Opinion
NOT TO BE PUBLISHED
Alameda County Super. Ct. Nos. HG08421463, RG09441756
Richman, J.
Appellant Kechun Li appeals following entry of judgment in her favor and against respondents David Chen and the Academy of Chinese Performing Arts (ACPA) in the amount of $2,390.36 for services rendered plus interest. Li contends that the trial court erroneously found her to be an independent contractor hired by respondents and asks that we modify the judgment to reflect her status as their employee. Li also challenges a postjudgment order awarding respondents $1,650 for attorneys’ fees incurred in opposing her motion for relief from an order striking her memoranda of costs. Li’s challenges are without merit, and we affirm.
BACKGROUND
This dispute arose out of the production of a children’s theatrical play called “Malan Flower, ” a production organized by the Malan Flower Executive Committee in conjunction with the ACPA. Chen, the president of the committee and the ACPA and the artistic director of the production, solicited Li’s services as an associate director of the play. A few weeks into rehearsals, however, her services were terminated. Despite having spent, by Li’s estimate, 36 hours on the production, she received no compensation for her time.
Li filed a complaint with the Labor Commissioner, claiming that as an employee she was entitled to compensation in the amount of $3,000 under the terms of an “Employment Contract” she signed. Following a two-day hearing, the hearing officer issued an “Order, Decision or Award of the Labor Commissioner” in which he found that as an employee, Li was entitled to recover $243 in wages, $28.96 in interest, and $810 in waiting time penalties, for a total award of $1,081.96. Apparently dissatisfied with the result, Li appealed the Labor Commissioner’s order to the Alameda County Superior Court (no. HG08421463).
The contract was signed only by Li, with no signature by Chen or anyone else on behalf of the Malan Flower Executive Committee.
Li’s complaint is not in the record. The award, however, identifies the following entities as defendants: the Academy of Chinese Performing Arts Foundation, Chinese Performing Arts Foundation, Bridge and Gate International Culture Foundation, and Bridge and Gate Productions, all as California corporations dba Malan Flower Executive Committee. Chen does not appear to have been a defendant in the Labor Commission action.
On March 17, 2009, Li filed a separate complaint in the Alameda County Superior Court (no. RG09441756), asserting claims for breach of contract, fraud, and common counts against David Chen, Malan Flower Executive Committee, the Academy of Chinese Performing Arts, and other defendants. She sought compensatory damages of $3,000, interest, attorneys’ fees, and punitive damages. The complaint concerned the same allegations as Li’s complaint before the Labor Commissioner, namely that respondents failed to pay her the monies due her for services as an assistant director on the Malan Flower production. By stipulation of the parties, the action was consolidated with Li’s appeal from the Labor Commissioner’s order.
On July 10, 2009, a court trial on the consolidated cases commenced before the Honorable Cecilia Castellanos. Judge Castellanos heard evidence for three days, and then continued the matter to October 23, 2009, for closing arguments. On February 19, 2010, Judge Castellanos issued a statement of decision in which she found—contrary to the hearing officer’s conclusion—that Li was an independent contractor, a finding that negated Li’s claim for penalties. Judge Castellanos awarded Li $1,900 for services rendered, plus prejudgment interest. She also found Li to be the prevailing party and awarded her costs of suit.
On March 4, 2010, Judge Castellanos entered judgment in favor of Li and against respondents in the amount of $2,390.36, and the court clerk served notice of entry of judgment on the parties that same day. Apparently, however, the clerk misaddressed the envelope to Li’s counsel, and he did not receive the notice. As a result, Li did not file her memorandum of costs by March 24, 2010, the last day to file it pursuant to California Rules of Court, rule 3.1700. Instead, on March 24, 2010, and again on April 5, 2010, Li’s counsel requested that the clerk send him a copy of the judgment and, after finally receiving it, he filed Li’s memorandum of costs on April 22, 2010. This was followed on May 14, 2010 by an “amended” memorandum of costs, which sought additional costs that her counsel had omitted from the first memorandum.
Because Li missed the March 24, 2010 filing deadline, respondents moved to strike her memoranda of costs, which motion Judge Castellanos granted on May 28, 2010. Li responded with a motion for relief from the order striking her memoranda. Although her motion is not in the record, it apparently sought leave to file a late memorandum of cost due to the clerk’s mailing error. Respondents opposed the motion, contending that the March 4, 2010 entry of judgment controlled Li’s filing deadline. Alternatively, they sought attorneys’ fees pursuant to Code of Civil Procedure section 473, subdivision (c)(1)(C).
On July 30, 2010, Judge Castellanos granted Li’s motion, setting aside the order striking her memoranda of costs and awarding her $2,366.50 for costs incurred in the action. At the same time, she granted in part respondents’ fee request, ordering Li to pay respondents $1,650 in attorneys’ fees incurred in responding to the motion.
