Opinion
NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN THE OFFICIAL REPORTS
APPEAL from a judgment of the Superior Court of Los Angeles County No. VC027923. Peter Espinoza and Daniel Solis Pratt, Judges.
Robert Guevara for Plaintiff and Appellant.
Howard, Strickroth & Parker, Michael J. Strickroth and Bryan C. Zaverl for Defendants and Respondents.
ARMSTRONG, Acting P. J.
This is another appeal in Hiram Ash's litigation against respondents Hoag Property Management, Inc., Arlyne Beattie, the Arlyne Beattie Revocable Inter-Vivos Trust, and Ronald Conners, the owners and managers of the apartment complex he lives in. We begin with the history.
Ash's requests that we take judicial notice of exhibits to his writ petition in B191381 and of the record in B143852 are denied. He has failed to show how those documents are necessary to our determination here.
This lawsuit was filed in October of 1998. The case was resolved in respondents' favor in March of 2000, when nonsuit was granted and the case dismissed. On May 18, 2000, the court awarded respondents attorney fees in the amount of $27,600, and on June 5, 2000, awarded costs in the amount of $2,532. On July 20, 2000, the trial court amended the judgment to include those awards.
Ash appealed both the dismissal and the award of fees and costs. He filed two notices of appeal, both of which were assigned the same number, B143852. The opinion, filed on October 25, 2002, indicates that during briefing, Ash filed an application to stay briefing on the issue of fees and costs pending adjudication of the appeal of the dismissal and that the court had granted that request.
The judgment was affirmed and respondents were awarded costs on appeal. On remand, the trial court ordered costs of $992.77 and fees of $25,065. The costs order was made on May 13, 2003, and the fees order on June 4, 2003, and in each instance the minutes were entered that day.
Then, in October of 2004, respondents moved for an order combining the orders awarding fees and costs after trial with the orders awarding fees and costs on appeal. On April 25, 2005, the trial court granted the request, ordering:
"Having reviewed the record in the above matter, the court acknowledges and affirms that defendants HOAG PROPERTY MANAGEMENT, INC.; ARLYNE BEATTIE; THE ARLYNE BEATTIE REVOCABLE INTER-VIVOS TRUST; and RONALD CONNERS are to recover from the plaintiff costs in the sum of $2,532, pursuant to minute order 6-5-00 and attorney's fees in the sum of $27,600, pursuant to minute order 5-18-00. [¶] Furthermore, this court acknowledges and affirms that defendants are to recover from plaintiff costs on appeal in the sum of $992.77 as contained in the minute order of 5-13-03 and additional attorney's fees on appeal in the amount of $25,065, pursuant to minute order of 6-4-03."
The order was signed by Judge Peter Espinoza for Judge Robert Simpson, who had originally presided over the case and who made the fees and costs orders but who had since died. On June 22, 2005, Judge Espinoza denied Ash's ex parte motion to vacate the April 25 order without prejudice, finding "plaintiff must set the matter for a noticed hearing."
On June 27, 2005, Ash filed a notice of appeal, appealing the April 25, 2005 order consolidating the earlier orders and the June 22, 2005 order denying his motion to vacate.
Then, while the appeal was pending, Ash again moved in the trial court to vacate the April 25, 2005 order. The motion was denied on September 29, 2005. The following year, in April 2006, Ash moved to disqualify Judge Espinoza, and (again) to vacate the April 25, 2005 order. He also moved to vacate the September 29, 2005 order denying his earlier motion to vacate.
The disqualification motion was granted on May 16, 2006. The minute order reads, "A request for assistance in responding to the statement of disqualification for cause in this matter was timely made to court counsel. However, the court is advised that counsel did not timely provide the required assistance, and a timely response to the statement of disqualification was not filed on behalf of the court. Accordingly, the court is deemed to have consented to its disqualification."
The motion to vacate the April 25, 2005 and September 29, 2005 orders was heard by Judge Daniel Solis Pratt on May 23, 2006. The motions were denied on June 5, 2006. Ash filed a new notice of appeal, dated August 9, 2006, appealing that order. We consolidated the appeals.
To summarize, this is an appeal from an April 2005 order incorporating and restating 2000 orders regarding costs after trial and 2003 orders regarding costs after appeal, and from three subsequent orders denying motions to vacate the April 2005 order.
Ash's contentions are that the April 25, 2005 order must be reversed because Judge Espinoza was later disqualified for cause; that the procedures in the trial court concerning the April 2005 order and June 2006 order did not comport with California Rules of Court, rules 3.1312 (formerly Rule 391) and 3.1591 (formerly Rule 232) or Code of Civil Procedure section 635, which allows the presiding judge or a judge designated by the presiding judge to sign a formal judgment when the judge who tried the case is unavailable, and that his due process rights were violated.
We agree with respondents that none of those contentions is properly before us. Through his appeal of the order consolidating earlier orders, and his appeal of his repeated motions to vacate, Ash is attempting to appeal the orders awarding fees and costs after trial, and the orders awarding fees and costs on appeal.
He may not now appeal the orders awarding fees and costs after trial, because he has already done so. As Division 4 noted in the opinion in B143852, Ash appealed the award of trial fees and costs, then asked that the issues be stayed, then, as far as this record indicates, did nothing further with that appeal. We conclude that he abandoned the appeal, so that the orders became final. (See Siebel v. Mittlesteadt (2007) 41 Cal.4th 735, 742.)
As to the orders awarding costs and fees on appeal, those orders were separately appealable (Lakin v. Watkins Associated Industries (1993) 6 Cal.4th 644, 654) but were not appealed until, at the earliest, June 27, 2005, by which time to appeal had long since run under any calculation.
Ash also makes several contentions concerning the validity of the judgment after trial. All such matters were resolved by the appeal of that judgment. We cannot and do not comment further.
Disposition
The appeal is dismissed. Respondents to recover costs.
We concur: MOSK, J., KRIEGLER, J.