Opinion
A148076 A148421
10-10-2018
EDITH MAZZAFERRI et al. Plaintiffs and Respondents, v. JOSHUA MAZZAFERRI, Defendant and Appellant. EDITH MAZZAFERRI et al. Plaintiffs and Respondents, v. RONALD MAZZAFERRO, Defendant and Appellant.
NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN OFFICIAL REPORTS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 This opinion has not been certified for publication or ordered published for purposes of rule 8.1115. (Sonoma County Super. Ct. No. SPR 084785)
Ronald Mazzaferro and his son, Joshua Mazzaferri, appealed from orders quieting title to a property that was once an asset of a family trust for which Mazzaferro's mother is trustee, but was transferred years ago to the present owners, Mazzaferro's daughter and son in law, respondents Gina and William Parisi. The trial court additionally found Mazzaferro liable for slander of title to the Parisi property and three other properties held by the trust or sold by the trust to third parties, and enjoined him from recording any instruments against the Parisi property without court approval. Mazzaferro had previously been enjoined from further encumbering the other properties.
Respondents move to dismiss both appeals, Mazzaferro's under the doctrine of disentitlement and Mazzaferri's due to lack of standing. We grant the motions and dismiss the appeals. In addition, we order Mazzaferro to pay sanctions to this court for taking a frivolous appeal.
BACKGROUND
Respondent Edith Mazzaferri is the trustee of the Mazzaferri Living Trust as Amended and Restated in 2006 (2006 MLT), which revoked and superseded a revocable intervivos trust created by Edith and Joseph Mazzaferri on May 10, 1978 (1978 Trust). Respondents Gina Parisi is Mazzaferri's granddaughter and William Parisi is Gina's husband. Appellant Ronald Mazzaferro is Edith's son and the father of Gina Parisi and appellant Joshua Mazzaferri. (See Parisi v. Mazzaferro (2016) 5 Cal.App.5th 1219, 1222-1223.) Mazzaferro is a vexatious litigant whose harassment of his mother and William Parisi has been documented in various orders and decisions of this court and others.
The 2006 MLT includes a bypass trust that originally owned four pieces of real property, two in Sonoma County (599 Oregon Street and 583 Curtin Lane) and two in Lake County (4581 E. Highway 20 and 4587 E. Highway 20 (Parisi property)). In May 2009, Edith Mazzaferri purchased the Parisi property from the trust and gifted it to her granddaughter Gina Parisi, who transferred it to herself and her husband, William Parisi, as trustees of the Parisi Family Trust.
The present appeal is from a judgment entered after the second trial in a bifurcated proceeding on Edith Mazzaferri's March 2013 petition to confirm trustee, confirm validity of trust, confirm ownership of assets/quiet title, and for damages for slander of title (petition to confirm). Respondents alleged that Mazzaferro had recorded numerous documents fraudulently representing himself as the successor trustee of the Mazzaferri Family Trust and owner of the four real properties. The petition sought to confirm that the 2006 MLT was valid and Edith Mazzaferri was the sole trustee; to quiet title in Edith Mazzaferri, as trustee of the bypass trust, to the two Sonoma County properties and 4581 E. Highway 20; to quiet title to 4587 E. Highway 20 in the Parisis; to have the documents Mazzaferro had recorded against the properties declared fraudulent and vacated; and to recover damages.
The initial petition was filed on March 6, followed by an amended petition filed on March 12, for which the verification was filed on April 2, 2013.
Prior to the judgment at issue on this appeal, the trial court had determined that the terms of the 1978 Trust were revoked and superseded by subsequent amendments and restatements, and the operable trust instrument at the time of Joseph Mazzaferri's death in 2007 was the 2006 MLT; confirmed Edith Mazzaferri as the sole trustee of all trusts created under the 2006 MLT, including the Mazzaferri bypass trust (June 28, 2013, order); quieted title to the two Sonoma properties and 4581 E. Highway 20 in Edith Mazzaferri, as trustee for the bypass trust; and vacated the encumbrances Mazzaferro recorded against these three properties (October 16, 2013 order), and set the remaining issues—quiet title as to the Parisi property and slander of title as to all the properties—for trial in January 2014.
