Bahl v. Bank of AM.
| Decision Date | 23 May 2001 |
| Citation | 107 Cal.Rptr.2d 270,89 Cal.App.4th 389 |
| Court | California Court of Appeals Court of Appeals |
| Parties | (Cal.App. 4 Dist. 2001) ASHA BAHL, Plaintiff and Appellant, v. BANK OF AMERICA, Defendant and Respondent. G022816 Filed |
Appeal from a judgment of the Superior Court of Orange County, Robert J. Polis, Judge. Reversed and remanded.
Nick O'Malley for Plaintiff and Appellant.
Payne & Fears and Karen O. Strauss for Defendant and Respondent.
CERTIFIED FOR PUBLICATION
O P I N I O N
Plaintiff Asha Bahl filed suit against defendant Bank of America on various causes of action arising out of the termination of her employment and defendant's alleged use of her check imprinting idea without compensating her. Defendant filed a motion for summary judgment. Plaintiff requested a continuance because discovery was still on-going; e.g., transcripts of depositions essential to justify opposition had not yet been received from the court reporter, and defendant produced over 600 pages of documentation after plaintiff filed her opposition to the motion. The court denied the requests for continuance and granted the motion for summary judgment. Plaintiff's right to a jury trial was infringed when the trial court refused a continuance. Public policy dictates that disposition on the merits be favored over judicial efficiency. We reverse and remand.
Plaintiff was employed as a bank teller at Security Pacific National Bank. Security Pacific had an idea exchange program, which provided cash awards for original ideas that resulted in monetary savings to Security Pacific. On February 20, 1991, plaintiff submitted an idea to the program. Her idea was to use a machine to imprint account numbers on checks and deposit slips. Shortly thereafter, plaintiff took a medical leave of absence. In October 1991, Security Pacific informed plaintiff her idea had been rejected.
In April 1992, Security Pacific merged with defendant. Thereafter, plaintiff became aware defendant was using a machine to imprint account numbers on paperwork.
Plaintiff never returned to work. She was terminated on March 5, 1996 and filed a discrimination claim with the Department of Fair Employment and Housing (DFEH) a few days later. On April 25, 1996, she filed her complaint in superior court, based on the purported theft of her idea. In January 1997, plaintiff obtained a right-to-sue letter from the DFEH. The following month, plaintiff filed an amended complaint including causes of action arising out of her termination.
Discovery was slow out of the blocks. Plaintiff's counsel explains he deliberately delayed taking depositions until after plaintiff filed her amended complaint, so as to avert objections about duplicative discovery (should he need to re-depose any witnesses on employment-related matters who had earlier been questioned concerning the stolen idea claim). Counsel also maintains he notified the court of his plan during a December 9, 1996 status conference. Defendant commenced plaintiff's deposition on December 19, 1996. It required three sessions and, due to scheduling constraints, was not completed until June 23, 1997. In May 1997, plaintiff noticed her first deposition for June 2, 1997. According to counsel, defendant requested the deposition be postponed until June 25, 1997.
On September 26, 1997, defendant filed a motion for summary judgment, which was set for hearing on October 24, 1997. In support of its motion, defendant submitted the declarations of Josephine De Gracia and Jeralee Giannini. De Gracia was defendant's vice president in charge of the idea exchange program, who had communicated with plaintiff in 1995 about the fate of her idea. Giannini, defendant's vice president and business automation consultant, was responsible for the development of defendant's Teller Automated Workstation (TAW) system, used to imprint account numbers on checks and deposit slips. Giannini declared defendant began to develop and implement the TAW system in 1989 and had fully implemented it in California by early 1990.
Also on September 26, 1997, plaintiff set in motion the depositions of De Gracia and Giannini. The day after De Gracia's deposition, plaintiff served a document request for the production of any and all documents pertaining to the history of the TAW system and of any other procedure utilized by defendant to imprint customer account numbers on deposit slips.
