Court Opinion

ID: 9899030
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-11-15 19:04:19.218065+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:19:19.280353
License: Public Domain

Filed 11/15/23 Marriage of Wilson CA4/3

                      NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN OFFICIAL REPORTS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 This opinion has not been certified for publication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

                                     FOURTH APPELLATE DISTRICT

                                                DIVISION THREE

 In re the Marriage of STEPHANIE and
 DUANE WILSON.

 STEPHANIE WILSON,
                                                                       G061770
      Appellant,
                                                                       (Super. Ct. No. 12D005671)
           v.
                                                                       OPINION
 DUANE WILSON,

      Respondent.

                   Appeal from an order of the Superior Court of Orange County, David J.
Hesseltine, Judge. Affirmed.
                   Law Office of Mark Mazda and Mark Mazda for Plaintiff and Appellant.
                   Duane H. Wilson, in pro. per., for Defendant and Respondent.
              The trial court ordered Stephanie Wilson to pay Duane Wilson, her former
husband, interest on funds that she had wrongly levied from his savings account and that
                                      1
were released to him only years later. Stephanie challenges the interest award, arguing
that under Code of Civil Procedure section 386 (the interpleader statute), no interest
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accrued because she had deposited the funds with the court after she levied them. She
also claims no statute permitted the award. We conclude that the interpleader statute did
not apply to Stephanie, who did not seek the court’s protection from competing claims, as
the statute requires, but instead sought the funds to herself. We further conclude
Stephanie forfeited her claim that no statute authorized the award. We therefore affirm.
                                          FACTS
              In 2015, Stephanie and Duane signed stipulations and orders for judgment
in their marriage dissolution proceeding. Among other things, their stipulation and the
ensuing judgment required Duane to transfer $250,000 from a savings account and roll
over $250,000 from his retirement account to Stephanie.
              In 2017, after Duane made the savings account transfer but failed to make
the rollover from his retirement account, Stephanie hired an attorney to enforce the
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judgment. The attorney obtained a writ of execution and levied about $224,000 from
Duane’s savings account, rather than his retirement account, pointing to the portion of the
judgment ordering the savings account transfer. Stephanie asked the attorney to disburse
the levied funds to her, but the attorney refused, stating that Duane disputed the levy.
The attorney deposited the levied funds with the trial court and filed a motion to

1
              We refer to the parties by their first names because they share a last name.
2
              Undesignated statutory references are to the Code of Civil Procedure.
3
              Duane contended he and Stephanie had agreed he would make the rollover
only after she repaid certain funds she owed him.

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interplead them on Stephanie’s behalf under the interpleader statute. The motion asked
the court to release the funds to Stephanie. The attorney later substituted out of the case,
and at Stephanie’s request, the interpleader motion was taken off calendar. Duane
unsuccessfully sought the release of the funds to him.
              The parties continued to litigate postjudgment matters. In March 2021,
Duane made the $250,000 rollover from the retirement account after the trial court
ordered him to do so. Stephanie, however, claimed she was also entitled to interest on
that amount. The court initially concluded that the rollover portion of the judgment was
not a money judgment and thus that interest had not accrued. Stephanie appealed, and
this court reversed, concluding the rollover obligation was a money judgment that
accrued interest, and remanded for further proceedings. At the same time, this court
declined Stephanie’s request to order the trial court to retain the levied funds, noting it
appeared those funds were levied in error from the wrong account.
              On remand, the parties litigated factual issues relating to Stephanie’s
entitlement to interest on the retirement funds. Duane also renewed his request that the
trial court release the levied funds to him. He added a request for interest on that amount.
Stephanie argued that under section 386, subdivision (c), no interest had accrued because
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her prior attorney had interpleaded the funds. She again asked the court to disburse the
funds to her, in satisfaction of her various claims against Duane.
              In 2022, following a trial on the pending postjudgment matters, the trial
court concluded Stephanie was entitled to interest on the retirement funds and ordered

4
                As discussed below, section 386, subdivision (b), permits a person subject
to conflicting claims for money to bring an interpleader action to compel the claimants to
litigate their claims among themselves. (City of Morgan Hill v. Brown (1999)
71 Cal.App.4th 1114, 1122 (Morgan Hill).)
5
              As discussed below, under section 386, subdivision (c), when a person
interpleads funds, admitting them “to be payable,” any interest on the deposited amount
ceases to accrue.