These remaining issues were stayed due to an appeal taken by Joshua Mazzaferri from the court's approval of a petition for approval of accountings for 2009, 2010, and 2011, that Edith Mazzaferri, as trustee of the 2006 MLT, had filed in June 2012. Mazzaferro and Joshua Mazzaferri had each filed objections to the accountings, and the matter was tried over three days in July and August 2013. The court's November 19, 2013 order approved and settled the trustee's accounts, overruled the objections, and ratified and approved Edith Mazzaferri's acts and transactions as trustee of the bypass trust. The court specifically upheld the transfer of 4587 E. Highway 20 to Gina Parisi, explaining that Edith Mazzaferri had purchased the property from the bypass trust with her own money for "at least fair market value" and gifted it to Parisi in accordance with the trustors' specific intent and without damage to the trust or residuary beneficiaries. On December 26, 2014, Joshua Mazzaferri's appeal was dismissed on Edith Mazzaferri's motion; the remittitur issued on February 25, 2015.
Edith Mazzaferri sought dismissal for failure to perfect the record on appeal and either improperly acting in Mazzaferro's name or colluding with Mazzaferro to circumvent this court's vexatious litigant prefiling order against Mazzaferro.
While the appeal from the order approving the accounting was pending and trial of the issues of quiet title to the Parisi property and slander of title was stayed, in April and May of 2014, Mazzaferro recorded a number of mechanics liens and notices of pending action against the four properties at issue in the March 2013 petition. Respondents moved for expungement and for an injunction, alleging that the two Sonoma properties were in contract for sale and describing actions taken by Mazzaferro to thwart the sales, including making false and defamatory statements to realtors, filing a complaint claiming an ownership interest in the properties (contrary to the trial court's October 2013 order) and recording notices of that pending action against all four properties. On the day of the hearing, July 30, 2014, after the court issued a tentative ruling granting the motion to expunge, Mazzaferro recorded four additional encumbrances against the two Sonoma properties, grant deeds purporting to transfer the properties to himself.
Respondents initially filed an ex parte motion on May 12, 2014, to expunge the liens recorded in April; after that motion was denied without prejudice, they filed a noticed motion to expunge the notices of pending action and mechanics liens, as well as additional mechanics liens recorded in May, and for an injunction.
The trial court adopted the tentative ruling after the hearing; respondents filed another ex parte motion to expunge upon learning of the newly recorded grant deeds; and, on August 8, 2014, the court filed an order again quieting title to the Sonoma properties in Edith Mazzaferri as trustee of the 2006 MLT, expunging the encumbrances (including the grant deeds), and enjoining Mazzaferro from recording or causing to be recorded any instrument against any property for which title was held by Edith Mazzaferri as trustee, or otherwise interfering with sale of such property, without prior court approval. A corrected order was filed on September 3, 2014, from which Mazzaferro appealed. (Mazzaferri v. Mazzaferro (July 11, 2016, A143446) [nonpub. opn.].) Then, on September 19, 2014, Mazzaferro recorded a correction deed purporting to transfer 583 Curtin, which had been sold to third parties, to a trust established by Mazzaferro. (Ibid.)
The corrected order added two instrument numbers inadvertently omitted when counsel drafted the August 8 order.
We eventually dismissed the appeal under the disentitlement doctrine due to Mazzaferro's violation of court orders, in an unpublished opinion. (Mazzaferri v. Mazzaferro, supra, A143446.)
Mazzaferro recorded another correction deed purporting to transfer the same property to the same trust on January 2, 2015. (Mazzaferri v. Mazzaferro, supra, A143446.)
After Joshua Mazzaferri's appeal from the order approving the trustee's accountings was dismissed, respondents filed an amendment to their March 2013 petition to confirm, addressing the subsequent encumbrances recorded against the properties.
The amendment was filed on March 27, 2015, with verifications separately filed on April 2, 2015.
On June 2, 2015, over Mazzaferro's objection due to his then-pending appeal from the September 3, 2014, order, the court heard evidence on the previously bifurcated issues concerning the Parisi property and claims for slander of title. In July 2015, Edith Mazzaferri obtained an elder abuse restraining order against Mazzaferro that included prohibiting him from recording or causing to be recorded any document against real property to which Mazzaferri held title individually or as trustee for the Mazzaferri Trust, or for which title was transferred to another person by Edith individually or as trustee of the Mazzaferri Trust; interfering in any way with the sale any real property to which title was held by the trustee or transferred by the trustee to another; and serving or causing to be served any court documents on Edith Mazzaferri.
