Opinion
NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN OFFICIAL REPORTS
Napa County Super. Ct. No. 26-34059
Retired Associate Justice of the Court of Appeal, First Appellate District, Division Five, assigned by the Chief Justice pursuant to article VI, section 6 of the California Constitution.
Plaintiff County of Napa (County) brought a nuisance abatement action against defendant Magno J. Ortega (Ortega), alleging that Ortega had built structures on his property without obtaining building permits. Following a bench trial, the trial court entered a permanent injunction requiring Ortega to remove the structures or take steps to obtain appropriate permits. Ortega appealed the trial court’s ruling, but has failed to present any cognizable claims of error. Therefore, we shall dismiss the appeal.
I. FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND
In August 2006, County filed a one-count complaint alleging that Ortega had built the structures without obtaining permits. The complaint sought injunctive relief, civil penalties and attorney fees.
Ortega, proceeding in propria persona, filed an answer in September 2006 and a cross-complaint in January 2007. The cross-complaint appeared to allege that County personnel had committed trespass and violated the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution by driving up Ortega’s driveway. County filed a motion for judgment on the pleadings seeking dismissal of the cross-complaint on grounds of untimeliness, failure to comply with statutory claim-filing requirements, and failure to state a cause of action. The court granted County’s motion and dismissed the cross-complaint without leave to amend.
After a bench trial on County’s complaint, the court issued a statement of decision and a “Final Judgment” on December 4, 2007. In its statement of decision, the court found that Ortega failed to obtain required permits and that his conduct constituted a public nuisance. The court also discussed and rejected various defenses that Ortega sought to assert, including his apparent contentions that County’s suit was barred by the statute of limitations, by the doctrines of laches, estoppel, and selective prosecution, and by the County’s alleged trespasses and Fourth Amendment violations. The “Final Judgment” (the December 4 Judgment) contained a permanent injunction requiring Ortega to remove the structures or apply for and obtain the necessary permits. It also awarded County a civil penalty and attorney fees, but reserved jurisdiction over the amounts to be awarded, which would be based on the degree of Ortega’s compliance with the injunction. Ortega then filed this appeal.
We requested that the parties submit supplemental letter briefs addressing (1) whether the December 4 Judgment and any other trial court orders Ortega seeks to challenge are appealable, in light of the trial court’s reservation of jurisdiction as to the amount of civil penalties and attorney fees (Code Civ. Proc., §§ 904.1, subds. (a)(1), (a)(6), 906), and (2) whether the record and briefs submitted by Ortega are sufficient to obtain appellate review of the merits of his contentions.
II. DISCUSSION
We need not resolve whether the trial court’s orders are appealable. Assuming they are appealable, Ortega has not presented an adequate record or sufficient briefing to obtain appellate review of his claims of error.
As to the record, Ortega elected to use an appendix under California Rules of Court, rule 8.124. The superior court clerk issued a notice pointing out that Ortega had not designated reporter’s transcripts and stating that County was not to designate proceedings to be included in a reporter’s transcript. Ortega nevertheless included excerpts of the reporter’s transcript in his appendix.
All further rule references are to the California Rules of Court.
Ortega later filed a motion to augment the record with certain reporter’s transcripts. This court denied the motion without prejudice, because Ortega had not attached or sufficiently identified the transcripts of the relevant proceedings (see rule 8.155(a)(2) & (3)), and had not otherwise demonstrated that augmentation was proper under rule 8.130(a)(4). No subsequent motion to augment the record was ever filed.
Ortega filed a six-volume appendix: volumes B-I, B-II, and B-III include trial court records; volume D includes trial exhibits; volumes E-I and E-2 include excerpts of the reporter’s transcript, as well as some additional trial court records. (The cover page of the appendix also refers to certain “Addend[a]” (A (“Authorities”), C (“Cast of Characters”), and F (“changing legal Fiction over the years”), but these are sections of Ortega’s opening brief rather than volumes of the record.)