By a separate order of the same date, Judge Castellanos also denied a motion that Li had filed seeking to “correct” the judgment. Again, the motion is not in the record before us, but according to Li’s description in her opening brief, she “sought to correct the record that [she] was an employee and not an independent contractor; i.e., that there was an ‘employment relationship’ of master-servant thereby entitling [her] to certain penalties under Labor Code Section 203, as the Labor Commission Order found that [she] was an employee.” In denying the motion, Judge Castellanos explained that neither a motion to “correct” the judgment nor a motion for reconsideration was an appropriate vehicle for relief when Li simply disagreed with the court’s finding that she was an independent contractor.
This appeal followed.
DISCUSSION
I
Li’s Opening Brief Fails to Comply With the California Rules of Court
Pursuant to California Rules of Court, rule 8.204(a)(1)(C), a party must provide a citation to evidence in the record supporting any matter asserted in a brief. Subdivision (a)(2)(C) requires the appellant to provide in his or her opening brief “a summary of the significant facts limited to matters in the record.” Li’s opening brief flagrantly violates these rules. A few examples are illustrative.
First, in her two-page “Statement of the Case, ” Li offers a summary of the history between her and respondents, purportedly identifying the terms of the contract pursuant to which she was hired, the work she performed, and the manner in which she was terminated. Nowhere in this entire two-page summary, however, does she provide a single reference to where in the record we can find evidentiary support for her representations.
Similarly, in the “Argument” section of her brief, Li attempts to convince us that she was an employee rather than an independent contractor with the following assertions:
“David Chen controlled directly and indirectly the time, place, subject matter of each week’s rehearsals, evaluated and made corrections to how the rehearsals were to be conducted, could tell Kechun Li not to return to work, and could and did terminate her without cause. [¶]... [¶]
“Kechun Li is an accomplished actress, not an independent established business. She is an employee of acceptable commercial productions in film and television. In this case, she agreed to provide her dramatic knowledge, skills and experience to assist Defendants in a children’s theatrical production of a Chinese fairytale called ‘Malan Flower.’ She has worked with children in many productions and assisted professional directors working with children in specific scenes. But she is not a professional director for theater. [¶]... [¶]
“Kechun Li was simply an employee of David Chen, Malan Flower Executive Committee, and the Academy of Chinese Performing Arts. She had no control and could not change the time or place or subject matter of each week’s rehearsals. She could not hire others to do the work for which she was hired. Kechun Li did not audition children for the characters in the play; David Chen gave the leading parts to his two daughters and not based on competitive skills of other children whose parents paid for their children to play in this hopefully cute experience for the local Chinese community.” In this lengthy passage, there is not a single citation to the record.
These examples are typical of Li’s entire opening brief—passage after passage of factual representations lacking evidentiary support. Her failure to identify evidence in the record is due, as will be discussed below, in large part to her decision not to designate a reporter’s transcript as part of the record. But whatever the reason for her failures, to the extent that her conclusory assertions lack evidentiary support and proper citation to the record, we are compelled to disregard them. (Paiva v. Nichols (2008) 168 Cal.App.4th 1007, 1037; In re S.C. (2006) 138 Cal.App.4th 396, 406 [“When an appellant’s brief makes no reference to the pages of the record where a point can be found, an appellate court need not search through the record in an effort to discover the point purportedly made.”]; Regents of University of California v. Sheily (2004) 122 Cal.App.4th 824, 826-827, fn. 1 [“It is not the task of the reviewing court to search the record for evidence that supports the party’s statement; it is for the party to cite the court to those references. Upon the party’s failure to do so, the appellate court need not consider or may disregard the matter.”].)
II
The Judgment Was Proper
In her first argument, Li challenges Judge Castellanos’s finding that she was an independent contractor rather than an employee and was thus not entitled to Labor Code penalties. Li submits that the finding “was not supported by the evidence presented both at the Labor Commission hearing and at the judicial trial, ” and that we have the authority to “make factual determinations to affirm or modify the judgment” to reflect that she was an employee of respondents. Li’s argument is fatally flawed.
As Li expressly states in her opening brief, and as alluded to above, she “has elected to proceed with the appeal without a Court transcript, ” submitting instead an appellant’s appendix that contains the following 11 exhibits: (1) the “Employment Contract” at the center of the controversy; (2) the “Order, Decision or Award of the Labor Commissioner”; (3) Li’s notice of appeal from the Labor Commissioner’s award; (4) Li’s summons and complaint filed in the Alameda County Superior Court; (5) Judge Castellanos’s February 19, 2010 statement of decision; (6) a copy of the misaddressed envelope containing the notice of entry of judgment; (7) the March 4, 2010 judgment; (8) the March 4, 2010 notice of entry of judgment; (9) email communications between Li’s counsel and the court clerk regarding the missing notice of entry of judgment; (10) Judge Castellanos’s order granting Li’s motion for relief from the order striking her memorandum of costs and awarding defendants $1,650 in attorneys’ fees; and (11) Judge Castellanos’s order denying Li’s motion to correct the judgment. Noticeably absent from the record is a reporter’s transcript from either the Labor Commission hearing or the court trial or, for that matter, any evidence from those proceedings other than the “Employment Contract.” Given this omission, there is no evidence before us from which we can analyze Li’s assertion that Judge Castellanos’s findings were unsupported by substantial evidence.
