City of Crescent City v. Reddy

• Decision Date: 16 February 2017
• Docket Number: A143640
• Citation: 215 Cal.Rptr.3d 351,9 Cal.App.5th 458
• Court: California Court of Appeals Court of Appeals
• Parties: CITY OF CRESCENT CITY, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. Sarvada Nand Hanumanthu REDDY, as Trustee, etc., Defendant and Appellant.

9 Cal.App.5th 458

215 Cal.Rptr.3d 351

CITY OF CRESCENT CITY, Plaintiff and Respondent,

v.Sarvada Nand Hanumanthu REDDY, as Trustee, etc., Defendant and Appellant.

A143640

Court of Appeal, First District, Division 4, California.

Filed February 16, 2017

Counsel for Defendant and Appellant: Law Office of Bradford C. Floyd, Eureka.

Counsel for Plaintiffs and Respondents: Silver & Wright, Matthew Raymond Silver, Ruthann Marie Elder, Irvine, Robert Norris Black, Crescent City.

REARDON, P.J.

Defendant Sarvada Nand Hanumanthu Reddy is the beneficial owner of a motel in Crescent City (the city). In 2013, the city served on Reddy a notice and order to cure various building code violations at the motel. Later that year, after the necessary repairs were not made, Reddy entered into a stipulated judgment in which he committed to cure a number of specified violations within six months. When Reddy again failed to comply, the city filed a successful motion for the appointment of a receiver to oversee compliance.

Reddy contends the trial court (1) erred in overruling his objections to the city's evidentiary submissions, (2) erred in failing to take live testimony, and (3) abused its discretion in appointing a receiver. We find no merit in these arguments and affirm the trial court's order.¹

BACKGROUND

The Townhouse Motel (property), a building located in the city and owned by a trust for which Reddy serves as trustee, first became a subject of code enforcement efforts in 2006. Between that year and 2013, the city repeatedly ordered Reddy to abate dangerous conditions on the property through letters and notices of violations, to little effect. In May 2013, following a thorough inspection, the city issued a Notice and Order to Repair or Abate listing 76 building code violations and other illegal conditions and ordering Reddy to rehabilitate the property within 30 days. After a subsequent inspection found that Reddy had not made the required repairs, the city filed a lawsuit in July 2013.

On stipulation of the parties, in November 2013 the trial court entered a judgment requiring Reddy to upgrade the property in various ways within six months and to cease renting rooms to the same occupant for more than 30 days. The judgment required repairs to the roof and sign, clean up throughout the property, and correction of specific conditions in 17 different rooms.

Nearly a year later, the city inspected the property and found little or no improvement. Among other substandard conditions, city inspectors found exposed electric wiring, leaking plumbing, broken windows and holes in the walls, moldy and filthy conditions in many rooms, water damage to the foundation, a dilapidated roof, lack of proper weather protection, and junk and trash throughout the grounds. The inspectors concluded that "conditions on the [property] pose a substantial danger to the life, limb, health, and safety of the occupants of the motel, the residents of the surrounding community, and the public in general."

Based on the foregoing circumstances, in October 2014, the city filed a motion for the appointment of a receiver to oversee rehabilitation of the property in compliance with the trial court's judgment. The motion was accompanied by declarations of a city building inspector and a city code enforcement officer that detailed the various code violations and attached pictures of the dangerous conditions.

In opposition, Reddy filed declarations from himself, the property's manager, and a general contractor. The contractor stated that he had repaired substandard conditions in the property framing and walls, replaced windows, and performed work to prevent further water damage. He inspected the property after the filing of the city's motion and disputed many of the city inspectors' findings, primarily their concerns about the property's structural soundness. Although he found three of the rooms to be uninhabitable, he concluded the remaining rooms were "clean, neat and appear sanitary." The property manager addressed the city's contentions point-by-point, denying the presence of exposed electrical wiring, leaking plumbing, water damage, a leaky roof, and unsanitary conditions in the rooms, as well as other conditions. Reddy's declaration detailed his extensive efforts to bring the property into compliance with the requirements of the judgment.

In reply, the city submitted supplemental declarations by the inspector and code enforcement officer. Both had inspected the property after the filing of Reddy's opposition papers and found that the code violations they had originally observed had not been cured. They concluded Reddy "has done little or nothing to comply and anything he has historically done has been unpermitted and substandard." Shortly before the hearing on the motion, both parties filed a series of evidentiary objections to various statements in their opponents' declarations.

