comply with the requirement: such failure . . may constitute a sufficient ground, in the court’s discretion, for granting the motion.” By holding subdivision (c)’s requirement that the court consider all the evidence trumps subdivision (b)’s authorization to rely on the separate statement, the majority, in effect, has deleted that portion of the statute which empowers the court to so rely on the separate statements. The majority has the Legislature telling the trial court: “You may grant the motion solely because the opposing party fails to comply with the requirements for a separate statement but you shall not do so.” Since subdivision (c) states the trial court “shall” grant a motion for summary judgment when that subdivision’s requirements are satisfied, a construction of the statute which permits the trial court to exercise its discretionary authority to grant the motion under subdivision (b) only after subdivision (c)’s requirements are established, renders subdivision (b) meaningless.
Our task should be to reconcile the two parts of the statute so that each may be given effect. “Significance, if possible, should be attributed to every word, phrase, sentence and part of an act in pursuance of the legislative purpose, as ‘the various parts of a statutory enactment must be harmonized by considering the particular clause or section in the context of the statutory framework as a whole.’ ” (DeYoung v. City of San Diego (1983) 147 Cal.App.3d 11, 18 [194 Cal.Rptr. 722].) The majority holding violates this basic rule of statutory construction by effectively denying any significance to the portion of the statute empowering the court to grant the motion for failure to comply with the separate statement requirement.
The two parts of the statute can be reconciled. Where there is substantial compliance with the separate statement requirement, that is, if each relevant fact is at least alluded to, the obligation of the court to “consider all of the evidence set forth in the papers” imposed by section 437c, subdivision (c) would arise. However, where, as here, the central determinative fact is not referenced at all, we should not burden the trial court with a duty to search the evidence to determine whether some fact not mentioned in the separate statement might require either a grant or denial of the motion.
Contrary to obvious legislative intent, the majority will now require the trial judge to search the evidentiary materials for items not referred to in the separate statement, thus frustrating the very purpose of the separate statement requirement.
Respondents’ petition for review by the Supreme Court was denied October 16, 1996.

All further statutory references are to the Code of Civil Procedure.