Watts v. Watts (In re Watts)

In re Marriage of JAMES L. and MICHELLE ANN WATTS.

JAMES L. WATTS, Respondent, v. MICHELLE ANN WATTS, Appellant.

G053304

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

April 11, 2018

NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN OFFICIAL REPORTS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 This opinion has not been certified for publication or ordered published for purposes of rule 8.1115.

(Super. Ct. No. 06D011311)

OPINION

Appeal from orders of the Superior Court of Orange County, Paula J. Coleman, Temporary Judge. (Pursuant to Cal. Const., art. VI, § 21.) Affirmed.

Douglas Honig for Appellant.

James L. Watts, in pro. per., for Respondent.

INTRODUCTION

A 21-volume appellant's appendix in an appeal from post-dissolution family court orders usually indicates that something has gone terribly wrong. That was certainly the case in the divorce of Michelle and James Watts.

Michelle has appealed from two orders of the family court, one denying her request for attorney fees and a subsequent order denying her request for a new trial on the issue of her attorney fees.¹

The orders from which Michelle appeals arose from her request for attorney fees made in August 2015. The matter was not heard until January 2016, by which time the fees had mounted to over $37,000. In ruling on the request, the court found that 1) the activities generating the fees were unwarranted and 2) James could not pay them. The court's findings roundly criticized Michelle and her counsel.

We affirm the orders denying the request for attorney fees and denying the request for a new trial.² In the absence of a reporter's transcript, we must conclusively presume that the evidence presented at the hearing on fees supported the court's decision, and, in any event, substantial evidence in the record supports it. As for the motion for new trial, while Michelle may have timely filed the notice of intent to move for a new trial, she did not subsequently file a memorandum of points and authorities to support the motion. The court was therefore within its discretion to deny the motion without a hearing.

Michelle has filed several postappeal motions, all of which are denied, as we explain in detail below.

FACTS

Michelle and James were divorced July 6, 2007. At the time, they had two minor children, aged 10 and 8. Michelle and James entered into a stipulated judgment, which included support and property division provisions. This stipulated judgment did not, however, have the desired effect of ending disputes between the former spouses.

In an order dated December 1, 2010, the family court recited the history of the postjudgment litigation up to that point. Michelle filed domestic violence proceedings in December 2007. James filed a petition to modify custody in December 2007. In 2008, both James and Michelle moved to modify or set aside the 2007 judgment. In early 2009, Michelle filed another request for order (RFO), this time seeking to divide the sales proceeds of the home and to enforce the equalization payment that was part of the 2007 judgment. This matter was settled by stipulation in February 2009. Both parties filed RFOs in April 2009, James seeking modification of child support, among other changes, and Michelle seeking fees, costs, and reimbursement. These matters were heard in October 2009, and the family court issued an order in December.

On March 19, 2010, Michelle asked for an order setting aside portions of the 2007 judgment on grounds of duress, intimidation, fraud, concealment, breach of fiduciary duty, and failure to disclose. In essence, Michelle claimed that a payment James received for a postjudgment project was actually made for services he had performed during the marriage. He had, Michelle claimed, arranged for a later payment so that it would not figure in the judgment. The family court heard the matter over seven days in August, September, and November of 2010.

The court's ruling, issued on December 1, 2010, was equally disapproving of both parties for failing to file income and expense declarations or schedules of assets and debts. The court attributed the fraught litigation history up to that point in part to these failures. But the court directed its sharpest criticism at Michelle. It found not onlythat she had failed to prove her claims of duress, fraud, and the rest, but also that she had lied in her testimony, whereas the court found James' testimony to be reliable and credible. The court denied Michelle's requests for relief and ordered the parties to bear their own attorney fees.

Michelle filed the RFO that forms the basis of this appeal on August 4, 2014.³ She asked the court to order James to serve a current income and expense declaration and to reimburse her for various expenses, including interest on unpaid attorney fees. She also asked for at least $10,000 in attorney fees, pursuant to Family Code sections 271 and 2030.⁴ The hearing, originally scheduled for October 1, 2014, was continued several times.