In her opposition papers, filed on October 14, 1997, plaintiff requested a continuance pursuant to Code of Civil Procedure section 437c, subdivision (h). In support of this request, plaintiff filed her own declaration and one of counsel. Counsel declared discovery was not complete, especially with respect to the purported theft of plaintiff's idea. He also reminded the court that prosecution of the litigation had been delayed because of the DFEH proceedings. Plaintiff declared that she had been one of defendant's depositors since 1982, and did not observe any of defendant's employees imprinting her account number on her deposit slip until the early 1990's, probably 1992 or 1993.
The day after plaintiff filed her opposition to the motion, defendant produced over 400 pages of additional documentation pertaining to the TAW system. Defendant subsequently provided plaintiff with 195 additional documents. On appeal, defendant cites these documents as proof it began imprinting account numbers on items before the merger.
Because of the court's calendar, the judge continued the hearing on the summary judgment motion to November 14, 1997, seventeen days before the scheduled trial date. But by November 12, 1997, plaintiff's counsel had just received a copy of the Giannini deposition transcript, and had not had time to "digest" it. He believed Giannini's testimony pertained to defendant's TAW system validation procedures, but not to the type of imprinting procedure plaintiff had described in the idea she submitted. He therefore sought a further deposition of the most knowledgeable witness on the history of the consideration and implementation of defendant's procedure for imprinting account information on items.
On November 12, 1997, plaintiff filed "supplemental" opposition papers containing another request for continuance of the hearing. In addition, she filed a separate ex parte application requesting the court to continue either the trial date or the summary judgment hearing date, and/or to permit the filing of the supplemental opposition to the summary judgment motion. In declarations supporting the requests for continuance, plaintiff's counsel provided information concerning the Giannini deposition and deposition transcript, the need for additional depositions, and the hundreds of pages of additional documentation received since the last request for a continuance.
The court denied plaintiff's requests for a continuance of the summary judgment motion and granted defendant's motion. Judgment was entered in defendant's favor. Plaintiff submitted a combined motion for reconsideration (Code Civ. Proc., 1008) and for relief from the order granting summary judgment (Code Civ. Proc., 473 []). The court denied these motions without a hearing. Plaintiff appealed.
On appeal, plaintiff asserts, among other things, the trial court erred in denying her requests for a continuance. Because we agree, we reverse and remand, and need not reach the balance of plaintiff's claims on appeal.
"Though often said, it appears necessary to again reiterate that a summary judgment is a drastic measure which deprives the losing party of trial on the merits." (Bunzel v. American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons (1980) 107 Cal.App.3d 165, 169; see also Rincon v. Burbank Unified School Dist. (1986) 178 Cal.App.3d 949, 952.) The right to a jury trial, embodied in article I, section 16 of the California Constitution, is at stake. (See Troutman, The Jury Trial (1977) 51 Fla. B.J. 331, 332 [].) Some cases refer to the constitutional rights argument as being a creature of "older decisions," because the summary judgment statute (Code Civ. Proc., 437c) has been held constitutional. (See, e.g., Scheiding v. Dinwiddie Construction Co. (1999) 69 Cal.App.4th 64, 70.) We agree there is (Ibid.) But technical compliance with the procedures of Code of Civil Procedure section 437c is required to ensure there is no infringement of a litigant's hallowed right to have a dispute settled by a jury of his or her peers.
To mitigate summary judgment's harshness, the statute's drafters included a provision making continuances - which are normally a matter within the broad discretion of trial courts - virtually mandated (Aguimatang v. California State Lottery (1991) 234 Cal.App.3d 769, 803-804.) That is, Code of Civil Procedure section 437c, subdivision (h) declares: "If it appears from the affidavits submitted in opposition to a motion for summary judgment
. . . that facts essential to justify opposition may exist but cannot, for reasons stated, then be presented, the court shall . . . order a continuance to permit affidavits to be obtained or discovery to be had or may make any other order as may be just." (Italics added.) The drafters' inclusion of the italicized words "may" and "shall" leaves little room for doubt that such continuances are to be liberally granted. Indeed, as one court noted, "an opposing ...
To continue reading
Request your trial