Opinion
NOT TO BE PUBLISHED
APPEAL from the judgment and the order of the Superior Court of Los Angeles County No. BC 355435, Mary Thornton House, Judge.
Tina Green, in pro per.
Law Offices of Egbase & Associates, Gerald O. Egbase and Jonathan L. Nielsen for Defendants and Respondents.
RUBIN, J.
Tina Green appeals from the court’s dismissal of her complaint for her failure to file a security bond that the trial court required from her because she is a vexatious litigant. We affirm.
FACTS AND PROCEEDINGS
The record on appeal in this lawsuit over ownership of church property is jumbled and incomplete. From reviewing the parties’ pleadings and briefs in this matter and our opinion in a previous appeal involving appellant Tina Green’s dispute with respondent True Faith Holiness Church (True Faith Holiness Church v. Tina Green, case No. B193945), we discern the following appears to have occurred below.
Appellant’s late-husband, George Green, founded the predecessor to respondent True Faith Holiness Church during his marriage to his first wife. As the founder, Green and his then-wife deeded a building in 1971 to the new church. In 1975, the predecessor church conveyed the building to respondent True Faith Holiness Church of which Green was also a founding trustee and pastor. In an internal power struggle after the building passed to respondent True Faith, respondent’s trustees removed Green as pastor.
In 1992, Green, who had since married appellant Tina Green, died. More than a decade later beginning in May 2005, Tina Green filed her first of several lawsuits to quiet title in the church building to herself. First, she filed case No. KC 046251, which she dismissed after respondent served a demurrer. Next, in January 2006 she filed a cross-complaint against respondent in case No. BC 327914. Respondent successfully demurred to that cross-complaint without leave to amend, which we affirmed on appeal. (Nonpub. case No. B193945, filed Nov. 29, 2007.) In affirming, we noted the trial court had granted appellant several opportunities to amend her complaint, and observed that “The trial court tried to be solicitous of appellant, apparently mindful of her not having an attorney to represent her.” (Id. at p. 5.) We agreed with the trial court that appellant had not stated a cause of action and nothing in the record suggested she could do so, even when we invited her counsel at oral argument to propose amendments that would make her claims viable. (Id. at p. 4 fn. 3.) Finally, in September 2006 while her first appeal before us was pending, she filed a petition in probate court in case number KP 010446, which the probate court dismissed as lacking merit.
She also filed a petition for writ relief, which Division 4 of this district denied in May 2007 (case No. B196408).
In the meantime, appellant in July 2006 filed the complaint that began the litigation at issue in this appeal. She filed her complaint five days after the trial court sustained respondent’s demurrer without leave to amend in case No. BC 327914 (the subject of appellant’s first appeal to us in case No. B193945). In her complaint, appellant alleges her late husband never intended to permanently part with the building he deeded to respondent’s predecessor church. She alleges he executed the grant deed to the predecessor hastily and without professional guidance. Hence, she concludes, respondent and the other defendants have no lawful claim to the property. Seeking recovery of the property, she alleges causes of action to quiet title and for declaratory relief, injunctive relief, and an accounting.
After appellant filed her complaint, defendants and respondents True Faith, Anna Louise Evans, and Mary Allin Tyars, moved for a court order classifying her as a vexatious litigant. They asserted appellant satisfied the definition of “vexatious litigant” under Code of Civil Procedure section 391, subdivisions (b)(2) and (b)(3) because she had repeatedly refiled actions trying to relitigate title to the church building after its ownership had been decided against her. They argued that before the court considered entertaining appellant’s lawsuit, the court should require appellant to post a bond to secure their potential recovery of their attorneys fees and costs.
The court granted respondents’ motion in November 2006. Declaring appellant a vexatious litigant, the court noted “the facts and issues raised in this action have been twice adjudicated against [appellant] and the judgments of dismissal are final.” The court ordered her to post a $30,000 bond to secure payment of respondents’ prospective costs and attorneys fees. Appellant did not post a bond. Consequently, in February 2007 the court dismissed appellant’s complaint. In its dismissal order, the court stated appellant “has filed four cases against the moving defendant, two of which have been determined adversely against her. Each of the cases presented the same facts and issues raised in the action pending before this court.” This appeal followed.
