Opinion
NOT TO BE PUBLISHED
APPEAL from a judgment of the Superior Court of Los Angeles County No. GC 042105. Joseph DeVanon, Judge.
Jose Castaneda, in pro. per., for Defendant and Appellant.
Law Office of Lisa MacCarley and Lisa MacCarley for Plaintiffs and Respondents.
CHANEY, J.
Appellant Jose Castaneda challenges an interlocutory judgment that orders partition and sale of a Pasadena property he owns in common with two of his relatives.
We have attempted to discern any potential merit that might be found in Jose’s arguments, while disregarding his accusations of wrongdoing unsupported by the record on appeal. We have found none.
Background Facts
The pleadings
On January 28, 2009, plaintiffs Evelyn Christina Ramirez (“Christina”) and Alonso Manuel Castaneda (“Alonso”) filed their First Amended Complaint against Jose Castaneda (“Jose”) and various institutional parties, alleging that Christina, Alonso, and Jose each owns a one-third interest in a parcel of real property at 1377 Rutan Way, Pasadena (the Rutan property), and seeking partition. (GC 042105.) According to the pleading, Christina, Alonso, and Jose wound up as one-third owners after Felicitas Castaneda (“Felicitas”) and Gonzalo Castaneda (“Gonzalo”) conveyed their joint ownership of the property to Felicitas, Christina, and Alonso as joint tenants by grant deed dated January 14, 2006 and recorded March 7, 2006; and Felicitas then conveyed her remaining one-third interest to Jose by grant deed recorded January 31, 2008.
As is revealed by other portions of the record, Felicitas is the now-deceased mother of Jose, Gonzalo, and a handful of other children; Christina and Alonso are the offspring of Susana, one of Felicitas’s children, and are the grandchildren of Felicitas.
Jose’s Answer denied that Christina and Alonso owned any interest in the property, and denied that Jose’s interest in the property was limited to a one-third share. It denied that Felicitas had knowingly conveyed any interest at all to Christina and Alonso, and alleged that she had intended to convey her undivided interest in the property to Jose. Affirmative defenses alleged various grounds on which Christina’s and Alonso’s partition action was barred, and that Jose had paid all real property taxes, mortgage payments, insurance premiums, and maintenance expenses for the property, for which he would be entitled to credit if partition is ordered.
On August 14, 2007, an action was filed in Felicitas’s name against Christina, Alonso, and others, to set aside the January 14, 2006 deed to Christina and Alonso, to quiet title to the Rutan property in Felicitas’s name, and for damages. (GC 039459.) That suit alleged that Felicitas’s daughter Susana had stolen or tricked Felicitas into transferring her Rutan property interests to Susana’s adult children, Christina and Alonso, and into giving Susana an unknown amount of money. On July 13 and 20, 2009, Jose filed notices of related cases in the superior court, indicating that GC 039459 was dismissed with prejudice on April 16, 2007, after Felicitas’s death, and that the claim would be refiled as a creditor’s claim in Felicitas’s estate. According to Jose’s opening brief in this appeal, the dismissal of case No. GC 039459 was due to error (or worse) on the part of Jose’s former attorneys (apparently the attorneys that had filed the action in Felicitas’s name).
The pleading and its exhibits also reflect that on September 27, 2005, before the transfer of interests in the Rutan property to Christina and Alonso, Felicitas and Gonzalo had encumbered the property with a $210,000 deed of trust. The answer to the pleading by the institutional trustee and successor trustee under the deed of trust claimed lack of information or belief as to most of the First Amended Complaint’s factual allegations, and alleged that the public record speaks for itself. In January 2010, Christina and Alonso stipulated that their partition rights are subordinate to the outstanding trust deed. The institutional defendants are not parties to this appeal.
Denial of Jose’s request for continuance
When the case was called for short-cause trial on the morning of February 22, 2010, the trial court recited that when the case had been called earlier that morning, someone had “announced he was making a special appearance for an attorney” who “wished to substitute in on the case, ” apparently on Jose’s behalf. But neither the trial court nor the plaintiffs’ counsel had yet received documentation of the substitution; the substituting attorney—Emahn Counts of the Counts Law Firm, P.C.—was not present in court; and neither Jose nor the specially appearing attorney was able to contact attorney Counts.
Hours later, after the lunch break and during the trial, Jose reported to the court that “there is no sign of him being at his office.”
