Loeffler v. Toyota Motor Credit Corp.

JENNIFER LOEFFLER, Plaintiff and Appellant, v. TOYOTA MOTOR CREDIT CORPORATION, et al., Defendants and Respondents.

G058386

COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA FOURTH APPELLATE DISTRICT DIVISION THREE

December 21, 2020

NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN THE OFFICIAL REPORTS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 This opinion has not been certified for publication or ordered published for purposes of rule 8.1115.

(Super. Ct. No. 30-2017-00938865)

OPINION

Appeal from a judgment of the Superior Court of Orange County, Ronald L. Bauer, Judge. Reversed. Motion for sanctions withdrawn. Motion to strike respondents' appendix and motion to augment the record on appeal denied.

Steven Lewis Rader for Plaintiff and Appellant.

Hallstrom, Klein & Ward and David J. Hallstrom for Defendants and Respondents.

Plaintiff Jennifer Loeffler appeals from a judgment entered after a bench trial, arguing the trial court erred by refusing her relief from her jury trial waiver. On appeal, plaintiff also moved to strike portions of the respondents' appendix, to augment the record, and for sanctions. Plaintiff withdrew her motion for sanctions at oral argument.

We deny the remaining motions but conclude defendants failed to show they would be prejudiced by relief from plaintiff's jury trial waiver after the trial was continued, following Mackovska v. Viewcrest Road Properties LLC (2019) 40 Cal.App.5th 1 (Mackovska). In the absence of a showing of prejudice, the trial court abused its discretion by denying plaintiff relief, and we therefore reverse.

FACTS

Defendants Toyota Motor Credit Corporation and Tustin Lexus are an automobile financing company and an automobile dealership, respectively. Plaintiff leased an automobile from Tustin Lexus, which assigned the lease to Toyota Motor Credit Corporation. Plaintiff sued defendants for various causes of action arising from the lease negotiations.

Plaintiff's initial case management statement requested a nonjury trial. Toyota Motor Credit Corporation's initial case management conference statement requested a jury trial. At the initial case management conference, no trial date was set, as Tustin Lexus had not yet been served. At the continued case management conference, the court set a jury trial at defendants' request. Defendants deposited their jury fees the same day; plaintiff never did so.

A few months before the scheduled trial date, defendants applied ex parte to continue the trial. The application was granted and the trial, still set for a jury, was rescheduled. Three weeks before the new trial date, defendants gave notice of "withdrawal" of their jury fees and requested the matter proceed by court trial. On the day of trial, plaintiff orally requested a jury trial, but the court found plaintiff had waivedthe right to a jury trial, and instead ordered the matter to proceed by bench trial. The matter was trailed and ultimately continued for a period of five months after plaintiff used a peremptory challenge on the judge to whom the case was reassigned. During the five-month continuance period, plaintiff moved for reconsideration of the court's order denying plaintiff relief from her jury trial waiver, but the motion was denied. The court found defendants would be prejudiced by reinstating a jury trial because defendants had not prepared for a jury trial.

The matter proceeded to a court trial, at which defendants prevailed. Plaintiff timely appealed.

After filing her notice of appeal, plaintiff also filed her notice of designation of the record, specifically electing to proceed without a record of the oral proceedings in the trial court. Defendants raised the lack of a reporter's transcript in their brief, in response to which plaintiff moved to augment the record by inclusion of the transcript. Plaintiff also moved to strike portions of the respondents' appendix.

DISCUSSION

1. Plaintiff's Motion to Strike

After defendants submitted their appendix, plaintiff moved to strike certain portions of the appendix for violation of California Rules of Court, rule 8.276(a)(2), and sought sanctions. Specifically, plaintiff asks us to strike certain notices of ruling on discovery motions, a motion for terminating sanctions, a Doe amendment to plaintiff's complaint, and defendants' trial brief.

Defendants argue these documents are relevant to their contention that plaintiff's gamesmanship was or should have been a motivating factor in denying plaintiff's request for relief from her jury trial waiver. We do not find defendants' arguments on this "gamesmanship" issue frivolous, and the documents defendants provide in their respondents' appendix are at least somewhat logically connected to thegamesmanship issue (although we ultimately find them unpersuasive). Therefore, we decline to strike any portion of the appendix.

