Opinion
G061290
10-05-2023
JOSE EULOGIO BONILLA et al., Plaintiffs and Respondents, v. JOSE LUIS BONILLA et al., Defendants and Appellants.
Morasse Collins & Clark and Steven R. Morasse for Defendants and Appellants. Abir Cohen Treyzon Salo, Boris Treyzon and David S. Bederman for Plaintiff and Respondent Jose Eulogio Bonilla. The Aguilera Law Group and Raymond E. Brown for Plaintiff and Respondent Bohm Matsen Kegel &Aguilera. Snell &Wilmer and Michael B. Reynolds for Plaintiff and Respondent Bellann Raile.
NOT TO BE PUBLISHED
Appeal from an order of the Superior Court of Orange County, No. 07CC04418 Gregory H. Lewis, Judge.
Morasse Collins & Clark and Steven R. Morasse for Defendants and Appellants.
Abir Cohen Treyzon Salo, Boris Treyzon and David S. Bederman for Plaintiff and Respondent Jose Eulogio Bonilla.
The Aguilera Law Group and Raymond E. Brown for Plaintiff and Respondent Bohm Matsen Kegel &Aguilera.
Snell &Wilmer and Michael B. Reynolds for Plaintiff and Respondent Bellann Raile.
OPINION
BEDSWORTH, ACTING P. J.
INTRODUCTION
In 2011, Jose Eulogio Bonilla (Joe) obtained a $3.3 million judgment against Juan Bonilla (John), Sergio Salvador Bonilla (Sal), Jose Luis Bonilla (Louis), and Luis Alfred Bonilla (Alfred). Joe filed an application to renew the judgment on July 14, 2021, and it was renewed the next day.
Sal, Louis, and Alfred (Appellants) filed a motion to vacate the renewed judgment on the ground that Joe had not renewed it within the 10-year period required by Code of Civil Procedure section 683.020. The judgment, they asserted, was entered on June 3, 2011, so an application to renew it filed in July 2021 was too late. The trial court denied the motion.
All further statutory references are to the Code of Civil Procedure unless otherwise indicated.
We affirm. The trial court correctly ruled that an application to renew a judgment was timely even if the judgment was not the original one. The judgment in this case was refiled on July 26, 2011, so an application to renew filed on July 14 was timely.
FACTS
Joe sued his brothers - John, Sal, and Louis - in 2007, contending, among other things, that he owned 25 percent of three family businesses from which he had been excluded. In 2008, the parties - along with Alfred - settled the lawsuit. As part of the settlement, Joe agreed to reduce his share to 20 percent; the defendants and Alfred agreed to pay Joe's attorney fee bill of $165,000.
The original complaint did not name Alfred as a defendant.
John, Sal, Louis, and Alfred breached the settlement agreement by not paying Joe his 20 percent share of the profits from the businesses or the promised attorney fees. Joe amended his complaint to include a breach of contract cause of action, which was tried in 2011.
The trial court ruled that the settlement agreement was enforceable and that the defendants had breached it. Alfred and Louis informed Joe that they were not going to follow through with the profit payments, and they failed to pay Joe's attorney fees. In addition, the court ruled that each party but John had an interest in the three businesses and found that the defendants had falsified the businesses' records and significantly unreported the profits. The court appointed a receiver to manage the three businesses jointly owned by Joe, Sal, Louis, and Alfred.
The court ruled that the three businesses were owned 20 percent by Joe, 20 percent by Alfred, 30 percent by Sal, and 30 percent by Louis.
There is a document in the Appellants' appendix identified as a "judgment" with a "filed" stamped date of June 3, 2011. There is a handwritten note at the bottom of the document: "original." The register of actions in the appellants' appendix has an entry "statement of decision" for June 3, 2011. There is another judgment, labeled by hand at the bottom as a "duplicate original," filed on July 26, 2011.
The register of actions in the Appellants' appendix records two entries of a "judgment as to amended complaint": one on July 26 and one on July 27, 2011. The judgment of June 3 is recorded in Appellants' register of action as document number 771, between the two "judgment[s] as to amended complaint," document numbers 770 and 772.
Joe moved for his contractual attorney fees on June 22, 2011. On July 25, 2011, the court awarded him $950,000 under Civil Code section 1717. Joe filed a notice of ruling on the same day.
When Joe tried to file a writ of execution on the judgment, he received a rejection notice from the Orange County Superior Court clerk's office, dated July 25, 2011, that there was "[n]o judgment on record. There is only a statement of decision, but no actual judgment filed yet."
The register of actions in the appendix shows an entry for Document # 668 "statement of decision" with the date June 3, 2011.
Joe filed a "judgment" on July 26, 2011. The next three entries in the register of actions in the appendix are: Document #770, "The court enters judgment as to amended complaint" with the date of July 26, 2011; Document # 771, "Judgment," with the date of June 3, 2011; and Document # 772, "The court enters judgment as to the amended complaint," with the date of July 27, 2011.