Jose, acting without an attorney (the specially appearing attorney apparently having left before the case’s second call), asked the court to continue the trial to enable him to find out what had happened to attorney Counts, who he claimed to have engaged a few weeks earlier. Counsel for Christina and Alonso objected to a further continuance.
The plaintiffs’ counsel argued: “We continued the trial once. This case has been filed over a year ago. Very straight forward matter. I have a receptionist and I have voice mail. I have e-mail. I am probably one of the easiest human beings on the face of the planet to get ahold of. I live and work in Glendale. [¶] I think if there was any attempt by counsel to so much as call me as late as 5 o’clock on Friday, actually [I] worked until 6:30 on Friday. I would have gotten some notice.”
Jose told the trial court that earlier that month he had retained Counts to file a cross-action against Christina and Alonso for quiet title and fraud, and that he had signed and faxed Counts the substitution of attorney form on February 19, 2010. Nothing in the record explicitly says that Jose had engaged Counts to appear ready for trial on Monday, February 22, 2010. It leaves unanswered the possibility that Counts had been engaged only to file a cross-action and to argue a discovery motion that was set for hearing that same date, and that he might have known nothing of the trial scheduled for that date.
A Substitution of Attorney was filed in the court’s file at some point during that day, February 22, 2010, substituting attorney Counts as Jose’s attorney. It had been signed by Jose on Friday, February 19, 2010, and showed service by mail on Christina and Alonso’s attorney that same day, but it apparently did not get into counsel’s or the trial court’s hands until sometime after the case was called on the morning of Monday, February 22.
The fact that the court’s docket reflects the substitution was filed sometime on February 22, 2010, forms the basis for Jose’s accusation that opposing counsel and the trial court lied when they denied having it that morning. Plaintiffs’ counsel confirmed to the trial court that at some point—apparently Thursday, February 18—she had received an e-mail from Jose alerting her to the substitution, but not to the request for a continuance.
Jose had already once obtained a continuance to obtain trial counsel, when the case had been called for trial in late January 2010. At that time he had been told to have a lawyer in court on February 22. And apparently at that time, before he retained attorney Counts, he had filed witness and exhibit lists in preparation for trial.
Jose also explained to the court that he had failed to appear for trial—apparently in a different case—in September 2009, because he was under the impression there would be a mediation and no other hearings.
As the trial court noted, attorney Counts “is not counsel of record and he has not had any contact with this court.” Because Jose was unable to reach attorney Counts on the morning of trial, he could not suggest to the court when Counts might appear, and he could not represent to the court that when he did appear, he would be ready to proceed without yet another continuance.
The court thus concluded that “[i]f Mr. Counts is apparently ready, and would be here this afternoon, or be here tomorrow morning, I can trail the case for that purpose.” But without any indication that attorney Counts would appear or would be ready to proceed with the trial at any particular time, “I am not inclined to continue the case.” Denying Jose’s request for a continuance of the trial, the court explained that “I am sorry Mr. Counts has disappointed you, but the case has already previously been continued for trial. I can’t justify continuing it on the belief a lawyer may come in on some future date.”
The trial court also denied Jose’s motion to compel discovery, as untimely and as involving documents not relevant to the action. Jose’s appeal raises no issue with respect to that ruling.
Trial on the merits
Plaintiffs presented their case for partition of the Rutan property, beginning with certified copies of the deeds in which Felictas and her son Gonzalo became joint tenants of the Rutan property; in which Felicitas and Gonzalo encumbered the property for a loan; in which Felicitas, Christina, and Alonso became joint tenants in equal shares; and in which Felicitas transferred her one-third joint tenancy interest in the property to Jose, leaving Jose, Christina, and Alonso as tenants in common in equal shares. Plaintiffs also presented the testimony of Alonso that he was present when Felicitas signed the deed to him, and that he had sought to obtain Jose’s cooperation in selling the property. And they presented the testimony of Christina that she was seeking the property’s partition.
Jose’s argument at the opening and close of the trial apparently summed up his story:
“.... I believe that I have... proof that, you know, if $70,000 were taken the month or a couple months before this transfer was made, I think I can present clear and convincing evidence to this court it was done through fraud. My mother was deceived and she was lied to.
