Real Property Case Summary Updates – June 2019

Monty A. McIntyre, Esq. is the publisher of California Case Summaries™. Monty has been a California civil trial lawyer since 1980, a member of ABOTA since 1995, and currently works as a full-time mediator, arbitrator and referee with ADR Services, Inc. (ADR) in ADR’s offices in San Diego, Irvine, and Los Angeles. California Case Summaries™provides short summaries, organized by legal topic, of every new published civil and family law case so California lawyers can easily and affordably keep up with the new case law in their practice areas. Monthly, quarterly and annual subscriptions are available.  

Corporations

Longview Internat., Inc. v. Stirling (2019) _ Cal.App.5th _ , 2019 WL 2314881: The Court of Appeal affirmed the trial court’s order denying defendant’s motion to expunge a judgment lien on real property. Although the plaintiff/judgment creditor corporation was suspended when the lien was created, the recording of the abstract of judgment was a procedural act that was retroactively validated once a suspended corporation’s powers were reinstated. (C.A. 6th, May 31, 2019.)

Real Property

Kahan v. City of Richmond (2019) _ Cal.App.5th _ , 2019 WL 2225041: The Court of Appeal affirmed the trial court’s order sustaining a demurrer, with leave to amend, that plaintiff declined to amend a class action lawsuit filed by plaintiff alleging that defendant’s practice of recording liens for unpaid garbage collection fees violated and was preempted by state law. The Court of Appeal ruled that defendant was authorized to record the garbage lien as a special assessment, that defendant’s ordinance was consistent with statutory lien priority law, and the bona fide encumbrancer exception did not apply to the facts alleged in the complaint. (C.A. 1st, May 23, 2019.) 

Water

Gomes v. Mendocino City Community Services Dist. (2019) _ Cal.App.5th _ , 2019 WL 2098371: The Court of Appeal reversed the trial court’s denial of a writ petition seeking to invalidate respondent’s ordinance limiting the quantity of groundwater petitioner could extract from his property. While Water Code section 10700 et seq. authorized the imposition of extraction limitations, the district did not adopt its program as required by the statute and the ordinance was invalidated without prejudice to re-adoption of a similar program in accordance with the statutorily mandated procedures. (C.A. 1st, May 14, 2019.)