That same month, July 2015, William Parisi obtained a civil harassment restraining order against Mazzaferro based on the history of Mazzaferro's litigation against Parisi and his harassment of Parisi and one of Parisi's daughters in 2010, 2014, and 2015. (Parisi v. Mazzaferro (2016) 5 Cal.App.5th 1219.) The restraining order petition identified 21 matters filed by Mazzaferro against Parisi in state or federal courts, all of which were resolved in Parisi's favor, including an involuntary bankruptcy petition (filed shortly before the scheduled commencement of trial in an action by Parisi against Mazzaferro), that was later dismissed as false and filed in bad faith. (Parisi, at p. 1223 and fn. 5.)
Also in July 2015, the trial court in San Francisco granted Edith's motion, as trustee of a different trust, to appoint a receiver to take possession and control of a property on Filbert Street due to Mazzaferro's repeated refusal to comply with a 2014 settlement agreement requiring him to pay back property taxes and execute a deed of trust, and repeated willful encumbrance of the property, which was placing the property in danger of being sold in a county tax sale. Subsequently, on April 21, 2017, the San Francisco trial court issued a temporary restraining order prohibiting Mazzaferro or his agents from coming within 100 feet of the Filbert Street property, contacting specified realtors or communicating with potential buyers or visitors to the property.
On August 31, 2015, the court issued a tentative ruling on the Parisi property and slander of title claims. After consideration of the parties' responses and additional hearings in October and November 2015, the latter after re-opening evidence regarding attorney fees, the court filed its tentative decision on February 29, 2016. The court quieted title to the Parisi property and the Parisis as trustees of their family trust; found that documents Mazzaferro had recorded against the Parisi property in 2009, 2013, and 2015 were false (and one void), and that the mechanics liens filed against the property in 2014 were void; found the reasonable value of attorney services for respondents to be $95,000; entered judgment for slander of title against Mazzaferro and in favor of Edith Mazzaferri, as trustee of the 2006 MLT, and the Parisis, as trustees of the Parisi Family Trust; expunged specified documents recorded against the Parisi property and the Mazzaferri trust property in Lake County; enjoined Mazzaferro from recording or causing to be recorded any document against the Parisi property without prior court order; and awarded respondents costs of suit.
These were a notice of pending action and a mechanics lien recorded on April 14, 2014, that had not been included in previous court orders.
Mazzaferro submitted "voluminous" objections to the tentative decision and proposed judgment, which the court addressed in an order overruling both in their entirety. Judgment on the second phase of the bifurcated trial was filed on March 23, 2016. Joshua Mazzaferri filed a notice of appeal on April 7, 2016, and Mazzaferro filed a notice of appeal on May 26, 2016. The two appeals were eventually consolidated, on Mazzaferro's motion, by this court's order of October 27, 2016.
The court noted that despite February 29, 2016, tentative decision had addressed the parties' objections to and requests for clarification of the original tentative ruling, which had addressed all the issues except the attorney fee claim on which further evidence was permitted. The court commented that despite the fact that this meant the only newly resolved issue addressed in the February 29 tentative decision was attorney fees, Mazzaferro filed a 341-page (not including exhibits) objection to the tentative decision, which the trial court described as "voluminous and extremely repetitive," and an objection to the proposed judgment and demand for jury trial on "outstanding controverted issues," which incorporated by reference the entire 355-page objection to the tentative decision.
DISCUSSION
Appellants challenge the trial court's judgment quieting title to the Parisi property in the Parisis, as trustees of the Parisi Family Trust, and holding Mazzaferro liable to Edith Mazzaferri and the Parisis, as trustees of the respective trusts, for slander of title in the amount of $95,000. Their separate opening briefs collectively present issues under alphabetical headings A through W, one appellant's opening brief described as a continuation of the other's. Their arguments do not address the merits of the actual rulings encompassed by the judgment from which they appeal; most raise jurisdictional and procedural challenges to the entire litigation, including matters that are not before us because they have already been finally determined—the approval of the accountings, which became final upon dismissal of Joshua Mazzaferri's appeal in No. A141444, and the orders confirming the trust and trustee, quieting title to the 2006 MLT properties and expunging encumbrances, which became final when not appealed or when Mazzaferro's appeal in No. A143446 was dismissed. As emphasized in appellants' reply brief, their primary challenge appears to be to the probate court's subject matter jurisdiction, an issue they incorrectly claim respondents have failed to address.