“I have an overwhelming amount of documents that show that prior to this bona fide grant deed that [Felicitas] was lied to. In fact, there are two investments right now, one is for over a hundred thousand dollars that, you know, it goes to show that all this investment and how the plaintiff had taken [Felicitas] to the bank many times. [Sic]
“I mean you are talking about $99,000 deposited in October of ’05 and by January it’s all evaporated. It’s all gone.
“Some of the transfer withdrawals do bear the signature of Mrs. Ramirez. And I wish I – I mean I wish I had been there to advise [Felicitas] not to give all of her money.”
It is unclear whether the intended reference is to Susana, Felicitas’s daughter, or to Christina, her granddaughter.
Jose was wholly unsuccessful in presenting evidence to support his story of fraud on Felicitas, however. His cross examination of Alonso revealed little more than that Alonso had not actually reached Jose when he tried to contact him about selling the property, and that Alonso had probably received a $200 check from Felicitas on his birthday in 2006. His cross-examination of Christina obtained her testimony that Felicitas did not speak English, that Felicitas had given Christina $10,000 for college, and that Felicitas had helped her with gas money and lunch money. Jose presented the testimony of his sister Alicia about various transfers of properties and funds by Felicitas (some apparently for investment and some to her children and grandchildren); but most of his questions, and all of his submitted documents, were excluded pursuant to valid evidentiary objections, primarily for lack of personal knowledge, lack of foundation, and lack of relevance to the issues being tried.
Jose neither offered nor identified any witness (present in court or not) who had personal knowledge of any fraud on Felicitas with respect to the transfer of her interest in the Rutan property. He neither offered nor identified any admissible documents that purported to relate to the Rutan property transfers. His questions alluded to a number of transactions in which he suspected Felicitas had been pressured to give property or funds to various of her children or grandchildren, but he had no evidence at all that any such pressure had actually been exerted, and no evidence at all that any of the claimed events had any relevance to the Rutan property transfers—the only issue in the case.
During Jose’s cross-examination of the plaintiffs’ witnesses the trial court had frequent occasion to advise Jose that after the plaintiffs had presented their evidence he would be able to testify to his version of the facts—but that he could not present his case arguing with the witnesses during his cross examination of them. Nevertheless, when it was his turn to testify, Jose declined to do so. Instead, he said only “I will raise this on appeal.”
The Judgment
The Interlocutory Judgment filed February 22, 2010, finds that Christina, Alonso, and Jose are tenants in common with undivided one-third interests in the Rutan property; it orders partition and sale of the property; and it appoints a referee to sell the property, to award the proceeds according to the parties’ respective interests, and to report the results to the court. The court explained the grounds for its decision: “There is no evidence before the court from which I can infer that Felicitas Castaneda did not knowingly, intelligently transfer property to the individuals named on the grant deed. There is no showing or evidence before me from which I shall infer she was mentally incompetent... or unaware of what she was doing.”
On February 23, 2010, Jose filed an appeal from the interlocutory judgment entered on February 22, 2010.
Other proceedings and motions
On July 20, 2009, Jose filed a Notice of Related Case in this court, identifying GC 039459 and yet another proceeding in the Superior Court, apparently involving Felicitas’s probate estate, GP 013952. The record on appeal does not reflect the current status of proceedings in case No. GP 013952.
On July 7, 2010, we denied Jose’s June 1, 2010 motion to consolidate this appeal with his appeal in another case pending in Division 5 of this court (B223549), which arose from Los Angeles Superior Court case No. BC 402096.
On September 28, 2010, the transcript of the trial court proceedings on February 22, 2010 was filed in this court. On October 7, 2010 we therefore denied Jose’s request to augment the record to include that transcript. (To the extent Jose’s request for augmentation also included post-judgment documents filed in the trial court in this case, and in Jose’s fee arbitration with the Counts Law Firm, those augmentation requests too are denied.)
On December 15, 2010, we denied Jose’s October 14, 2010 Request for Judicial Examination and Judicial Review, seeking to augment the record with various documents that either post-date the notice of appeal in this case, or were not part of the trial court record in this case.
Also on December 15, 2010 we denied Jose’s November, 16, 2010 Request for Judicial Notice of a number of documents—letters, bank records, checks, briefs, declarations, and testamentary documents—that were not a part of the record in the trial court.
