Opinion
A143858
01-26-2018
JOHN J. HARTFORD, Plaintiff, Cross-defendant and Respondent, v. ELIZABETH KARNAZES, Defendant, Cross-complainant 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NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN OFFICIAL REPORTS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 This opinion has not been certified for publication or ordered published for purposes of rule 8.1115. (San Mateo County Super. Ct. No. CIV 458258.)
At bottom, this litigation started life as a civil case. The merits of the original dispute have not been at issue for years. Nevertheless, the passage of years has done nothing to diminish the parties' enduring animosity and tenacity in resisting each other. The latest visit to this court, as has been true for quite a time, involves the extended efforts by John J. Hartford to collect on a judgment against Elizabeth Karnazes, with whom he used to practice law. Evidence of the Dickensian history of this case is the register of actions, which comprises 147 pages, and is by itself a separate volume of clerk's transcript. We have repeatedly referred the parties' " 'campaigns of scorched earth litigation tactics.' " (Karnazes v. Hartford (June 27, 2014, A139421) [nonpub. opn.], quoting Karnazes v. Hartford (Feb. 10, 2014, A136400) [nonpub. opn].)
This appeal commenced with Karnazes filing a notice purporting to appeal "from the following . . . order[s] in this case . . . entered on . . . October 23, 27, 2014, November 6, 11, 13, 26, 2014." However, in her civil case information statement, Karnazes attached only three orders as being challenged, to wit: (1) the "Order Denying Defendant Elizabeth Karnazes' Motion to Compel Plaintiff to Fully and Completely Respond Without Objection to Form Interrogatories Set One and for Sanctions" filed November 6, 2014; (2) the "Order Denying Cross-Complainant/Judgment Debtor Elizabeth Karnazes' Motion to Strike and/or to Tax Costs," also filed on November 6, 2014, and; (3) the "Order Granting in Part and Denying in Part Judgment-Creditor John J. Hartford's Motion to Compel Further Responses to Enforcement," filed on November 26, 2014. Only the second and the third of these orders found their way into the clerk's transcript designated by Karnazes. Karnazes's failure to include the first order is contrary to California Rules of Court, rule 8.122(b)(1)(B).
Rule 8.204(a)(2)(B) of the California Rules of Court requires every appellant to "State that the judgment appealed from is final, or explain why the order appealed from is appealable" (italics added). This is what Karnazes states in her opening brief: "Appellant is appealing from the following orders filed by the Honorable Elizabeth Lee on November 26, 2014, insofar as it orders Appellant to provide Judge Lee with curriculum vitaes of three (3) appraisers for the express purpose of determining the fair market value of Appellant's home for the purposes of forcing the sale thereof for the benefit of Respondents, and only temporarily denies Respondents demand for an order allowing Respondents to search the interior and exterior of Appellant's home, as well as her fenced yard, solely because Judge Lee deemed the demand premature, stating she would permit the unlawful invasion of Appellant's privacy rights later in the case."
The existence of an appealable order is a jurisdictional prerequisite to an appeal. (Jennings v. Marralle (1994) 8 Cal.4th 121, 126.) "An attempt to appeal from a nonappealable order does not give this court jurisdiction or authority to review it." (Sherman v. Standard Mines Co. (1913) 166 Cal. 524, 525.) If an appeal is purportedly taken from an order that is not statutorily authorized, dismissal is required. (E.g., Collins v. Corse (1936) 8 Cal.2d 123, 124; Rossi v. Caire (1922) 189 Cal. 507, 508.) " 'It is the duty of an Appellate Court on its own motion to dismiss an appeal from an order which is not appealable.' " (Baker v. Castaldi (2015) 235 Cal.App.4th 218, 221-222.)
The governing statute, Code of Civil Procedure section 904.1, authorizes an appeal from an order appointing a receiver, but it says nothing about the appointment of an appraiser. What little authority exists is to the effect that an order appointing an appraiser is not an appealable order. (Estate of Durham (1951) 108 Cal.App.2d 148, 153.) This would be even more true in the situation where the court ordered only the production of curriculum vitaes, apparently a step preparatory to appointment of an appraiser. An order of the type identified here by Karnazes is clearly interlocutory, and thus not appealable. (Di Blasi v. Di Blasi (1930) 209 Cal. 753, 754.) And it has long been "firmly established that orders relating to . . . discovery are not appealable." (Southern Pacific Co. v. Oppenheimer (1960) 54 Cal.2d 784, 786.) We note that neither of the two discovery-related orders identified in Karnazes's notice of appeal required Karnazes to pay discovery-related sanctions, which can be an exception to the general rule of nonappealability. (See Stewart v. Colonial Western Agency, Inc. (2001) 87 Cal.App.4th 1006, 1012.)
Accordingly, the first and the third orders identified in Karnazes's notice of appeal constitute nonappealable orders, and the purported appeals from them must be dismissed. (Jennings v. Marralle, supra, 8 Cal.4th 121, 126; Collins v. Corse, supra, 8 Cal.2d 123, 124; Baker v. Castaldi, supra, 235 Cal.App.4th 218, 222.)
The second order identified in Karnazes's notice of appeal concerns an order allowing Hartford costs on a prior appeal in the amounts of (1) $390 for filing fees; (2) $215 for a clerk's transcript; (3) $127 for costs of printing briefs; (4) $6.58 for "cost of service of papers by mail," and; (5) $495 for "[t]ransmission of papers to the Court of Appeal." Absent from Karnazes's brief is anything like "a separate heading or subheading summarizing the point . . . support[ed] . . . by argument" as required by California Rules of Court, rule 8.204(a)(1)(B). We deem any challenge to this order abandoned. (People v. Hovarter (2008) 44 Cal.4th 983, 1029; Wurzl v. Holloway (1996) 46 Cal.App.4th 1740, 1754, fn. 1.)
Karnazes included in her brief a boilerplate request that "[s]hould the Court determine that any portion of this Appeal is from a non-appealable orders or proceeding, Appellant respectfully requests that the Court consider . . . ." We decline to do so.
The purported appeals are dismissed.
/s/_________
Richman, J. We concur: /s/_________
Kline, P.J. /s/_________
Miller, J.