Ortega’s failure to properly designate reporter’s transcripts precludes him from including such transcripts in his appendix. (Rule 8.124(b)(2)(B).) Because Ortega did not designate reporter’s transcripts, County was precluded from designating additional portions of the transcripts (rule 8.130(a)(4)). For example, County points out that Ortega did not include in his appendix the transcript of the first day of trial, when County presented and rested its case. For these reasons, the excerpts of the reporter’s transcript included in Ortega’s appendix are stricken. And, since no reporter’s transcripts are properly part of the record, Ortega may not challenge the sufficiency of the evidence to support the trial court’s rulings, including its rulings that an injunction was proper and that no defenses applied. (Aguilar v. Avis Rent A Car System, Inc. (1999) 21 Cal.4th 121, 132; Navarro v. Perron (2004) 122 Cal.App.4th 797, 801.)
In addition to failing to provide an adequate record, Ortega has not properly presented in his briefs any claims of trial court error. First, given the state of the record, many of Ortega’s factual allegations are not supported by appropriate record references, as required by rule 8.204(a)(1)(C). Because we have stricken the excerpts of the reporter’s transcript that Ortega improperly included in his appendix, we disregard references to those excerpts in his briefs. Moreover, many of Ortega’s record citations do not include page numbers as required by rule 8.204(a)(1)(C).
Second, Ortega has not presented a coherent factual statement summarizing all “significant facts,” as required by rule 8.204(a)(2)(C). Instead, he appears to have selected only factual assertions that he believes are favorable to his position and has presented them in a random, disorganized fashion throughout his briefs.
Third, Ortega has not presented reasoned argument and pertinent legal authority to support his contentions, as required by rule 8.204(a)(1)(B). Ortega’s briefs do not articulate specific legal arguments addressing the propriety of the injunction entered by the trial court. Instead, his briefs are scattershot complaints about County officials and others, and raise issues ranging from global warming to unrelated prior litigation. We also observe that many of the legal authorities Ortega does cite are not relevant to the issues before the trial court and this court. For instance, Ortega cites authority addressing the issuance of preliminary, rather than permanent, injunctions. Similarly, he cites the Uniform Building Code, but this case was litigated under the California Building Code, as incorporated into the Napa County Code.
This court is not required to make an independent search of the record for facts that support Ortega’s position. (E.g., Mansell v. Board of Administration (1994) 30 Cal.App.4th 539, 545-546.) Moreover, an appellant’s failure to state all of the evidence fairly in his brief waives the alleged error. (Foreman & Clark Corp. v. Fallon (1971) 3 Cal.3d 875, 881; County of Solano v. Vallejo Redevelopment Agency (1999) 75 Cal.App.4th 1262, 1274.) Finally, this court is not required to seek to develop coherent legal arguments and locate supporting authorities for Ortega. (E.g., Dills v. Redwoods Associates, Ltd. (1994) 28 Cal.App.4th 888, 890, fn. 1; Mansell v. Board of Administration, supra, 30 Cal.App.4th at pp. 545-546.) As a result of these defects in Ortega’s briefs, any claims of error that he sought to present are waived.
In our request for supplemental briefing, we asked the parties to address whether the record and briefs submitted by Ortega were sufficient to obtain appellate review of his contentions. Instead of addressing this question or explaining why he believes his record and briefs are sufficient, Ortega submitted another brief that is as defective as his earlier briefs. His supplemental brief presents a collection of vague and disorganized arguments that do not relate to the questions in this court’s request for supplemental briefing.
The “failure of an appellant in a civil action to articulate any pertinent or intelligible legal argument in [his briefs] may, in the discretion of the court, be deemed an abandonment of the appeal justifying dismissal.” (Berger v. Godden (1985) 163 Cal.App.3d 1113, 1119-1120.) Because Ortega has not designated an adequate record to obtain review of many of his challenges to the trial court’s rulings, and because he has waived any such challenges in any event by not articulating them or supporting them with relevant authority, we shall dismiss his appeal.
When an appellant’s briefs fail to present any such arguments and fail to comply with the rules governing briefing, dismissal for abandonment is appropriate even though dismissal would not be permissible based solely on noncompliance with the rules. (Berger v. Godden, supra, 163 Cal.App.3d at p. 1120, fn. 7.)
III. DISPOSITION
The appeal is dismissed. County shall recover its costs on appeal.
We concur. JONES, P.J., SIMONS, J.