Southwick v. Crownover

• Decision Date: 18 March 2014
• Docket Number: A135153
• Court: California Court of Appeals Court of Appeals
• Parties: PAUL J. SOUTHWICK, Plaintiff and Appellant, v. MAGUERITE A. CROWNOVER, Defendant and Respondent. SONOMA COUNTY DEPARTMENT OF CHILD SUPPORT SERVICES, Intervenor and Respondent.

PAUL J. SOUTHWICK, Plaintiff and Appellant, v. MAGUERITE A. CROWNOVER, Defendant and Respondent.SONOMA COUNTY DEPARTMENT OF CHILD SUPPORT SERVICES, Intervenor and Respondent.

A135153

COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA FIRST APPELLATE DISTRICT DIVISION THREE

Filed: March 18, 2014

NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN OFFICIAL REPORTS

California Rules of Court, rule 8.1115(a), prohibits courts and parties from citing or relying on opinions not certified for publication or ordered published, except as specified by rule 8.1115(b). This opinion has not been certified for publication or ordered published for purposes of rule 8.1115.

(Sonoma County

Super. Ct. No. SFL 957331)

This is an appeal from an order denying the request of appellant Paul J. Southwick to compel respondent Sonoma County Department of Child Support Services (department) to release the hold placed on his Contractor's license for noncompliance with a valid child support order and his related request for reconsideration. We affirm.

FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

We briefly set forth the history of this decades-long marital dissolution matter, which, we note, is before this court for a second time. (Southwick v. Crownover, A121579, July 31, 2009 (nonpub.).) The parties married in 1984 and finally divorced in 1992 after legally separating in 1989. Pursuant to the 1992 judgment of dissolution (1992 judgment), Crownover was granted physical custody of the parties' three children, who have now all reached the age of majority, while Southwick was granted frequentvisitation and ordered to pay $670 monthly in child support. At the time, Southwick already owed over $79,000 in child support arrearages.

In 2007, the 1992 judgment was amended to order Southwick to pay arrearages in monthly payments of $200. On January 22, 2008, Southwick filed a request for rehearing and an application to set aside portions of the 1992 judgment, as modified in 2007, on the ground that the judgment was tainted by Crownover's alleged fraudulent and perjurious statements.¹ The trial court declined to set aside the 1992 judgment after finding Southwick's claims time-barred, and instructed him to submit forms to enable it to determine a monthly payment plan for the arrears. An Order on Arrearages was then issued in May 2008, requiring Southwick to pay $500 per month. Southwick appealed this order, which we affirmed after concluding, among other things, the trial court properly found his claims time-barred. Southwick's subsequent petitions for review to the California and United States Supreme Courts were denied.

Following several years of inactivity in this matter, Southwick filed on August 29, 2011 a "Notice of: Cease and Desist," requesting the department immediately cease and desist from enforcing the May 2008 Order on Arrearages on the ground that the order is "wholly void for jurisdiction" because the 1992 judgment, in turn, is "void." On September 15, 2011, the department then served Southwick with a 30-day notice of intent to suspend his license pursuant to Family Code section 17520 based on information received from the department that Southwick was not in compliance with a child support order or judgment. This notice advised Southwick that, if he objected to suspension of his license, he was required to submit the enclosed "Notice of Request for Review" to the department. Southwick filed the requisite notice and, on October 25, 2001, the matter was heard by Commissioner Louise B. Fightmaster (Commissioner). Following this hearing, the Commissioner denied Southwick's request to release the hold on his Contractor's license.

On October 13, 2011, Southwick filed a notice of motion in Superior Court stating as follows: "Emergency Ex-Parte Hearing requested due to the [department's] 30 day notice of intent to suspend. The [department] has failed in writing to afford me any decision. I have no other remedy but file accordingly by way of this motion. Suspension takes effect Oct. 16, 2011. Application made for review to DCSS, no response. Parties served [b]y mail and in person of this request. Order of May 15, 2008, VOID for lack of SUBJECT MATTER JURISDICTION. Judgment in case no. SM-65005 VOID for judicial action inconsistent w[ith] due process and excess of jurisdiction." On October 27, 2011, Southwick then filed a Notice of Objection in Superior Court to the Commissioner's findings and recommendation, requesting "the matter be set for a de novo (new) hearing before a superior court judge." His request was granted, and a hearing was set for November 9, 2011.