Appellants initially filed a 96-page consolidated brief containing arguments presented under headings labelled alphabetically from A to Y. After this court rejected the brief as exceeding the page limit specified in the California Rules of Court and directed appellants to file a consolidated brief within the page limit or two separate briefs within the page limit, appellants filed separate briefs that simply split the consolidated brief in two. Mazzaferro's brief contains the preliminary matters set forth in the consolidated brief, arguments A through K from the consolidated brief, and a conclusion adopting by reference all of Joshua Mazzaferri's separate brief. Joshua Mazzaferri's separate brief begins with a statement that it is a continuation from page 52 of Mazzaferro's brief and presents arguments L through Y from the consolidated brief.
I.
Respondents argue Mazzaferro's appeal should be dismissed under the doctrine of disentitlement.
The motion to dismiss this appeal is based on the "disentitlement doctrine," under which a party who fails to comply with trial court orders may be precluded from pursuing an appeal. (Gwartz v. Weilert (2014) 231 Cal.App.4th 750, 757 (Gwartz).) "An appellate court has the inherent power . . . to dismiss an appeal by a party that refuses to comply with a lower court order. (Stoltenberg v. Ampton Investments, Inc. (2013) 215 Cal.App.4th 1225, 1229 (Stoltenberg).) The doctrine of disentitlement is not jurisdictional, but is a discretionary tool that may be used to dismiss an appeal when the balance of the equitable concerns makes dismissal an appropriate sanction. (Id. at p. 1230.) The rationale underlying the doctrine is that a party to an action cannot seek the aid and assistance of an appellate court while standing in an attitude of contempt to the legal orders and processes of the courts of this state. (Ibid.) No formal judgment of contempt is required under the doctrine of disentitlement. (Ibid.) An appellate court may dismiss an appeal where the appellant has willfully disobeyed the lower court's orders or engaged in obstructive tactics." (Gwartz, at pp. 757-758.)
Intervenors initially sought to dismiss the appeal on the additional ground that appellant had failed to procure the record and prosecute the appeal. They withdrew this argument after appellant was granted relief from default.
While the disentitlement doctrine " 'is particularly likely to be invoked where the appeal arises out of the very order (or orders) the party has disobeyed' " (Ironridge Global IV, Ltd. v. ScripsAmerica, Inc. (2015) 238 Cal.App.4th 259, 265 (Ironridge), quoting (Eisenberg et al., Cal. Practice Guide: Civil Appeals and Writs (The Rutter Group 2014) ¶ 2:340, p. 2-203), it is not limited to that situation and may also apply where the appellant has violated other orders in a sufficiently "egregious" manner. (In re E.M. (2012) 204 Cal.App.4th 467, 476-477.) "Moreover, the merits of the appeal are irrelevant to the application of the doctrine. (See Stone v. Bach (1978) 80 Cal.App.3d 442, 448 [rejecting defendant's claim that dismissal was not warranted because the orders he violated were 'invalid'].)" (Ironridge, at p. 265.)
The present appeal, as we have said, is from orders quieting title to the Parisi property and holding Mazzaferro liable to for slander of title to all four properties at issue under the March 2013 petition in the amount of $95,000. With respect to the Parisi property, while the quiet title claim was not tried until June 2015 (having been stayed during the pendency of Joshua Mazzaferri's ultimately dismissed appeal), the underlying issue was resolved when the trial court, in November 2013, upheld the transfer of the Parisi property from Edith Mazzaferri to Gina Parisi in its order approving the accountings and ratifying Edith Mazzaferri's actions as trustee. Despite the trial court's order, Mazzaferro recorded false encumbrances against this property (as well as the three owned by the 2006 MLT) in 2014. After Joshua's appeal was dismissed in 2015, marking the finality of the orders approving the accountings, Mazzaferro recorded additional false encumbrances against the Parisi property.
