Maleti v. Wickers

• Decision Date: 15 August 2022
• Docket Number: H048393
• Parties: Carol MALETI, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. Rodney W. WICKERS et al., Defendants and Appellants.
• Court: California Court of Appeals Court of Appeals

82 Cal.App.5th 181

298 Cal.Rptr.3d 284

Carol MALETI, Plaintiff and Respondent,

v.Rodney W. WICKERS et al., Defendants and Appellants.

H048393

Court of Appeal, Sixth District, California.

Filed August 15, 2022

As Modified on Denial of Rehearing September 9, 2022

Attorneys for Defendants and Appellants Rodney W. Wickers et al.: Zelms Erlich & Mack, Rinat-Klier-Erlich, Amy J. Cooper

Attorneys for Plaintiff and Respondent Carol Maleti: The Fortress Law Firm, David P. Nemecek, Jr.

BAMATTRE-MANOUKIAN, ACTING P.J.

I. INTRODUCTION

At the time of his death in November 2013, Andrew Farkas (Farkas) owned Santa Cruz County property, Parcel 5 and Parcel 18. His widow, Collette McLaughlin (McLaughlin), brought a probate petition to establish and enforce an access easement benefiting that property. In the first amended petition, McLaughlin named several neighboring landowners in the petition. She later added Sal Maleti (Maleti) and his corporation, the Sal Maleti Corporation (Maleti Corp.), as respondents. Maleti Corp. had owned Parcel 18 and neighboring property many years earlier. Maleti Corp. sold Parcel 18 to Farkas in 1993; after 2000, the corporation owned no property in the vicinity of the Farkas property.

McLaughlin asserted nine claims against Maleti and Maleti Corp. (hereafter, collectively, the Maleti Respondents). Each of the nine claims was disposed of in favor of the Maleti Respondents: five after McLaughlin failed to amend the probate petition following the sustaining of a demurrer with leave to amend; one after the sustaining of a demurrer without leave to amend; and three after the granting of summary judgment.

The present lawsuit for malicious prosecution and abuse of process was then brought by Maleti's executor, Carol Maleti (Carol).¹ Carol named as defendants McLaughlin and the attorneys who had represented her in the probate proceeding, Law Office of Rodney W. Wickers, Rodney W. Wickers, and Christina M. Wickers (collectively, Attorneys). Carol alleged, inter alia, that McLaughlin and Attorneys brought the probate proceeding against the Maleti Respondents without probable cause and with malice, and that the claims alleged in that proceeding were terminated in their favor on the merits.

Attorneys filed a special motion to strike the two claims alleged in the complaint under Code of Civil Procedure section 425.16 (special motion to strike, or anti-SLAPP motion).² There was no dispute that the claims were based upon Attorneys' exercise of constitutionally protected activity, thereby satisfying the first prong of the anti-SLAPP statute. Attorneys argued that Carol could not satisfy her burden of showing a probability that she would prevail on the two claims. In an order filed September 15, 2020 (the Order), the trial court ruled in favor of Attorneys on Carol's claim for abuse of process, striking that cause of action. The court, however, denied Attorneys' special motion to strike the malicious prosecution claim, concluding that Carol had shown a probability of succeeding on that claim. The court also denied Attorneys' request for statutory attorney fees.

Attorneys challenge the Order denying the special motion to strike the malicious prosecution claim and the denial of attorney fees. Carol filed a cross-appeal, challenging the Order striking the abuse of process claim.

We conclude that Carol satisfied her burden of establishing that her malicious prosecution claim had " ‘a minimum level of legal sufficiency and triability’ [citation]." ( Jarrow Formulas, supra , 31 Cal.4th at p. 738, 3 Cal.Rptr.3d 636, 74 P.3d 737.) The first element of the tort is the favorable termination of the underlying proceeding on the merits. We hold that a malicious prosecution plaintiff, who has succeeded in all respects in defending a multiple-claim case, need not show that all such claims were resolved on the merits as long as at least one claim was terminated on the merits. Because Carol showed that six of the nine claims in the underlying probate proceeding were terminated on the merits in favor of the Maleti Respondents, she established the favorable termination element. We conclude further that Carol satisfied her burden of showing the legal sufficiency and an evidentiary basis supporting the elements of absence of probable cause and malice required for malicious prosecution. Accordingly, we conclude the court did not err in denying the special motion to strike the first cause of action for malicious prosecution.

We conclude further that Carol did not adequately plead a claim for abuse of process. Therefore, we reject Carol's cross-appeal, concluding the trial court properly granted the motion to strike the second cause of action for abuse of process.