In light of Li’s choice to proceed without a reporter’s transcript, we must treat her appeal as an appeal “on the judgment roll.” (Allen v. Toten (1985) 172 Cal.App.3d 1079, 1082-1083.) “On such an appeal, ‘[t]he question of the sufficiency of the evidence to support the findings is not open.” (Ibid.) Instead, we presume that all findings by the trial court are supported by substantial evidence, and we can only consider whether the judgment is supported by the findings or whether reversible error appears on the face of the record. (Fitch v. Pacific. Fid. Life Ins. Co. (1975) 54 Cal.App.3d 140, 143, fn. 1 [“This appeal is based upon only the clerk’s transcript and, as such, is considered to be upon the judgment roll alone. [Citation.] Hence the trial court’s findings of fact and conclusions of law are presumed to be supported by substantial evidence and are binding upon us, unless the judgment is not supported by the findings or reversible error appears on the face of the record.”]; Ruzich v. Boro (1943) 58 Cal.App.2d 535, 543.)
Because there is no suggestion that the judgment was unsupported by the findings, and no reversible error appears on the face of the record, we affirm the judgment.
III
Li Has Failed To Demonstrate That Judge Castellanos Abused Her Discretion In Awarding Respondents Attorneys’ Fees For Responding to Li’s Motion For Relief From the Order Striking Her Memoranda of Costs
Li next challenges Judge Castellanos’s order requiring her to pay respondents’ attorneys’ fees incurred in responding to her motion for relief from the order striking her memoranda of costs. After detailing the history leading up to the belated filing of her memoranda, she requests that we “modify the award of attorney fees to $0.00” based on equitable grounds. As she explains it: “The practice of attorneys to grant professional courtesies in matters that were beyond the control of parties or their attorneys is no longer honorable or fair. [¶] Litigation is no longer about seeking the truth or justice based on facts and the reasonable interpretation of law. It is about winning at any cost. [¶] The Plaintiff and Defendants and the Defendants’ attorney are Chinese. Plaintiff’s counsel has assisted clients with legal disputes in China in maters [sic] concerning the rights of women and children. While Plaintiff’s counsel is not authorized to practice law in China, he has provided legal counsel to NGO’s and private counsel he has hired and paid to advance and protect the rights of women and children. The wrongful withholding of wages and delaying tactics of these Defendants and their attorney are practices used in China by unscrupulous businesses and the attorneys they hire (private counsel has only been in China for approximately 15-20 years, and Chinese laws are often good but not enforced by the courts). [¶] It is the opinion of Plaintiff’s counsel that these Defendants and their attorney should not be rewarded for unreasonably opposing Plaintiff’s motion for relief based on the Judgment and Notice of Entry of Judgment not being delivered by the U.S. Postal Service due to the court clerk’s error.”
We fail to see how the nationality of the parties and counsel is relevant to this issue, and we do not look favorably upon Li’s derogatory comments about respondents and their counsel. Such rhetoric has no place in a legal brief—or anywhere else. But aside from that, Li has failed to provide a sufficient record on which we can evaluate Judge Castellanos’s fee award. She failed to include in her appellant’s appendix her motion for relief from the order striking her memoranda of costs, defendants’ opposition, or any transcript from the hearing on the motion. We are thus left to guess at the arguments defendants made in support of their request for fees, arguments that Judge Castellanos apparently found persuasive. We decline to engage in this speculation.
That being said, we note that although the original deadline for Li to file her memorandum of costs was March 24, 2010, it was extended to April 26, 2010 due to the clerk’s mailing error. Li filed her initial memorandum on April 22, well before the deadline. However, on May 14, 2010, Li filed an “amended” memorandum of costs, necessitated by her counsel’s “mistake, inadvertence, surprise or neglect.” In light of this, it cannot be said that the clerk’s mailing error was the sole reason for Li’s request that she be permitted to file a late memorandum, as Li would have us believe. Her plea that she not be punished for the clerk’s error thus rings hollow.
IV
Li Waived Any Challenge To Judge Castellanos’s Order Denying Her Motion to “Correct” the Judgment
In addition to the judgment and the attorneys’ fee award discussed above, Li also purports to appeal from Judge Castellanos’s order denying her motion to “correct” the judgment to reflect that she was an employee rather than an independent contractor of respondents. Her opening brief, however, omits any argument challenging this order. We thus consider this claim waived. (Moulton Niguel Water Dist. v. Colombo (2003) 111 Cal.App.4th 1210, 1215 [“Contentions are waived when a party fails to support them with reasoned argument and citations to authority.”]; Badie v. Bank of America (1998) 67 Cal.App.4th 779, 784-785 [“When an appellant fails to raise a point, or asserts it but fails to support it with reasoned argument and citations to authority, we treat the point as waived.”].)
DISPOSITION
The judgment and postjudgment order awarding respondents $1650 in attorneys’ fees are affirmed.
We concur: Kline, P.J., Lambden, J.