                                              3
Duane to pay her over $152,000 in interest. As for the levied funds, the court ordered
them released to Duane and further ordered Stephanie to pay him about $110,000 in
interest. It concluded the interpleader statute did not apply because, among other things,
she was not a stakeholder facing competing claims to the funds but simply one of two
parties asserting a claim to the funds. Stephanie appealed.
                                       DISCUSSION
              Stephanie challenges the trial court’s award of interest on the levied funds.
She contends, as she did below, that the interpleader statute stopped the accrual of any
interest on the funds after her prior attorney deposited the funds with the court. We
disagree.
              “When a person may be subject to conflicting claims for money or
property, the person may bring an interpleader action to compel the claimants to litigate
their claims among themselves. (§ 386, subd. (b).) Once the person admits liability and
deposits the money with the court, he or she is discharged from liability and freed from
the obligation of participating in the litigation between the claimants. [Citations.] The
purpose of interpleader is to prevent a multiplicity of suits and double vexation.
[Citation.]” (Morgan Hill, supra, 71 Cal.App.4th at p. 1122, fn. omitted.) Under the
interpleader statute, “[a]ny amount which a plaintiff . . . admits to be payable may be
deposited by him with the clerk of the court at the time of the filing of the complaint or
cross-complaint in interpleader” and “[a]ny interest on amounts deposited . . . shall cease
to accrue after the date of such deposit or delivery.” (§ 386, subd. (c).)
              The interpleader scheme had no application to Stephanie, who was not
subject to conflicting claims and did not disclaim entitlement to the deposited funds.
(§ 386, subds. (b) & (c); Morgan Hill, supra, 71 Cal.App.4th at p. 1122.) Stephanie
asserts: “[T]he interpleader statute does not have an exception for its rule that interest
‘cease[s] to accrue after the date of such deposit’ if the party depositing the money with
the court also claims an interest in the money that needs to be determined via further

                                              4
court proceedings. [Citation.] In fact, [section] 386[, subdivision (c),] is completely
silent on that issue. [Citation.]” She is mistaken. As noted, to seek the protection of
section 386, subdivision (c), a person must “admit[] [the deposited amount] to be
payable.” A depositor’s request that the court distribute the funds to her—a request
Stephanie made—is inconsistent with this requirement. Moreover, this provision refers
to a plaintiff “in interpleader” (§ 386, subd. (c)), which assumes the depositor faces
conflicting claims (§ 386, subd. (b); Morgan Hill, supra, 71 Cal.App.4th at p. 1122).
              Stephanie argues Duane forfeited any objection to the application of
section 386 by failing to object to the interpleader procedure below. In support, she cites
Farmers New World Life Ins. Co. v. Rees (2013) 219 Cal.App.4th 307, 317, under which
“‘if the defendants in interpleader have fully litigated their claims without objection, they
will be deemed to have consented to the remedy invoked and granted . . . .’ [Citation.]”
(Italics added.) Stephanie’s contention is misguided, as her interpleader motion was
taken off calendar at her request and never litigated below, let alone granted. Indeed, she
is challenging the trial court’s ruling that the interpleader statute did not apply. Duane
therefore forfeited nothing.
              For the first time on appeal, Stephanie claims there was no statutory basis
for an award of interest on the levied funds. By failing to raise this contention before the
trial court, Stephanie has forfeited it, and we therefore do not consider it. (People v. Redd
(2010) 48 Cal.4th 691, 718 [contention not raised in trial court was forfeited].)
Accordingly, we find no error in the court’s interest award.

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                                 DISPOSITION
          The trial court’s order is affirmed. Respondent is awarded his costs on
appeal.

                                            O’LEARY, P. J.

WE CONCUR:

BEDSWORTH, J.

MOTOIKE, J.

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