Halpin v. Superior Court

• Decision Date: 20 January 1971
• Citation: 92 Cal.Rptr. 329,14 Cal.App.3d 530
• Court: California Court of Appeals Court of Appeals
• Parties: Jack HALPIN and Max G. Giles, Petitioners, v. The SUPERIOR COURT of the State of California, IN AND FOR the COUNTY OF SACRAMENTO, Respondent. HYSTER COMPANY, Petitioner, v. The SUPERIOR COURT of the State of California, IN AND FOR the COUNTY OF SACRAMENTO, Respondent. Civ. 12594, 12606.

Page 329

92 Cal.Rptr. 329

14 Cal.App.3d 530

Jack HALPIN and Max G. Giles, Petitioners, v. The SUPERIOR COURT of the State of California, IN AND FOR the COUNTY OF SACRAMENTO, Respondent.

HYSTER COMPANY, Petitioner, v. The SUPERIOR COURT of the State of California, IN AND FOR the COUNTY OF SACRAMENTO, Respondent.

Civ. 12594, 12606.

Court of Appeal, Third District, California.

Jan. 20, 1971.

As Modified Feb. 2, 1971.

Hearing Denied March 26, 1971.

Fitzwilliam, Memering, Stumbos & DeMers, Sacramento, by Louis A. DeMers and Jack Halpin, Redding, for Halpin and Giles.

Bledsoe, Smith, Cathcart, Johnson & Rogers, by Roger Smith, San Francisco, for Hyster Co.

Rust, Hoffman & Mills, by William Mayhew, Sacramento, for Douglas Guardian.

PIERCE, Presiding Justice.

We issued an order to show cause and a stay order on the two above captioned petitions for mandamus and/or prohibition. The Halpin-Giles petition represents interests antipodal to the Hyster Company ('Hyster') petition but the aim of both was to stay further proceedings in an action pending in the Superior Court of Sacramento County, No. 192553 ('Sacramento action') entitled Douglas Guardian Warehouse ('Warehouse') v. Jack Halpin and Max G. Giles.

The two proceedings have been consolidated. The declared purpose of the Sacramento action was to compel specific performance of an alleged settlement between plaintiff Warehouse, represented by attorney Rust and his firm, on the one hand, and defendant Giles, represented by attorney Halpin (who was also a defendant), on the other hand. The alleged settlement was of a cause of action for personal injuries brought in the Shasta County Superior Court ('Shasta action') by Giles against three defendants of which Warehouse was one and Hyster was another. The trial had been bifurcated. The liability phase was in progress at the time the claimed settlement was said to have been made. Judge Abbe was sitting without a jury to determine the liability of the three defendants. During the progress of this phase Judge Abbe was told of negotiations for a settlement which apparently would be effected between all parties but that an actual settlement had not been consummated. We will explain these negotiations at some length below. The judge recessed the trial for five days.

On the day to which the trial had been continued its progress was resumed. The proposed settlement had been abortive. The reasons for its failure will also be described. All parties were present represented by counsel--including Warehouse represented by Mr. Rust. Outside of court there had been a dispute between Mr. Rust and Mr. Halpin as to whether a settlement between Giles and Warehouse had actually occurred. Judge Abbe was not informed by Mr. Rust or anyone else, either of a completed settlement or of any dispute.

The liability phase of the trial continued as though there had been no interruption. Mr. Rust, with the others, participated in it until its termination. The issue of a settlement was not raised. A determination was made by Judge Abbe that two defendants, Hyster and Warehouse, were liable as joint tortfeasors. Even when that decision was made there was no claim by Mr. Rust of any settlement.

Meanwhile, the damage phase of the trial was set to be heard before a jury in the Shasta action. That was the posture of the case when the Sacramento action was filed.

The verified complaint filed by Warehouse in the Sacramento action alleged a separate good faith settlement solely between plaintiff Giles and Warehouse. Both Giles and Halpin were named as defendants and, as stated, they were the only defendants. It was Not alleged that Mr. Rust, representing Warehouse, had participated in that phase of the trial. On the contrary, it was falsely alleged that the court in the Shasta action had been informed of the settlement and that the court had 'excused' Warehouse and Mr. Rust from further participation in the trial. (It was not explained how the court nevertheless thereafter found Warehouse liable with Hyster as joint tortfeasors.) The complaint prayed for specific performance of the alleged agreement and for an injunction to be issued against defendants prohibiting them from further participation in the Shasta action against Warehouse.