On February 2, 2012, the trial court issued an order following the de novo review hearing (Fam. Code § 4251, subd. (b)), accepting the Commissioner's findings and recommendation to deny Southwick's request for release of the hold on his Contractor's license. In doing so, the trial court observed: "[Southwick's] objections mainly sound as a request for reconsideration of a series of judgments and orders entered in this case over the past decade. Even if the court were to construe [his] objections as a motion for reconsideration, it would be untimely and barred by the appellate decision affirming the denial of [his] appeal of the earlier denial of his request to set aside those same orders, and [he] has not asserted any new facts or law which would support a motion for reconsideration. (C.C.P. § 1008.)"

Southwick filed a motion for reconsideration on February 14, 2012, which was denied March 23, 2012, for failure to present new facts or law in support of it. His appeal of the February 2 and March 23, 2012, orders followed.²

DISCUSSION

Southwick, proceeding in propria persona, raises quite literally dozens of arguments on appeal. In doing so, Southwick challenges not just the orders identified in his notice of appeal (to wit, the February and March 2012 orders regarding his objection to suspension of his Contractor's license), but also past orders and judgments dating from 1992. His arguments generally fall into one of two categories. First, Southwick contends all trial and appellate court orders since the 1992 judgment, as modified in 2007, are void because the judgment itself is void as an act in excess of the court's jurisdiction. Southwick reasons that the 1992 judgment exceeded the court's jurisdiction because he was not afforded his constitutional right to a "veracity hearing" on allegations raised by Crownover during the dissolution proceedings. Second, Southwick contends the statute authorizing suspension of his Contractor's license, Family Code section 17520 (section 17520), is unconstitutional and contrary to various federal statutes. With respect to the first category of arguments stemming from Southwick's theory that the 1992 judgment is void, we quickly dispose of them in bulk on the basis of one or more of the following legal grounds: res judicata, law of the case, or noncompliance with mandatory rules of appellate practice.

First, with respect to res judicata and law of the case, the dimensions of these legal doctrines are well-established. " 'The doctrine of the law of the case is this: That where, upon an appeal, the [reviewing] court, in deciding the appeal, states in its opinion a principle or rule of law necessary to the decision, that principle or rule becomes the law of the case and must be adhered to throughout its subsequent progress, both in the lower court and upon subsequent appeal, and, as here assumed, in any subsequent suit for the same cause of action . . . ' [Citation.]" (People v. Stanley (1995) 10 Cal.4th 764, 786.) The doctrine of res judicata, in turn, holds: "[A]ll claims based on the same cause of action must be decided in a single suit; if not brought initially, they may not be raised at alater date. ' "Res judicata precludes piecemeal litigation by splitting a single cause of action or relitigation of the same cause of action on a different legal theory or for different relief." ' [Citation.] A predictable doctrine of res judicata benefits both the parties and the courts because it 'seeks to curtail multiple litigation causing vexation and expense to the parties and wasted effort and expense in judicial administration.' (7 Witkin, Cal. Procedure (4th ed. 1997) Judgment, § 280, p. 820.)" (Mycogen Corp. v. Monsanto Co. (2002) 28 Cal.4th 888, 897. Further, these doctrines undoubtedly apply to marriage dissolution proceedings. (Moffat v. Moffat (1980) 27 Cal.3d 645, 656-657.) And they apply squarely to this case, barring Southwick's attempts to relitigate legal or factual issues already finally decided by this court, including issues regarding any purported due process right to a veracity hearing on Crownover's allegations against him. Quite simply, the validity of the 1992 judgment dissolving the parties' marriage and ordering child support, as modified in 2007, has already been upheld on appeal to this court, Southwick's two subsequent petitions for review to higher courts were denied, and the judgment has thus long been final. As such, his belated attacks on the 1992 judgment and subsequent support orders are not well-taken.³

Moreover, to the extent we could read any of Southwick's challenges to the 1992 judgment or subsequent child support orders as falling outside the scope of these doctrines (which we doubt), we would nonetheless refuse to consider them for another well-established reason: Southwick's briefing of these issues fails in innumerable instances to comply with the most basic rules of appellate procedure.

Most notably, Southwick has failed his burden to provide reasoned arguments based on relevant legal authority and supported by proper record citation demonstrating the presumably correct court orders are subject to reversal. (Denham v. Superior Court (1970) 2 Cal.3d 557, 564.) It is well-established that, in courts of appeal, "conclusory claims of error will fail." (In re S.C. (2006) 138 Cal.App.4th 396, 408. See California Rules of Court, rule 8.204(a)(1)(B) [appellate briefs must ...