The slander of title claims at issue in the present appeal were based on encumbrances filed against all four properties. As discussed above, and in our previous unpublished opinion on the appeal in No. A143446, Mazzaferro recorded encumbrances against the three MLT properties after the court quieted title in Edith Mazzaferri, as trustee of the MLT, in October 2013—including recording grant deeds purporting to transfer two of those properties to himself on the day of the hearing on Edith Mazzaferri's motion to expunge other encumbrances. And after the trial court expunged the encumbrances and enjoined Mazzaferro from recording any instrument against property held by Edith Mazzaferri as trustee or interfering with the sale of such property, Mazzaferro recorded a correction deed purporting to transfer one of the Sonoma properties, which had been sold to third parties—to a trust he had established. He has simply refused to abide by court orders confirming his lack of ownership interest in the properties.
Mazzaferro's history of ignoring and violating court orders is egregious, as is his history of harassment and obstruction. We have already dismissed one of his appeals in this same case under the disentitlement doctrine. Division Five of this court, in a 2016 unpublished decision upholding the restraining order Edith Mazzaferri obtained against Mazzaferro in July 2015, commented upon Mazzaferro's litigation history, noted that he had not paid sanctions ordered by Division Five in 2011, for filing a frivolous appeal from orders in a case by Edith Mazzaferri against him for misappropriating assets in the Fiorani Living Trust (No. A131261), and warned that it would "hereafter invoke the doctrine of disentitlement and decline to hear any appeal he may present in any matter involving Mazzaferri unless he first demonstrates compliance with the orders of this court and any other court from which the appeal is taken, or he shows good cause why he has failed to do so." (Mazzaferri v. Mazzaferro (Sept. 2, 2016, A146585) [nonpub. opn.].) We reiterate what we have said before: Mazzaferro's flagrant refusal to abide by court orders is precisely the conduct the disentitlement doctrine is intended to address.
The 11 appeals noted in that opinion are approximately half of the appeals by Mazzaferro currently reflected in this court's docket. (See also, Parisi v. Mazzaferro, supra, 5 Cal.App.5th at p. 1222, fn. 3 [listing 12 appeals involving Mazzaferro].)
Indeed, in light of our previous dismissal of Mazzaferro's appeal under the disentitlement doctrine and Division Five's warning that it would apply this doctrine in the future, it ought to have been apparent to Mazzaferro that without steps to rectify his noncompliance with court orders, the present appeal would incur the same result and, therefore, is frivolous. (In re Marriage of Flaherty (1982) 31 Cal.3d 637, 650 [appeal is frivolous if "taken to harass the respondent or delay the effect of an adverse judgment" or "when any reasonable attorney would agree that the appeal is totally and completely without merit"].) To the contrary, when we gave Mazzaferro notice following oral argument on the appeal that, on our own motion, we were considering imposing sanctions for taking a frivolous appeal, Mazzaferro responded with a flurry of motions asserting a right to be informed of the "evidence" the court was relying upon to consider sanctions, claiming the "utter confusion" of the justices at oral argument on the appeal demonstrated we were not in possession of the correct record on appeal, and seeking a referral to the California Attorney General "to prosecute the individuals responsible for concealing the appellate record from the July 24, 2018 three justice oral argument panel." Mazzaferro declined to appear for oral argument, claiming he was prevented from being able to prepare.
Mazzaferro initially filed a "Motion for the Court to Take Mandatory Judicial Notice in Support of Appellant Ronald Mazzaferro's Response to August 31, 2018 Docket Entry Indicating the Court is Considering Imposing Sanctions on Appellant Ronald Mazzaferro for Taking an Appeal That is Frivolous," asserting that we are required to take judicial notice of our own docket and the cases cited in our notice; a "Response to August 31, 2018 Docket Entry Indicating The Court is Considering Imposing Sanctions on Appellant Ronald Mazzaferro for Taking an Appeal That is Frivolous" arguing that he was not provided with the grounds upon which we were considering sanctions and requesting oral argument; the "Declaration of Carol Van Zandt and Request for Investigation in Support of Appellant Ronald Mazzaferro's Response to August 31, 2018 Docket Entry Indicating The Court is Considering Imposing Sanctions on Appellant Ronald Mazzaferro for Taking an Appeal That is Frivolous," stating that the declarant has a "legal background," is familiar with the case, was present at oral argument on the appeal and found it "apparent . . . that the Justices did not have the correct record before them" because "there was utter confusion on the Justices part"; the "Declaration of Paul Den Beste and Request for Investigation in Support of Appellant Ronald Mazzaferro's Response to August 31, 2018 Docket Entry Indicating The Court is Considering Imposing Sanctions on Appellant Ronald Mazzaferro for Taking An Appeal That is Frivolous," contrasting with the present case the attention given to a different trust matter before a different judge in the Sonoma County Superior Court.