On February 18, 2011, we denied Jose’s February 7, 2011 Request for Writ of Supersedeas to block the pending sale of the Rutan property pursuant to the Superior Court’s Interlocutory Judgment in this case.
On March 17, 2011, we denied Jose’s February 16, 2011 Request for Judicial Notice of Judicial Scam & Fraud, purporting to seek a judicial investigation of “what the heck took place in this court?” and how various claimed events could have occurred in this and other cases.
On April 6, 2011, we deemed Jose’s March 7, 2011 Request for Judicial Notice of pages 1-5 of the February 22, 2010 transcript of trial court proceedings to be a motion to augment the record to include that transcript, and granted the Motion to Augment. (The entire February 22, 2010 transcript, pages 1-95, is part of the record on appeal.)
Also on April 6, 2011, we granted respondents’ March 7, 2010 Motion to Augment the Record on Appeal to include various documents filed in the superior court, including the interlocutory order from which Jose’s appeal is taken.
Because the remaining documents in the augmentation relate to trial court proceedings that post-date the notice of appeal, we disregard them.
On May 12, 2011 Jose moved to augment the record on appeal to include the following purported documents: transcript of trial court proceedings of January 26, 2010 (the date the case was originally set for trial); a copy of an e-mail from someone at the Counts law firm to Jose, concerning the substitution of attorney; a signature page of a June 2007 agreement between Felicitas, Jose, and attorney Chad Pratt (unsigned by Pratt); a May 23, 2007 letter from attorney Pratt to Susana Castaneda; a December 11, 2007 letter from attorney MacCarley to attorney Pratt; bank records showing various transactions in an account in Felicitas’s name in late 2005 and early 2006; a declaration of Susana Castaneda dated October 15, 2008; and, a declaration of Gonzalo Castaneda dated August 17, 2010.
We hereby grant augmentation of the record on appeal to include the January 26, 2010 transcript. We grant this motion to augment with respect to the remaining documents only in order to consider Jose’s contentions that the trial court erred in excluding them from evidence at trial.
Discussion
This is a timely appeal taken from an appealable order, the Interlocutory Judgment determining the parties’ interests in the Rutan property and ordering its partition. (Code Civ. Proc., § 904.1, subd. (a)(9).)
To be successful on appeal, an appellant must be able to affirmatively demonstrate error on the record before the court. “‘“A judgment or order of the lower court is presumed correct. All intendments and presumptions are indulged to support it on matters as to which the record is silent, and error must be affirmatively shown. This is not only a general principle of appellate practice but an ingredient of the constitutional doctrine of reversible error.” [Citations.]’ (Denham v. Superior Court (1970) 2 Cal.3d 557, 564 [86 Cal.Rptr. 65, 468 P.2d 193].)” (In re Marriage of Bower (2002) 96 Cal.App.4th 893, 898.)
In addition, even demonstrated error does not alone warrant reversal. “Only when an error has resulted in a miscarriage of justice will it be deemed to be prejudicial so as to require reversal.” (Osborn v. Mission Ready Mix (1990) 224 Cal.App.3d 104, 114.) And a miscarriage of justice will not be found “unless it appears reasonably probable that, absent the error, the appellant would have obtained a more favorable result.” (Khan v. Medical Board (1993) 12 Cal.App.4th 1834, 1841.)
1. Preliminary observations
“A party proceeding in propria persona ‘is to be treated like any other party and is entitled to the same, but no greater consideration than other litigants and attorneys.’ [Citation.] Indeed, ‘“the in propria persona litigant is held to the same restrictive rules of procedure as an attorney.”’” (First American Title Co. v. Mirzaian (2003) 108 Cal.App.4th 956, 958, fn. 1.)
2. The trial court did not err in denying Jose’s request for a further continuance of the trial.
Jose’s primary claim of error is that his right to a fair trial was violated by the trial court’s refusal to continue the trial to a future date in light of his counsel’s failure to appear for trial. We review the court’s refusal to grant a further continuance of the trial for abuse of discretion. (Forrest v. State of California Dept. of Corporations (2007) 150 Cal.App.4th 183, 194.) We conclude after examining the record that the trial court acted within its discretion in denying Jose’s request for an additional continuance of the trial.