At the outset of the hearing, the trial court noted the parties' evidentiary objections and held that "generally those objections go to the weight to be given to the evidence, not to its admissibility, so I've read and considered each of the pleadings filed." During the hearing, Reddy's counsel requested, for the first time, "having an evidentiary hearing on this. It would probably take about a day of the court's time." The court did not expressly rule on the request. Reddy's attorney then guided the court through a painstaking examination of Reddy's response to the various violations claimed by the city, arguing that the items included in the judgment had been addressed. Nonetheless, the court concluded that Reddy had not complied with the judgment and found that there was no feasible alternative to the appointment of a receiver to oversee compliance. In a written order filed the same day, the court made detailed findings and appointed a receiver, limiting the receiver's role to developing a plan for rehabilitation and implementing the plan once it had been approved.

DISCUSSION

Reddy contends the trial court abused its discretion in (1) overruling his evidentiary objections, (2) failing to conduct an evidentiary hearing, and (3) appointing a receiver.

A. Reddy's Evidentiary Objections.

As noted above, the trial court effectively overruled both parties' objections, concluding that they "go to the weight to be given to the evidence, not to its admissibility," and considered all of the evidence submitted.

We find Reddy's challenge to the trial court's evidentiary rulings to be forfeited. If a party contends that an evidentiary objection was improperly overruled by the trial court, the party must identify the specific objection, provide legal argument explaining why the trial court's ruling was in error, and support that argument with citation to pertinent legal authority. (Salas v. Department of Transportation (2011) 198 Cal.App.4th 1058, 1074, 129 Cal.Rptr.3d 690 (Salas ).) Rather than address the propriety of any of his specific objections, Reddy simply "ask[s] this court to rule on each of these objections as should have been done by the trial court [,]" essentially seeking de novo review of his evidentiary objections.

Under similar circumstances, the Salas court held that the appellants' challenge to the trial court's evidentiary rulings was forfeited by their failure separately to identify and discuss individual evidentiary objections. In that case, the trial court had sustained objections to most of the appellants' evidence. (Salas, supra, 198 Cal.App.4th at p. 1073, 129 Cal.Rptr.3d 690.) Although the appellants disputed those rulings in general, they did not separately discuss specific objections. In finding the appellate claims forfeited, the court explained: "It is appellant's ‘burden on appeal to affirmatively challenge the trial court's evidentiary ruling, and demonstrate the court's error.’... [¶] ... Plaintiffs make no attempt to demonstrate how each evidentiary ruling was erroneous. They have not specified the evidentiary objections to which their cursory argument is addressed, nor have they discussed the multiple grounds on which each objection was sustained. ... In arguing only generalities, plaintiffs' briefs do not contain ‘argument and citations to authority as to why the trial court's evidentiary rulings were wrong.’ [Citation.] ‘We are not required to search the record to ascertain whether it contains support for [plaintiffs'] contentions.’ " (Id. at p. 1074, 129 Cal.Rptr.3d 690 ; see similarly Ramos v. Westlake Services LLC (2015) 242 Cal.App.4th 674, 684, 195 Cal.Rptr.3d 34 [challenge to evidentiary rulings waived by failure to cite legal authority]; Villanu e va v. City of Colton (2008) 160 Cal.App.4th 1188, 1198, 73 Cal.Rptr.3d 343 [same].) In the same way, we decline to examine the multitude of objections filed by Reddy in a search for the meritorious. By failing to present legal argument with respect to individual objections, Reddy forfeited any challenge to the trial court's evidentiary rulings.

In any event, a cursory review of Reddy's objections suggests the trial court's ruling was appropriate. Reddy's first objection, for example, contends that the city inspector's statement that he had visited the property "multiple times" lacks foundation because in a prior declaration the inspector said he had inspected the property only twice. Plainly, while the inspector's statement may have been false, it did not lack foundation; the inspector was in position to testify about his own activities. The evidentiary objection was therefore without merit, if not frivolous. We reviewed many of Reddy's other objections and found a similar pattern. While the objections are phrased as objections and purport to be based on evidentiary grounds, they are not truly evidentiary objections. Instead, the purported objections are merely a premise for arguing with the conclusions stated in the city's declarations. Based on this review, we find no reason to doubt the trial court's conclusion that the...