After we set the sanctions issue for oral argument, Mazzaferro filed additional motions seeking orders requiring this court to "produce evidence the court is relying on to consider sanctioning" him, setting a briefing schedule for him to "file opposition to the evidence produced by the court," and referring the case to the state Attorney General "to prosecute the individuals responsible for concealing the appellate record from the July 24, 2018 three justice oral argument panel." We denied the motion.
In a telephone conversation with Mazzaferro on September 11, the Court of Appeal Assistant Clerk Administrator agreed to confirm the contents of the record on appeal. On September 17, Mazzaferro filed a document entitled "Appellant Ronald Mazzaferro's Responsive Notice to the Court of Court Assistant Clerk Administrator Beth Robbins September 11, 2018 Commenced but Uncompleted Investigation Vitiating the September 10, 2018 Oral Argument Directed to Sanctions for Taking an Appeal that is Frivolous," stating that he had been denied due process in that the evidence the court was relying upon to consider sanctions had not been disclosed, and he therefore was unable to prepare for oral argument and would not appear at the scheduled hearing. The same day, Mazzaferro was informed by email of the full contents of the record on appeal.
In addition to the egregiousness of Mazzaferro's disregard of court orders, the demands imposed on the resources of this court by his indefatigable litigation are considerable. And respondents are not "the only [people] aggrieved by this frivolous appeal. Those litigants who have nonfrivolous appeals are waiting in line while we process the instant appeal. Several courts have approved of sanctions made payable to the Court of Appeal for the filing of a frivolous appeal." (Estate of Gilkison (1998) 65 Cal.App.4th 1443, 1451.)
At least since 1988, when Finnie v. Town of Tiburon (1988) 199 Cal.App.3d 1 (Finnie) was decided, California courts have had no difficulty concluding that Code of Civil Procedure section 907 and the appellate court rules authorize sanctions payable to the court. Finnie found that the costs compensable to the courts—and through them the taxpayers—for the expense of processing, reviewing, and deciding a frivolous appeal consisted of "the salaries paid to clerks, judicial attorneys, secretaries, and justices for their time expended . . . ." (Id. at p. 17.) The court found that the cost calculation must be made on an objective basis; that is, the current cost of processing "an average civil appeal." (Ibid.) At the time Finnie was decided, that cost was (at least in this District) determined to be approximately $2,324. (Finnie, at p. 17.)
Since then, various courts have assessed sanctions on this basis in varying amounts. The following are illustrative: In re Marriage of Economou (1990) 223 Cal.App.3d 97, 107-108 [sanction of $15,000 as "proper total cost to the state assignable to this case"]; Cohen v. General Motors Corp. (1992) 2 Cal.App.4th 893, 897 [finding $5,908.26 to be cost of average civil appeal]; Collisson & Kaplan v. Hartunian (1994) 21 Cal.App.4th 1611, 1621 [assessing sanction of $10,000 because "[s]urely the cost to process an average appeal has risen [from $3,995] since 1987"]; Pollock v. University of Southern California. (2003) 112 Cal.App.4th 1416, 1434 [noting $5,908.26 as state's cost to process average civil appeal in 2000]; In re Marriage of Gong & Kwong (2008) 163 Cal.App.4th 510, 520 [noting cost analysis finding cost of processing appeal with opinion to be approximately $8,500]. Those cases are all years old, and necessarily the cost today is much higher. We conclude a sanction of $9,000 is appropriate.
To state the obvious, we hereby advise Mazzaferro that further appeals in matters involving Mazzaferri will be dismissed pursuant to the disentitlement doctrine unless he first demonstrates compliance with the orders of this court and any other court from which the appeal is taken, or shows good cause why he has not done so.
II.
