Lacambra vs. Public Storage
I was finally served at my PO Box by Public Storage seeking a court order to sell my personal belongings that was stored at their facility. The case was filed at the Limited Jurisdiction at the Harbor Justice Center - Laguna Hills, which means that the damages cannot exceed $25,000.
If you remember, I had also filed a complaint against Public Storage at the Unlimited Jurisdiction at the Central Justice Center - Santa Ana alleging violations of CA Business and Professional Codes on the 30th of June. So the stage is set for me to try to consolidate the case. I spent most of the day yesterday drafting three moving papers:
- Notice of Motion to Transfer and Consolidate Cases
- Memorandum of Points and Authority in Support of Motion to Transfer and Consolidate Cases
- Declaration of Robert Lacambra in Support of Motion to Transfer and Consolidate Cases.
Three statutes were contained in my moving papers:
Code Civil Procedure Section 403 provides:
Motion to Transfer Action for Coordination
“A judge may on motion, transfer an action or actions from another court to that judge’s court for coordination with an action involving a common question of fact or law with in meaning of Section 404.”
Code Civil Procedure Section 404.1 provides:
Specified Standards of Coordination
“Coordination of civil action sharing a common question of fact or law is appropriate if one judge hearing all the actions for all purposes in a selected site or sites will promote the ends of justice taking into account whether the common question of fact is predominating and significant to litigation; the convenience of parties, witnesses, and counsel; the relative development of the actions and the work product of counsel; the efficient utilization of judicial facilities and manpower’ calendar of the courts; the disadvantage of duplicative and inconsistent rulings, orders or judgments; and the likelihood of settlement of the actions without further litigation should coordination be denied.”
Civil Code Procedure Section 1048(a) provides:
Severance and Consolidation of Causes
“(a) When actions involving a common question of law or fact are pending before the court, it may order a joint hearing or trial of any or all the matters in issue in the actions; it may order all actions consolidated and it may make such orders concerning proceedings therein as may tend to avoid unnecessary cost or delay.”
There are a number of qualifying rules revolving around the question of complexity. If the case requires a significant volume of documents brought by motions and documentary evidence or that by necessity there will be many witnesses and parties to the lawsuit, the instant case cannot be consolidated at this court. It will have to be coordinated at a court that does only complex cases. In the OC, it is called the “Complex Civil Center”. From what I gather, the Complex Court relies more on digital processes for accepting and processing files. In essence it has the infrastructure to manage very complex cases with the emphasis on speed.
For consolidation, statutes require that the moving party make a good faith effort to inform and reach an agreement for coordination with the other parties. This is interesting verbiage as the parties usually already have significant differences that only the court can resolve. But because my complaint will seek compensatory and punitive damages that exceeds the amount of $25,000, the Unlimited Court will certainly be the proper jurisdiction and venue.
We’ll see what the Honorable David R. Chafee will say to my petition.