Under the abuse of discretion standard, we determine “whether or not the trial court exceeded the bounds of reason, all of the circumstances before it being considered.” (In re Marriage of Connolly (1979) 23 Cal.3d 590, 598; Forrest v. State of California Dept. of Corporations, supra, 150 Cal.App.4th at p. 194.) We presume that the order is correct, and imply findings that are necessary to support the judgment. (Bravo v. Ismaj (2002) 99 Cal.App.4th 211, 219.) To merit reversal, an abuse of discretion must be clearly established. (In re Stephanie M. (1994) 7 Cal.4th 295, 318.)
A continuance of the trial date may be granted only upon “an affirmative showing of good cause.” (Cal. Rules of Court, rule 3.1332(c).) The circumstances that may indicate good cause include some that could potentially apply here, such as the unavailability of trial counsel because of “excusable circumstances, ” and the substitution of trial counsel “but only where there is an affirmative showing that the substitution is required in the interests of justice....” (Ibid.)
When Jose filed his answer to the First Amended Complaint for partition in May 2009, he was represented by attorney Jack Conway. When he filed his Notice of Related Case in July 2009, however, he was unrepresented by counsel. And when he appeared on the original trial date on January 26, 2010, as well as when he filed his list of proposed trial exhibits on January 29, 2010, he remained unrepresented by counsel. While the trial court indicated during the February 22, 2010 trial that Jose had sought a continuance when the case was originally called on January 26, 2010, in order to obtain counsel, nothing in the January 26 transcript reflects that intention. Jose apparently engaged attorney Counts sometime in February 2010, for he represented to the court that he had met with attorney Counts “earlier [in the] month, ” that he had faxed him a substitution of attorney on Friday, February 19th, and that he had not been able to get ahold of attorney Counts.
As the trial court noted, however, when the case was called for trial on February 22, 2010, the record did not then contain the substitution that was later found to have been filed on attorney Counts’s behalf on February 22, 2010, and “no one came to the court, you know, by way of an ex parte motion to ask for a continuance of the case or advise me there is any problems with the case.” Jose told the court that he had retained attorney Counts “to file a cross-complaint” against the plaintiffs for quiet title and fraud. The record does not reflect that the attorney who had appeared at the first call for attorney Counts had intended to appear for anything but a discovery motion, or that he or attorney Counts had been aware that trial had been set for that date. He was unable to give the court any indication when Counts might appear, and whether when he did appear he would announce ready for trial, or would seek to again continue the trial.
These facts do not establish unavailability of trial counsel due to “excusable circumstances” could require a further continuance of the trial. The record contains no indication of any circumstances at all—excusable or not—to explain the absence of attorney Counts when the case was called for trial on February 22, 2010.
Nor does the record indicate any affirmative showing by Jose “that the substitution is required in the interests of justice, ” as is required to justify granting a continuance in order to substitute counsel. (Cal. Rules of Court, rule 3.1332(c)(4).) To determine whether the substitution was required in the interests of justice, the court was required to consider 11 specified factors, including the proximity of the trial date, any previous continuance, the length of the continuance requested, the prejudice to the parties from a continuance, and the court’s calendar. (Rule 3.1332(d).) Here, most of these factors weigh against the requested continuance. The trial date (already once continued) had already come; and the length of the requested continuance was unspecified and unknown. While the question of prejudice to the parties and the court from an additional continuance for trial was not specifically addressed, the trial court was in a position to consider both its own calendar, and the fact that the plaintiffs are residents of San Luis Obispo County and had already once previously been required to appear for trial in Los Angeles County, more than a hundred miles away. The record thus indicates no showing of good cause for the requested continuance, nor that a further continuance was required in the interests of justice. (In re Marriage of Falcone (2008) 164 Cal.App.4th 814, 823 [no showing of abuse of discretion in trial court’s refusal to grant continuance to obtain counsel, where party who had exercised significant direct control over issues had requested continuance on day of hearing after being unrepresented for months before hearing].)
Jose argues with fervor that he was deprived of his right to a fair trial by the court’s ruling. However, the rules expressly admonish that “continuances of trials are disfavored” (Cal. Rules of Court, rule 3.1332(c)); in light of that express admonition he suggests no basis on which we could find that the trial court was obligated to grant the requested continuance, or that it abused its discretion by declining to do so.