Three pages of the register of actions, the entries for documents numbered between 650 and 712, contain documents apparently entered at random, without regard to chronological order. It appears that some 60 documents were blown around the clerk's office in a high wind, then entered into the register in the order in which they were picked up off the floor, rather than in date order. As a result, a chronological sequence of court filings is extremely difficult to discern. The wind was still blowing, although not as hard, in August 2011.
On July 14, 2021, Joe filed an "application for and renewal of judgment." The application specified July 26, 2011, as the date of the judgment. The clerk issued a notice of renewal on July 15, 2021.
Appellants then moved to vacate the renewal, on the ground that it was untimely. They asserted that the 10-year renewal period of section 683.020 began to run on June 3, 2011, when the initial judgment was entered, and therefore an application to renew the judgment in July 2021 was too late.
The court denied the motion, stating that the 10-year period began to run at the entry of the "amended" judgment, i.e., the "judgment . . . amended by the award of attorney fees." So an application to renew filed on July 14 was timely.
The court had two other reasons for denying the motion. First, it noted that, because the defendants had appealed the original $3 million judgment, that judgment did not become final until this court had issued its remittitur, which happened on February 28, 2012. Under section 337.5, subdivision (b), the statute of limitations on enforcement of judgments, the 10-year enforcement period began to run on that date and was still running in July 2021. In addition, it appeared that the clerk's office had misinformed Joe about whether the judgment had been entered when he sought a writ of execution. He was told that a judgment had not been entered yet, and his request for a writ was denied on that basis. The court held this was a mistake by the court - an extrinsic mistake - and therefore treated July 25 as the date of the judgment.
DISCUSSION
Section 683.020 provides, "Except as otherwise provided by statute, upon the expiration of 10 years after the date of entry of a money judgment or a judgment for possession or sale of property: [¶] (a) The judgment may not be enforced. [¶] (b) All enforcement procedures pursuant to the judgment or to a writ or order issued pursuant to the judgment shall cease. [¶] (c) Any lien created by an enforcement procedure pursuant to the judgment is extinguished." (Italics added.)
The question before us is one of statutory interpretation: the meaning of "a money judgment." We review such questions de novo. (Lopez v. Ledesma (2022) 12 Cal.5th 848, 857.)
There are two cases on point, Iliff v. Dustrud (2003) 107 Cal.App.4th 1201 (Iliff) and In re Marriage of Wilcox (2004) 124 Cal.App.4th 492 (Wilcox). Relying on the statutory language, both cases hold that the time period of section 683.020 expires 10 years after the entry of an amended or modified judgment, not the original one. (Iliff, supra, 107 Cal.App.4th at p. 1206; Wilcox, supra, 124 Cal.App.4th at p. 502.)
Although the second judgment in this case is not an "amended" judgment, but rather a "duplicate" judgment, it is still "a" money judgment, and the time for renewing it began to run on the date of entry, July 26, 2011. An application for renewal filed on July 14, 2021, and granted on July 15 was therefore timely.
Under these circumstances, it is not necessary to analyze the court's alternative ruling of extrinsic mistake. Extrinsic mistake applies when "'"circumstances extrinsic to the litigation have unfairly cost a party a hearing on the merits." [Citation.] . . . [Citation.]'" (Pulte Homes Corp. v. Williams Mechanical, Inc. (2016) 2 Cal.App.5th 267, 275; see also Aldrich v. San Fernando Valley Lumber Co. (1985) 170 Cal.App.3d 725, 738 [extrinsic mistake "deprive[s] a party of a fair adversary hearing."].)
The clerk rejected Joe's application for a writ of execution on July 25, 2011. The very next day, Joe filed a "judgment." On the same day a "duplicate original" judgment was entered, which he timely renewed. Even if the clerk made a mistake about the entry of the June 3 judgment, Joe was not deprived of a hearing or otherwise prejudiced.
Finally, the court noted another method for renewing the judgment, by filing a separate action on the judgment. The timeliness of this action is governed by section 337.5, which, unlike the time period of section 683.020, can be tolled, and it begins to run at a different point from the period of section 683.020. (See Cadle Co. II, Inc. v. Sundance Financial, Inc. (2007) 154 Cal.App.4th 622, 624 [limitations period runs from date when judgment becomes final].) We do not address this method of renewing the judgment. The judgment involved in this appeal was renewed under sections 683.010 et seq., and the only issue before us is whether it was timely under these statutes. The existence and merits of a separate action are not before us.
Section 337.5 provides, "Within 10 years: [¶] An action upon any bonds or coupons issued by the State of California. [¶] (a) An action upon any general obligation bonds or coupons, not secured in whole or in part by a lien on real property, issued by any county, city and county, municipal corporation, district (including school districts), or other political subdivision of the State of California. [¶] (b) An action upon a judgment or decree of any court of the United States or of any state within the United States."
For this reason, we deny the request for judicial notice of documents from the judgment renewal case.
DISPOSITION
The order denying the motion to vacate the judgment is affirmed. Respondents are to recover their costs on appeal. The request of Respondent Bohm Matsen Kegel & Aguilera for judicial notice is denied.
WE CONCUR: MOORE, J., DELANEY, J.