2, Plaintiff's Motion to Augment the Record

After defendants submitted their respondents' brief, plaintiff also moved to augment the record to include the reporter's transcript of the hearing on plaintiff's motion to reconsider the trial court's order refusing plaintiff relief from her jury trial waiver. There was no testimony at the hearing, and the sole issue presented by this case is a purely legal one: whether defendants showed they would be prejudiced if plaintiff were permitted relief from her jury trial waiver. (Mackovska, supra, 40 Cal.App.5th at p. 10.) Review of the transcript reveals nothing new or different from the parties' briefing on plaintiff's motion for relief and the trial court's minute order explaining its decision. Therefore, we deny the motion to augment.

3. Plaintiff's Request for Relief from Waiver of Jury Trial

The sole issue raised by plaintiff on appeal is whether the trial court erred by refusing to permit plaintiff a jury trial after she initially waived that right.

This issue was raised and carefully analyzed in Mackovska, a remarkably similar recent case in the Second District. "A party in a civil case may waive the right to a jury trial under [Code of Civil Procedure] section 631 in several ways, including by failing to deposit jury fees 'on or before the date scheduled for the initial case management conference in the action.' [Citations.] Even when a civil litigant waives his or her right to a jury trial, however, the trial court has discretion to 'allow a trial by jury.' [Citations.] The trial court should grant a motion for relief of a jury waiver 'unless, and except, where granting such a motion would work serious hardship to the objecting party.' [Citations.] When there is doubt about whether to grant relief from a jury trial waiver, the court must resolve that doubt in favor of the party seeking a jury trial. [Citations.] [¶] In a motion for relief from waiver of a jury trial, the crucial question is whether the party opposing relief will suffer any prejudice if the court grants relief.[Citations.] '"The prejudice which must be shown from granting relief from the waiver is prejudice from the granting of relief and not prejudice from the jury trial."' [Citation.] 'The mere fact that trial will be by jury is not prejudice per se.' [Citation.] Denying relief where the party opposing the motion for relief has not shown prejudice is an abuse of discretion." (Mackovska, supra, 40 Cal.App.5th at pp. 9-10.)

In Mackovska, the case was initially set for a jury trial, but the plaintiff waived his right to a jury trial by failing to deposit his jury fees. (Mackovska, supra, 40 Cal.App.5th at p. 7.) When the defendants applied ex parte for a trial continuance, the court took note of the plaintiff's failure to deposit the fees and continued the trial, resetting it as a court trial. (Ibid.) The plaintiff then moved for relief from the jury trial waiver, but his motion was denied after the defendants argued they would be prejudiced by the additional expense of a jury trial. (Id. at pp. 7-8, 10-11.) At the conclusion of the trial, the court ruled in the defendants' favor and sanctioned the plaintiffs for bringing their action frivolously and in bad faith. (Id. at pp. 8-9.)

The Court of Appeal reversed. (Mackovska, supra, 40 Cal.App.5th at p. 18.) The court held the defendants' assertion of the additional cost of a jury trial was insufficient to demonstrate prejudice. (Id. at p. 11.) The court also found it persuasive that the case was reset for court trial only days before the initially scheduled trial date, and that the trial continuance granted to the defendants at the same time as the case was reset for court trial also gave them additional time to prepare for a jury trial. (Ibid.) The court also held the plaintiff need not prove he was prejudiced by the erroneous denial of his motion for relief from the jury trial waiver because denial of the right to a trial by jury is "'per se prejudicial.'" (Id. at p. 13.)

The factual similarities between Mackovska and the instant case are remarkable. Just like in Mackovska, plaintiff waived her right to a jury trial by failing to deposit her jury fees (although here plaintiff also requested a court trial in her case management statement). Just like in Mackovska, the case was initially set for jury trial, atdefendants' request, and remained set for jury trial until just days before the scheduled trial date. Plus here, as in Mackovska, plaintiff moved for relief from the waiver and defendants argued they would be prejudiced by the burden and expense of preparing for a jury trial, even though the trial date had been continued months out, giving time for such preparation. And just like in Mackovska, the trial court denied plaintiff's motion, this time expressly based on the conclusion that "[n]o preparation [had been] made for a Jury Trial."

Consequently the same result must obtain. We conclude, as the Mackovska court did: relief was mandatory and the refusal to grant it was an abuse of...