3. The trial court’s determination of the partition action on its merits is fully supported by evidence in the record.
As a reviewing court, we do not reassess the credibility of witnesses or reweigh the evidence. (In re S.C. (2006) 138 Cal.App.4th 396, 415; People v. McCleod (1997) 55 Cal.App.4th 1205, 1221.) We must view the evidence in the light most favorable to the judgment, accepting every reasonable inference that the trial court could have drawn from it. (In re Angelia P. (1981) 28 Cal.3d 908, 924; People v. Autry (1995) 37 Cal.App.4th 351, 358.) We must affirm the court’s factual findings if there is any substantial evidence, controverted or not, to support its conclusions. (In re Jason L. (1990) 222 Cal.App.3d 1206, 1214.) Here, the trial court’s decision is fully supported by substantial—indeed uncontradicted—evidence.
Ample evidence, uncontradicted in the record, supports the trial court’s determination that Jose, Christina, and Alonso each own an undivided one-third interest in the Rutan property. That is what is shown by the recorded instruments—the only evidence on the subject that was presented at trial. (Tr. Exh. 6, RT 12, Supp CT 38-40 [certified grant deed to Felicitas, Christina, and Alonso as joint tenants]; Tr. Exh. 7, RT 13, Supp CT 41-43 [certified grant deed from Felicitas to Jose].) The trial court was entitled to disregard any contrary evidence, even if there had been any (there was not).
4. The trial court did not err in excluding various documents offered by Jose.
a. Letters between attorney MacCarley and attorney Pratt
Jose argues that the trial court erred by excluding from evidence a letter dated December 11, 2007 from Ms. MacCarley, trial counsel for the plaintiffs, addressed to attorney Pratt, who apparently was Jose’s counsel in a different action. At trial, Jose offered this letter, which he contends constitutes an offer by respondents to transfer their interests in the Rutan property to Jose. But Jose identifies no basis on which the letter would be relevant to the issues before the trial court in this action, and he confirms that the letter constitutes the negotiations of attorney MacCarlay to settle another action involving Jose and another of his siblings. Later in his brief Jose argues that the letter constitutes “an admission of guilt and a confession as well as proof that Felicitas Castaneda was the victim of Financial Elder Abuse by her own son.... to plunder my mother’s savings.”
The letter thus admittedly involved settlement discussions, inadmissible under Evidence Code section 1152. It apparently was written by the attorney who represents the plaintiffs in this case, but at a time before she was engaged to do so. And it apparently also involved a different parcel of property than that at issue in this case. Jose’s trial court confirmation that the letter involves settlement, and his brief’s identification of the letter as involving a different dispute and nonparties to this action, confirm the propriety of the trial court’s ruling. (Evid. Code, §§ 350 [only relevant evidence is admissible]; 1152, subd. (a) [offer of compromise inadmissible to prove liability].) No error or prejudice is shown.
b. The trial court’s failure to order monies returned to Felicitas’s probate estate.
Jose’s appeal makes the following argument, which we set forth in its entirety: “The case filed in August 14, 2007, when these documents were signed on January 14, 2006, a month after $70,000.00 are withdrawn from Felicitas Castaneda bank account?! (See EXHIBIT “B” GRANT DEED / POWER OF ATTORNEY dated January 14, 2006) The Grant Deed was sign in English, so Fraud can take place. I am asking the court to order the monies back to the estate so the Executor can close the estate out!”
In the absence of any further explanation, and without any identification of any relevant portion of the record, we can only conclude that no prejudicial error is shown. This conclusion is confirmed by the fact that no disputed funds are at issue with respect to the interlocutory judgment of partition in this case.
c. No error or prejudice is shown with respect to exclusion of declarations of Susana and Gonzalo Castaneda.
In a cryptic argument, Jose charges “judicial fraud” with respect to some events and persons mentioned in declarations of Gonzalo and Susana Castaneda—apparently the declarations attached to his May 12, 2011 motion to augment the record. At trial, Jose offered a declaration of Susana Castandeda, one of his sisters. The trial court excluded the declaration from evidence, both because it constituted hearsay to which no exception applied, and as irrelevant to the issues before the court. Jose has not suggested any way in which these rulings constituted error, nor how the declaration, if it had been admitted, could have aided his defense against respondent’s partition action.
Jose’s argument also mentions the declaration of Gonzalo Castaneda, dated August 17, 2010. But even if the subject of that declaration—the transfers leading to the parties’ interests in the Rutan property—would be relevant to the issues in this case, its timing, many months after the trial judgment, demonstrates that it could not have been considered at trial, and is not appropriately part of the record on appeal. ~(Rule 8.124(g).) No error and no prejudice is shown.