Between the filing of the RFO in August and the date the matter was eventually heard, in January 2016, James and Michelle entered into two stipulations resulting in orders. The first one, entered on December 1, 2014, took care of all the arrearages Michelle was claiming up to November 30, 2014. The second, entered on May 21, 2015, resolved all the issues in the RFO except for attorney fees. The family court continued the hearing on the attorney fee issue to September. The attorney-fee hearing was subsequently continued twice.⁵

Michelle's counsel filed supplemental declarations on October 19 and December 18, 2015, each time increasing the amount of attorney fees requested. In each declaration, he cited Family Code section 271 as the basis for the fee award.

The hearing finally got underway on January 6, 2016. By this time, Michelle was requesting over $37,000 in fees. There was no court reporter. The subsequent minute order stated that the hearing lasted one hour. James appeared telephonically, and Michelle was represented by counsel. At the conclusion of the hearing, the court took the matter under submission. The court issued its "Ruling and Order on Submitted Matter" on January 15, 2016, and the clerk served the ruling on Michelle's attorney on the same day.

The ruling was a blistering indictment of Michelle and her attorney. The court found that Michelle's attorney had stoked the emotional tension and trauma, in contravention of the California Attorney Guidelines of Civility and Professionalism, by "name calling and spurious allegations" about James. The court characterized Michelle's repeated discovery activities as a "witch hunt" and said they were "unreasonable for the results attained." "Most importantly, the majority of the legal fees were completely unnecessary." Michelle "needs to stop her fishing expedition for information that fails to materialize." She had "driven this litigation to unreasonable extremes."

In addition, the court found that James did not have the ability to pay $37,000 in attorney fees. "He is collecting Social Security and has substantial debt." The court found James' explanations of his financial situation "more than adequate[]" and "at all times found [James] to be credible and forthright." The court referred to two previous occasions on which James' testimony was found to be credible, while Michelle's was not. The court denied Michelle's request for attorney fees.

Michelle's response to the January 15 ruling and order was to pummel the family court with filings seeking to get it overturned. She filed over 300 pages of "Objections to Ruling on Submitted Matter," which devolved into a sentence-by-sentencedisagreement with the order.⁶ She followed up with a 175-page motion to vacate the judgment under Code of Civil Procedure section 663⁷ and a notice of intent to move for a new trial under section 657. These were accompanied by a request for judicial notice of the court's own file that exceeded 1,200 pages. She also requested a statement of decision (24 pages), to which, under California Rules of Court rule 3.1590(n), she was not entitled, and filed a proposed statement of decision - another 30 pages. A week later, she filed a supplemental request for judicial notice, consisting of 560 pages.

The court declined to consider the motion for new trial, through a return sheet dated February 16, 2016, on the ground that the notice of intent to move for a new trial was untimely filed.⁸ Michelle's response was a motion to restore both motions to the calendar, although the return sheet made no mention of the motion to vacate. This added another 1,037 pages to the court's file.

The court held a hearing on March 14, 2016, at which it stated that the motion to vacate the judgment was filed untimely.⁹ The court and Michelle's counsel disagreed about the date on which the notice of intent to move to vacate the judgment was filed. The court stated the notice was filed on February 2; Michelle's counsel stated February 1. The court continued the hearing to April 13, to try to sort out when the notice had been filed.¹⁰

Michelle filed her notice of appeal on March 15, 2016. Attached to the notice was a copy of the January 15 ruling and order and a copy of the handwritten notice from the Court Child Support Unit return sheet, dated February 16, 2016, explaining that the motion for a new trial was denied for untimeliness. The notice of appeal identified the January 15 ruling on attorney fees, the denial of the motion for new trial, and the "March 14, 2016 order denying [Michelle's] Request for Order to Vacate Order Dated 01/15/2016 (entered 01/25/2016) and Enter New Order filed on February 1, 2016" as the orders from which she was appealing.

DISCUSSION

Michelle has identified four issues on appeal. She argues the family court abused its discretion when it...