Respondents also seek dismissal of Joshua Mazzaferri's appeal, arguing that he lacks standing to maintain the appeal because he was not aggrieved by the judgment. (Code Civ. Proc., § 902 [any party aggrieved by a judgment may appeal].) " 'The rule is strictly applied by reviewing courts which hold generally that only aggrieved parties may appeal.' " (In re Pacific Standard Life Ins. Co. (1992) 9 Cal.App.4th 1197, 1200, quoting Kunza v. Gaskell (1979) 91 Cal.App.3d 201, 206.)
The issue of Joshua Mazzaferri's standing was first raised by this court in connection with our review of Mazzaferro's motion to consolidate the appeals. Our August 29, 2016 order directed Joshua Mazzaferri to explain "why he has standing to appeal the judgment, in which he was not named and with which he was not served." Joshua Mazzaferri responded that the judgment on appeal concerned the March 6, 2013 petition to confirm trustee, March 12, 2013 amended petition, and March 27, 2015 amendment, and while the petition and amended petition both listed Joshua Mazzaferri as a beneficiary of the trust entitled to notice, the notice of hearing for the original petition did not list him, no notice of hearing was filed for the amended petition and the March 27, 2015 amendment did not list the beneficiaries entitled to notice and appears in the record without a proof of service. Joshua Mazzaferri offered authority that while "[o]rdinarily, a person must be a party of record and must be aggrieved by the ruling to be able to appeal," "the party requirement is relaxed in the probate context" such that "an aggrieved beneficiary can appeal even if that beneficiary did not appear at the underlying hearing." (CEB, Trust and Probate Litigation, § 23.10B, p. 23-9 (Mar. 2015 update); Estate of Zabriskie (1979) 96 Cal.App.3d 571, 575; Estate of Meyer (1966) 241 Cal.App.2d 747, 750-751 ["person interested in the devolution of an estate permitted to appeal from a decree which adversely affects his share, even though he did not appear and object in the probate court"].)
After receiving Joshua Mazzaferri's response, this court granted Mazzaferro's motion to consolidate the appeals. In response to appellants' opening briefs, respondents then filed their brief and motion to dismiss both appeals. Appellants each opposed the motion to dismiss, Joshua Mazzaferri arguing that the issue of his being an aggrieved party had been resolved. Appellants' combined reply brief does not address the standing issue except to state that the issue was "settled in the affirmative" when this court granted the motion to consolidate the appeals and that because the appealed judgment "involves litigation of petitions involving real property that name both as beneficiaries entitled to notice . . . both appellants have the same consolidated mutual shared real property interest standing to appeal regarding the real properties involved that are assets of the trusts to which both are named beneficiaries. . . ."
The authorities cited in Joshua Mazzaferri's response to the court's order state not that a beneficiary always has standing to appeal a judgment involving the trust but that an aggrieved beneficiary has standing to appeal. Joshua Mazzaferri is a beneficiary of the MLT in that the trust terms entitle him to receive a "special cash gift" of $20,000 upon the death of the surviving settlor. In upholding Mazzaferri's transfer of the Parisi property to Gina Parisi, the court held that Edith Mazzaferri paid the trust "at least fair market value" for the property and did not damage the trust or residuary beneficiaries. Joshua Mazzaferri participated in and appealed from the proceedings that upheld the transfer of the Parisi property out of the trust. He has nothing to do with the encumbrances Mazzaferro recorded against the four properties.
The contents of Joshua Mazzaferri's opening brief confirm his lack of interest in the matters affected by the judgment. Many of the arguments challenge the accountings that became final when Joshua Mazzaferri's appeal from the orders approving the accountings was dismissed, matters not now before us. Several address issues that involve Mazzaferro, not Joshua Mazzaferri. One argument claims that William Parisi falsely asserted his counsel in the present case did not represent him in the San Francisco conservatorship case and counsel did not correct him. The remaining issues raised in Joshua Mazzaferri's brief reiterate arguments in Mazzaferro's brief that the trial court lacked subject matter jurisdiction in that the quiet title issues could not be litigated in probate court, in an action begun with the trustee's petition for approval of accountings, or during the pendency of Joshua Mazzaferri's appeal in No. A141444 and Mazzaferro's appeal in No. A143446.
