Glass v. Najafi
| Decision Date | 09 February 2000 |
| Docket Number | No. A085541.,A085541. |
| Citation | 92 Cal.Rptr.2d 606,78 Cal.App.4th 45 |
| Court | California Court of Appeals |
| Parties | Bruce GLASS et al., Plaintiffs and Appellants, v. Reza NAJAFI et al., Defendants and Respondents. |
Jacobs, Spotswood, Casper & Murphy LLP, Gerald M. Murphy, San Francisco, Michele A. Firpo, For Plaintiffs and Appellants.
Lewis, D'Amato, Brisbois & Bisgaard LLP, Michael K. Johnson, Irvine, For Defendants and Respondents.
This is an appeal from a judgment for the defendants in an action for forcible entry and detainer filed by tenants who were evicted under an invalid writ of possession. We affirm.
The complaint for forcible entry and detainer was filed on December 23, 1996, by the tenants of commercial property, Bruce Glass, Christine Glass and Sue Craik (the Glasses), against defendants consisting of the owners of the property, Mahmood Ghazi and Ahmad Ghazi (the landlords) and their property managers, Reza Najafi and Paradise Properties, Inc. (the property managers). Three days earlier, the court had granted the tenants' motion to recall and quash a writ of possession under which the tenants had been forcibly evicted from the premises by the sheriff. The circumstances surrounding the eviction have a lengthy history involving a former appeal.1
The landlords acquired 413-25 Miller Avenue, Mill Valley, California, through a foreclosure sale transferring title from the former owners, the Glasses, who managed a toy shop on the premises. On November 12, 1993, the Glasses filed a complaint against both the landlords and the property managers, which sought inter alia specific enforcement of an option to reacquire the property. The landlords responded by filing a complaint for unlawful detainer against the Glasses.
At a court-supervised settlement conference on December 23, 1994, the parties reached a settlement agreement and read the terms of the agreement into the record in open court. The court retained jurisdiction to enforce the agreement. The parties were, however, unable to redact the terms of the settlement into a formal written agreement. On April 28, 1995, the Glasses filed a motion to compel enforcement of a draft agreement reflecting their understanding of the settlement and for judgment under Code of Civil Procedure section 664.6. The court appointed a referee "for the purpose of holding hearing(s), making findings as to the parties' compliance as to the terms of the settlement agreement reached in this action and to make recommendations to the Court as to the enforcement of such settlement."
On March 13, 1996, the referee filed a final report that, among other things, found that the Glasses were jointly and severally liable in the sum of $28,530.20, representing underpayments in rent, the referee fees, and attorney fees. On the same day, the court entered a judgment pursuant to Code of Civil Procedure section 664.6 that awarded the landlords and the property managers the sum of $28,530.20 and ordered that an attached "Settlement Agreement and Mutual Release shall be entered as the Judgment of this Court." The attached settlement agreement called for dismissal with prejudice of existing lawsuits between the parties, including the landlords' unlawful detainer action, prescribed terms for a lease of the Miller Avenue property, commencing retroactively on January 1, 1995, and continuing for 27 months until March 31, 1997, and gave the Glasses an option to purchase the property on specified terms and conditions.
Shortly after entry of the judgment, the defendants gave the Glasses written notice that they were in default on their lease payments and filed an ex parte motion for issuance of a writ of possession and for a writ of execution and for sale of personal property. On September 10, 1996, the court ordered the court clerk to issue a writ of possession for the Miller Avenue property. The writ was issued and the Glasses were forcibly evicted from possession of the property on November 4, 1996.
On November 22, 1996, the Glasses filed a motion to recall and quash the writ of possession on the ground that there was no judgment granting the defendants a right of possession. At a hearing on December 20, 1996, the court granted the motion but refused to order the defendants to surrender possession of the premises to the Glasses. The court deleted proposed provisions requiring defendants to deliver possession to the Glasses, and signed an order that did no more than recall the writ of possession. The defendants appealed the order.
In an opinion filed February 27, 1998, we affirmed the order recalling the writ of possession. We found that the judgment pursuant to Code of Civil Procedure section 664.6 was not a judgment for possession of the property and held that "In the absence of a judgment for possession of the property, the writs of possession were improperly issued and were properly recalled and quashed." We noted that the landlords' remedy for regaining possession was to institute an unlawful detainer action.
Armed with the order to recall the writ of possession, the Glasses filed the present action on December 23, 1996, seeking restitution of possession and damages for forcible entry and detainer. The parties later agreed to bifurcate the issues of liability and damages and to try the issue of liability before the court on stipulated facts. The Glasses now appeal a judgment for the defendants.
The Glasses challenge the judgment against them on the basis of the undisputed facts that the defendants evicted them on November 4, 1996, under a writ of possession that was later determined to have been improperly issued. They argue that these facts necessarily establish the defendants' liability for damages under the principles governing actions for forcible entry and detainer.
The statutes defining forcible entry (Code Civ. Proc, § 1159) and forcible detainer (Code Civ. Proc, § 1160) reflect a policy, with deep roots in English law, barring the use of forceful self-help to enforce a right to possession of real property and requiring instead the use of judicial process to gain possession. (Daluiso v. Boone (1969) 71 Cal.2d 484, 490-491, 78 Cal.Rptr. 707, 455 P.2d 811.) The statutes may be traced to an original forcible entry and detainer statute enacted in England in 1381. (Jordan v. Talbot (1961) 55 Cal.2d 597, 603, fn. 2, 12 Cal.Rptr. 488, 361 P.2d 20.)
The leading decision in the field of forcible entry and detainer, Jordan v. Talbot, supra, 55 Cal.2d 597, 12 Cal.Rptr. 488, 361 P.2d 20, indirectly affirms the policy favoring use of orderly legal process by broadly construing the statutory language prohibiting forceful self-help by the landlord. During the plaintiffs temporary absence from her apartment, the landlord unlocked the door of the apartment and, together with storage company employees, entered without the plaintiffs consent and removed her furniture to a storage warehouse. When the plaintiff returned to the empty room, she asked the defendant's apartment manager what had happened and was told: ' (Id. at p. 607, 12 Cal.Rptr. 488, 361 P.2d 20.)
Finding a forcible entry within the meaning of subdivision 1 of Code of Civil Procedure, section 1159, which refers to "breaking open doors, windows, or other parts of a house," the court explained, "Defendant violated this section when he unlocked plaintiffs apartment without her consent and entered with the storage company employees to remove her furniture, even though there was no physical damage to the premises or actual violence." (Jordan v. Talbot, supra, 55 Cal.2d at p. 605, 12 Cal.Rptr. 488, 361 P.2d 20.) Similarly, the court found an unlawful detainer within the meaning of subdivision 1 of Code of Civil Procedure, section 1160 referring to a person who "`[b]y force or by menaces and threats of violence, unlawfully holds and keeps the possession of...
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