Our review of this declaration, attached to Jose’s May 7, 2011 motion to augment, also indicates that even if it were considered for the truth of its contents, nothing in it could support Jose’s appeal.
d. No error or prejudice is shown with respect to post-judgment documents.
Jose argues that this court should take note of a March 4, 2010 bill, apparently addressed to him from attorney Counts. He suggests that the bill recites that attorney Counts filed a document with the court and served it on opposing counsel, and that it indicates that the court refused his substitution of attorney and cross-complaint for filing. As we indicated above in footnote 9, however, we must disregard matters that occurred after the judgment from which the appeal in this case, entered February 22, 2010, was taken. (In re Marriage of Folb, supra, 53 Cal.App.3d at p. 877.) Moreover, the purported bill is both wholly unauthenticated, and to the extent Jose offers it as evidence of the truth of its contents, it constitutes inadmissible hearsay. (Evid. Code, § 1200, subd. (b) [hearsay inadmissible except as provided]; § 1401 [evidence of unauthenticated writing is inadmissible].) Therefore whatever Jose might contend that this document might show, we decline to consider it.
e. No error or prejudice is shown with respect to the letter to attorney Sohigian.
Jose refers also to a purported letter of unstated date (which he identifies as Exhibit Q), from Felicitas to attorney Sohigian with respect to a different lawsuit, claiming that the letter shows that attorney MacCarley wrongly submitted an English-language declaration of Gonzalo, who does not speak English. Nothing in the record indicates how anything in that letter could be relevant to this case, or that it was offered or excluded at trial. No error and no prejudice are shown.
f. No error or prejudice is shown with respect to the engagement of attorney MacCarley.
Jose argues that this court should take notice of the agreement in which attorney MacCarley was engaged to represent Christina in this case and in GC 039459 (which he refers to as Exhibit X), indicating that “You will find that she lied again.” Jose had attempted to question Christina about that topic at trial, contending that the agreement would show an attempt by someone to claim that Felicitas was “insane or demented.” (Christina testified that no one had made such a claim about Felicitas.) The trial court ruled that Christina’s agreement with attorney MacCarley was irrelevant.
Jose does not indicate how anything in that agreement, including its date, might be relevant to this appeal. Nor would the document he submitted in his motion to augment (the final page of that agreement) be sufficient to establish that fact even if it were admitted, for it is unsigned by attorney Pratt. No error and no prejudice is shown.
g. No error or prejudice is shown with respect to Exhibit Y.
Jose indicates that Exhibit Y is a letter from Felicitas’s attorney giving permission to interview Felicitas in 2007—long before this partition action was filed—without the attorney’s presence. Nothing in the record indicates that this document was offered or excluded at trial; and nothing indicates how it could possibly be authenticated, nor how it could be relevant or admissible for any purpose in this case. Without that, no error and no prejudice is shown.
h. No error or prejudice is shown with respect to case No. GC 039459.
Jose suggests error based on a failure by attorney MacCarley to respond to claims in case No. GC 039459, that she had sought a conservatorship for Felicitas in that case, and that she is suppressing evidence in that case.
The issues in that case were not before the trial court in this case, and they are not before us in this appeal. No error and no prejudice are shown.
i. No elder abuse or theft is shown.
In the final two sections of his opening brief, Jose repeats his contentions that Felicitas was the victim of elder abuse and theft at the hands of her other children and her grandchildren. But these arguments, like his others, have no support whatever in the record applicable to this appeal. Moreover, Jose’s arguments themselves suggest that these contentions were resolved against him in previous cases. In any event, they are not before us here.
Jose’s opening brief indicates, for example, that his former attorney dismissed GC 039459 with prejudice.
Conclusion
The record thus shows no error in the admission or exclusion of evidence, and no abuse of discretion or prejudice to Jose resulting from the trial court’s denial of his request for an additional continuance of the trial. Neither the testimony nor the documents he attempted to offer at trial could have been admissible to impeach the validity of the grant deeds showing the ownership of the Rutan property by Christina, Alonso, and Jose as tenants in common.
Disposition
The interlocutory judgment is affirmed.
We concur: MALLANO, P.J., ROTHSCHILD, J.