DISCUSSION
Code of Civil Procedure sections 391 and 391.1 permit a defendant to move for an order to declare a plaintiff a vexatious litigant and to require such a plaintiff to post a bond to secure payment of the defendant’s fees and costs. (Code of Civ. Proc., § 391.1.) A court may dismiss an action if a plaintiff fails to post a bond when ordered to do so. (§ 391.4.) Appellant contends the court erred in requiring her to post a bond because she is not a vexatious litigant.
All further undesignated section references are to the Code of Civil Procedure.
First off, appellant appears to confuse her obligation to post a bond with an order imposing monetary sanctions. The bond was not a sanction; it was security to ensure respondents could recover their fees and costs if they prevailed in appellant’s lawsuit against them. The court did not order appellant to pay monetary sanctions; the reason the court dismissed her complaint was she did not post a bond. (§ 391.4 [court may dismiss action if no bond posted].)
In disputing the court’s characterization of her as a vexatious litigant, appellant focuses on only one of the statutory definitions of vexatiousness: five unsuccessful lawsuits in seven years. (§ 391, subd. (b)(1).) By her count, she has filed four actions, of which only one in her mind had been decided against her when the court deemed her vexatious. Comparing her circumstances to those in Holcomb v. U.S. Bank Nat. Assn (2005) 129 Cal.App.4th 1494, 1502-1504, she contends one unsuccessful lawsuit does not make her vexatious. In Holcomb, the court concluded that filing a tardy motion for reconsideration of an arbitration award in federal court and pursuing a separate state court lawsuit involving the same subject matter did not make one vexatious. (Holcomb, at p. 1504.) Holcomb is inapt, however, because appellant has done much more than the plaintiff in that decision. Here, the trial court deemed appellant vexatious not solely based on the number of lawsuits she had filed, but because she repeatedly attempted to relitigate a matter on which she had already lost: her claim to the church building. As the court noted when citing section 391, subdivisions (b)(2) and (b)(3), “each of the cases [she filed] presented the same facts and issues raised in the action pending in this court.” (§ 391, subd. (2) [litigant is vexatious if she repeatedly attempt to relitigate against the same defendant causes of action or claims that have already been decided against her].)
Appellant characterizes (1) her dismissal of her complaint in case No. KC 046251 after respondent demurred to it, (2) the court’s dismissal of her probate petition in case No. KP 010446, and (3) the dismissal of her cross-complaint in case No. BC 327914 which was then pending on appeal, as not being adverse results because, in her view, they were not outcomes on the merits or remained subject to appeal.
Appellant also contends the court’s imposition of a pre-filing order is improper. Section 391.7 allows a court to issue a pre-filing order against a plaintiff who is a vexatious litigant. A plaintiff subject to such an order must get permission from the court to file a new action. Appellant contends such an order requires respondents to show “overwhelming” evidence that she is not likely to prevail with her new complaint before the court may issue such an order. Section 391.7 has no such requirement; a finding of vexatiousness is enough to support a pre-filing order. (§ 391.7, subd. (a).)
Appellant also contends the pre-filing order was improper because respondents got all the relief to which they were entitled when the court dismissed appellant’s complaint for her failure to post a bond. Appellant is mistaken. The security bond and a pre-filing order are separate matters independently allowed under distinct provisions of the vexatious litigant statutes. (§ 391.1, 391.7) The bond is for a defendant’s benefit to protect the defendant from unjustified legal costs and fees. The pre-filing order, on the other hand, bestows a broader benefit to future potential defendants and to society at large by protecting others from unfounded lawsuits that clog the courts.
DISPOSITION
The judgment and order are affirmed. Respondents to recover their costs on appeal.
WE CONCUR: COOPER, P. J., FLIER, J.