Lastly, we conclude the trial court erred in denying Attorneys' request for attorney fees and costs under section 425.16, subdivision (c)(1) as the prevailing defendant. A defendant who prevails in part in an anti-SLAPP motion is generally entitled to an award of attorney fees and costs related to that partial success. In its denial of an award, the court below found that Attorneys derived no practical benefit from successfully moving to strike the abuse of process claim. Because this finding is not supported by the record, we conclude the court was required to award reasonable fees and costs in connection with Attorneys' successful challenge to the abuse of process claim.

We will therefore reverse the Order only insofar as the trial court denied attorney fees and costs to Attorneys. We will remand the case to the trial court for further proceedings, including in that remand a directive that the court decide Attorneys' request for fees and costs in connection with their partially successful special motion to strike.

II. PROCEDURAL HISTORY

A. Background Concerning Farkas Probate Proceeding

Maleti was a real estate broker who received his California license in or about 1976. Maleti Corp., established in 1984, was solely owned and operated by Maleti and was engaged in the purchase and sale of real property. In 1988, Maleti Corp. purchased from Pacific Western Bank four real estate parcels in Boulder Creek, Santa Cruz County, that are referred to by the parties as Parcels 18, 19, 21, and 22. The parcels are located as follows:

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In 1992, Maleti Corp. sold three of the four parcels (i.e., Parcels 18, 19, and 22). In April, Parcel 22 was sold to Andrew Opler. In May, Maleti Corp. sold Parcel 19 to John Willheim; at the time of the probate proceedings relevant here, Parcel 19 was owned by Ronald Wilson (Wilson) and Harold Patrick (Patrick). In August 1992, Maleti Corp. sold Parcel 18 to Farkas.

Maleti was the listing agent; he did not represent Farkas. Farkas owned Parcel 18 until his death on November 1, 2013. At that time, Farkas also owned Parcel 5, located to the east of Parcel 18. In April 2000, Maleti Corp. sold Parcel 21 to Kendall and Renee King (collectively, the Kings).

B. The Farkas Probate Proceeding

Attorneys, on behalf of McLaughlin as administrator of the Farkas Estate, filed a petition for probate in January 2014. On May 12, 2016, Attorneys filed a "Petition to Establish Estate's Claim of Ownership and for Order Directing its Transfer to Estate Pursuant to Probate Code Section 850." McLaughlin alleged that at the time of his death, "[Farkas] held a prescriptive easement for ingress and egress with respect to the dirt road ... located within [Parcels 19 and 21] ... [and she was seeking] to legally record this easement." It was alleged further that the Farkas Estate's property, Parcel 5, used primarily for timber harvesting, was only accessible by the subject dirt road easement. McLaughlin requested that "[o]wnership of such property easement for ingress and egress over the dirt access road ... immediately be transferred to [her], as administrator of decedent's estate."

Attorneys filed a First Amended Petition³ in July 2016, naming the owners of Parcel 19 (Wilson and Patrick) and Parcel 21 (the Kings), as respondents. This First Amended Petition, like the original Petition, sought an order transferring to the Farkas Estate a prescriptive easement for ingress and egress by a dirt road over Parcel 19 and Parcel 21. It was also alleged that the Estate's property, Parcel 5 and Parcel 18 , was only accessible by the subject dirt road easement. Thereafter, Attorneys filed second and third amended petitions; neither pleading named Maleti or Maleti Corp. as respondents.

In April 2017, Attorneys filed a Fourth Amended Petition on behalf of McLaughlin, naming Wilson and Patrick, the Kings, Maleti and Maleti Corp. as respondents. The Fourth Amended Petition included 10 claims—nine of which were directed against the Maleti Respondents—related to the Estate of Farkas's asserted easement rights over a private roadway identified in the pleading as the " ‘Tradewinds Route,’ " namely, (1) easement by prescription, (2) easement by implication, (3) easement by implied conveyance, (4) easement by express grant, (5) easement by necessity, (6) easement by estoppel, (7) declaratory relief to establish easement (not alleged against the Maleti Respondents), (8) negligence by interfering with Farkas's use of the easement for ingress and egress, (9) slander of title by denial of Farkas's existing easement and making false statements concerning it, and (10) to pierce the corporate veil of Maleti Corp. to establish that it was Maleti's alter ego (against Maleti only). (The first six causes of action are collectively referred to as the Easement Claims.)

The Maleti Respondents filed a demurrer to the Fourth Amended Petition. In September 2017, the probate court sustained the demurrer with leave to amend as to all nine causes of action.

Attorneys filed a Fifth Amended Petition on behalf of McLaughlin that tracked the same 10 causes of action that had been alleged in the Fourth Amended Petition. The first five Easement Claims were no longer alleged against the Maleti Respondents. The negligence claim included...