Guntert v. City of Stockton

• Decision Date: 09 February 1976
• Court: California Court of Appeals Court of Appeals
• Parties: Ronald M. GUNTERT et al., Plaintiffs and Respondents, v. CITY OF STOCKTON, California, a Municipal Corporation, Defendant and Appellant. Civ. 14752.

Page 602

127 Cal.Rptr. 602

55 Cal.App.3d 131

Ronald M. GUNTERT et al., Plaintiffs and Respondents, v. CITY OF STOCKTON, California, a Municipal Corporation, Defendant and Appellant.

Civ. 14752.

Court of Appeal, Third District, California.

Feb. 9, 1976.

Brobeck, Phleger & Harrison, by Thomas A. Welch, San Francisco, for plaintiffs and respondents.

Monroe Langdon, City Atty., and Wilson & Hoslett, by John A. Wilson, Stockton, for defendant and appellant.

OPINION ON DENIAL OF REHEARINGS

FRIEDMAN, Acting Presiding Justice.

Both plaintiffs and the defendant City of Stockton have filed petitions for rehearing. Except at one point, neither petition evokes any need for modification or ampification of our opinion filed January 12, 1976. We do comment upon plaintiffs' criticism of that section of our opinion (headed by the numeral 'VI') which nullified the trial court's damage award for loss of future profits at a fixed monthly rate commencing February 1974 and extending through December 1979.

It will be recalled that in November 1974 this court sustained the injunction which prevented the City of Stockton from terminating the leasehold of plaintiff Guntert. (Guntert v. City of Stockton, 43 Cal.App.3d 203, 117 Cal.Rptr. 601.) That decision on appeal became final in January 1975. The damage phase of the lawsuit went to trial in December 1973 and the judgment for damages was entered February 1974. The trial court judgment for monthly profit losses commencing February 1974 was prospective in relation to the time of the damage trial and entry of the damage judgment. We reversed that part of the judgment (a) because the breach of lease was only partial and did not entitle plaintiffs to prospective damages; (b) because the occurrence of future damages was contingent and uncertain.

In their petition for rehearing plaintiffs argue that we should have sustained the award of monthly profit losses at least until the time the injunction judgment became final, that is, until January 1975. Until then, plaintiffs had no assurance of a victorious lawsuit and no assurance of undisturbed occupancy of the site of their manufacturing plant. Until then, plaintiffs' uncertain prospects prevented them from accepting profitable, long-term business commitments. Thus, they assert, we should have affirmed the award of monthly profit losses at least through January 1975.

At this point plaintiffs overlook the fact that we were reviewing a judgment entered in February 1974, not ...