As the trial court held in its February 29, 2016 tentative decision, these arguments are without merit. Probate Code section 850, subdivision (a)(3)(A), specifically authorizes a trustee to petition for a court order "[w]here the trustee is in possession of, or holds title to, real or personal property, and the property, or some interest, is claimed to belong to another." Under Probate Code section 855, "[a]n action brought under this part may include claims, causes of action, or matters that are normally raised in a civil action to the extent that the matters are related factually to the subject matter of a petition filed under this part." Under the one final judgment rule (Code Civ. Proc., § 904.1), which appellants invoke to argue the quiet title claims could not be heard in the same trial court case as the accountings, only a final judgment may be appealed, not an interlocutory one—that is, appeal may not be taken from a judgment that disposes of fewer than all the issues between the parties. (Morehart v. County of Santa Barbara (1994) 7 Cal.4th 725, 740-741.) Code of Civil Procedure section 904.1, subdivision (a)(10), however, expressly allows appeal from "an order made appealable by the Probate Code." The orders approving the accountings, confirming Mazzaferri as trustee and confirming the validity of the 2006 MLT were appealable pursuant to Probate Code section 1300, subdivisions (b) [settling an account of a fiduciary] and (c) ["[a]uthorizing, instructing or directing a fiduciary, or approving or confirming the acts of a fiduciary"], and section 1304 ["[a]ny final order under Chapter 3 (commencing with Section 17200) of Part 5 of Division 9)" except orders compelling the trustee to submit an account or report acts as trustee or accepting the resignation of a trustee. The orders quieting title to the MLT properties in Mazzaferri as trustee were appealable under Probate Code section 1300, subdivision (k) ["[a]djudicating the merits of a claim made under Part 19 (commencing with Section 850) of Division 2.)
As for the effect of the appeals, "the perfecting of an appeal stays proceedings in the trial court upon the judgment or order appealed from or upon the matters embraced therein or affected thereby, including enforcement of the judgment or order, but the trial court may proceed upon any other matter embraced in the action and not affected by the judgment or order." (Code Civ. Proc., § 916, subd. (a).) " '[W]hether a matter is "embraced" in or "affected" by a judgment [or order] within the meaning of [Code of Civil Procedure] [section 916] depends on whether postjudgment [or postorder] proceedings on the matter would have any effect on the "effectiveness" of the appeal.' (In re Marriage of Horowitz (1984) 159 Cal.App.3d 377, 381).) 'If so, the proceedings are stayed; if not, the proceedings are permitted.' (Betz v. Pankow (1993) 16 Cal.App.4th 931, 938).)" (Varian Medical Systems, Inc. v. Delfino (2005) 35 Cal.4th 180, 189.) Here, Joshua Mazzaferri's appeal from the order approving the accountings (No. A141444) stayed proceedings in the trial court on matters concerning the Parisi property, as the validity of the transfer of that property was at issue on the appeal. But the matters upon which the trial court proceeded—quiet title to the three MLT properties, expungement of the encumbrances on those properties and injunction against further encumbrances—were not affected by the appeal. Mazzaferro's appeal from the order on these issues (No. A143446) did not stay proceedings on the remaining issues—quiet title to the Parisi property and slander of title—after Joshua Mazzaferri's appeal in No. A141444 was dismissed, because those issues were not affected by the matters at issue in Mazzaferro's appeal.
None of these arguments implicate any interest of Joshua Mazzaferri in the issues on appeal. We fail to see how he could be aggrieved by rulings pertaining to the validity of the encumbrances recorded by Mazzaferro, or by the order quieting title to the Parisi property, which had already been determined to have been properly gifted to Gina Parisi in the accounting proceedings that Joshua Mazzaferri participated in and challenged on appeal.
DISPOSITION
For the reasons described above, the appeals are dismissed. Mazzaferro shall pay sanctions of $9,000 to the clerk of this court no later than 30 days after the date the remittitur is filed.
Mazzaferro's opposed "Motion to Settle June 29, 2017 Trust Accounting Documents Indicating Change in Trustee Pending Appeal," filed on August 31, 2017, and previously deferred for consideration with the appeal, is now denied.
Respondents shall recover costs.
/s/_________
Kline, P.J. We concur: /s/_________
Richman, J. /s/_________
Stewart, J.