There is another curious circumstance which we will advert to in greater depth below. Before Giles and/or Halpin appeared in the Sacramento action an agreement in writing between Halpin and Rust had been secretly reached respecting a possible limit to be given any judgment which might be rendered in the Sacramento action in favor of Warehouse and against Giles and Halpin.

Nevertheless, under the state of affairs described above, the Sacramento County Superior Court assumed jurisdiction. Also, after a hearing lasting less than two hours which, it was stipulated by the parties, was to be a trial on the merits, Except that it was not necessarily to be binding, the court issued an injunction enjoining Giles and Halpin from further participation in the Shasta action as against Warehouse.

We will explain below the events which followed this strange maneuvering. It will be sufficient to say here that the Shasta action proceeded through the damage phase and to judgment (more or less at the telephoned suggestion of the Sacramento County Superior Court judge), tentative findings against Giles and Halpin were prepared in the Sacramento action, defendant Hyster of the Shasta action sought to appear specially to attack the jurisdiction of the Sacramento County Superior Court, objections to the findings were filed by Giles and Halpin, hearings were held in December 1969. In February 1970 the Sacramento County Superior Court decided that Hyster was not entitled to any hearing on the validity of a settlement to which the court nevertheless found Hyster to have been a party, and the Sacramento court signed findings (outside the issues framed by the pleadings). At that point these proceedings were brought.

The facts stated above require that a peremptory writ issue. This court believes, however, that those facts should be augmented so that the reasons for the

rulings hereinafter to be made will be clarified.

THE FACTS AUGMENTED

When this court, after an initial study of the written presentation of the parties and after hearing the oral argument, commenced to study the materials before it and the transcription of the oral argument, it found hopeless contradictions between representations made by the several parties. It therefore asked explanation. Five supplementary letter briefs and five separate affidavits (or declarations under penalty of perjury) were submitted. The affidavits (although clarifying certain matters as to which this court had gained a misunderstanding) are not only contradictory as between the parties, one of them is self-contradictory. On the record before us we are critical of behavior of certain counsel as officers of the court. We will, however, in the main, let the facts speak for themselves and we shall attempt to give as concise an account as the nature of this matter will permit.

January 25, 1968. Max G. Giles, represented by Halpin as attorney, filed as plaintiff a complaint in the Shasta County Superior Court naming Warehouse, Plywood Redding, Inc., and a number of Doe defendants of which Hyster was later served as one. Giles sought $500,000 in damages for injuries suffered while operating a forklift manufactured and owned by Hyster and leased to Gold-Rey Plywood Sales, Inc. The latter was Giles' employer. Gold-Rey (not a defendant) filed a complaint in intervention. The status of Plywood Redding, Inc., is unimportant.

March 11, 1969. The trial of the liability phase of the trial (theretofore ordered to be bifurcated) was commenced before Judge Abbe sitting without a jury.

Friday, March 14, 1969. It was declared in open court that a tentative settlement agreement had been reached. We have the transcript of the court proceedings on that day before us. These proceedings do not, as attorney Rust now insists, show or indicate any completed settlement of Giles with Warehouse or of Giles with anyone else. They do show that attorney Halpin stated, 'we think we have got the case settled, but there are some technicalities to worry over. * * *' There is a statement: 'MR. RUST: * * * it will not be necessary for me to be back here' and thereafter there was a colloquy between court and counsel to the effect that Should the tentative settlement be concluded no one would have to come back. The tenor of the whole discussion, however, was that the actual settlement was tentative and the court ordered a recess with the trial to be continued in the event it failed.

March 13--19, 1969. There are varying accounts of what happened during the settlement negotiations. (It should be noted here--out of chronological order--that later a member of Mr. Rust's firm was to propose, and ultimately the Sacramento County Superior Court was to find, that the actual settlement entered into was one between Giles on the one hand and ALL defendants, plus the complainant in intervention.)

Attorney George Littlefield was the attorney representing Gold-Rey's compensation carrier, Employer's Mutual Liability Insurance Company of Wisconsin ('Employer's Mutual'). In the proceedings now before us a declaration was solicited from him by Both Mr. Rusk and Mr. Halpin as to Littlefield's version of what had taken place during settlement negotiations after the court recessed and before it reconvened. He has filed this declaration dated October 23, 1970. It shows in relevant part that Littlefield had received authority from Employer's Mutual and Gold-Rey to contribute $50,000 to a "package settlement" offer by Mr. Halpin to settle the case for $225,000. Gold-Rey's contribution was conditioned upon approval by the Workmen's Compensation Appeals Board. Hyster, represented by Mr. Smith, agreed to contribute $125,000. Warehouse, insured by...