State v. Superior Court

• Decision Date: 24 May 2004
• Docket Number: No. S114171.,S114171.
• Citation: 90 P.3d 116,13 Cal.Rptr.3d 534,32 Cal.4th 1234
• Court: California Supreme Court
• Parties: The STATE of California et al., Petitioners, v. The SUPERIOR COURT of Kings County, Respondent; Patricia BODDE, Individually and as Special Administrator, etc., Real Party in Interest.

13 Cal.Rptr.3d 534

90 P.3d 116

32 Cal.4th 1234

The STATE of California et al., Petitioners, v. The SUPERIOR COURT of Kings County, Respondent;

Patricia BODDE, Individually and as Special Administrator, etc., Real Party in Interest.

No. S114171.

Supreme Court of California.

May 24, 2004.

Bill Lockyer, Attorney General, Robert R. Anderson, Chief Assistant Attorney General, Allen R. Crown, Acting Assistant Attorney General, Paul D. Gifford and Frances T. Grunder, Assistant Attorneys General, James E. Flynn and David A. Carrasco, Deputy Attorneys General, for Petitioners.

Kronick, Moskovitz, Tiedemann & Girard and Jonathan P. Hobbs, Sacramento, for League of California Cities and California State Association of Counties as Amici Curiae on behalf of Petitioners.

Rockard J. Delgadillo, City Attorney (Los Angeles), Katherine J. Hamilton, Assistant City Attorney, and Lisa S. Berger, Deputy City Attorney, for City of Los Angeles as Amicus Curiae on behalf of Petitioners.

No appearance for Respondent.

Law Office of Kim D. Scovis, Kim D. Scovis and Jenny Scovis, Thousand Oaks, for Real Party in Interest.

BROWN, J.

As part of the California Tort Claims Act, Government Code section 900 et seq.¹ establishes certain conditions precedent to the filing of a lawsuit against a public entity. As relevant here, a plaintiff must timely file a claim for money or damages with the public entity. (§ 911.2.) The failure to do so bars the plaintiff from bringing suit against that entity. (§ 945.4.) In this case, we consider whether failure to allege facts demonstrating or excusing compliance with this claim presentation requirement subjects a complaint to a general demurrer. We conclude it does.

I.

Plaintiff Bernard Bodde² was an inmate in the California state prison system. Plaintiff filed suit against defendants the State of California and various state agencies and employees³ alleging that they misdiagnosed his lung cancer as tuberculosis and failed to provide him with adequate medical care.

In their first three demurrers, defendants⁴ contended, among other things, that plaintiff failed to comply with the claim presentation requirement contained in Government Code section 900 et seq. The trial court sustained each of these demurrers with leave to amend. Following the last order granting leave to amend, plaintiff filed a third amended complaint. The complaint alleged five causes of action: (1) violation of 42 United States Code section 1983, (2) intentional infliction of emotional distress, (3) violation of Government Code section 845.6, (4) negligence, and (5) negligence per se.

With respect to the state law claims (counts two through five), the complaint alleged that plaintiff had submitted a claim to the Office of the Attorney General, which "represented that [it was] authorized to accept service for the State Board of Control for the State of California" and "led [plaintiff] to believe that [he was] serving the State Board of Control." The complaint further alleged that plaintiff "received telephonic notice that there were small errors contained in the original claim and was requested to file an Amended Claim." According to the complaint, "an Agent of the Attorney General represented to [plaintiff] that she would accept service of said amended claim, and that the requested changes would correct any errors concerning said claim." As requested, plaintiff filed an amended claim. The complaint then alleged that plaintiff only learned that the Office of the Attorney General — rather than the State Board of Control — had been mistakenly served over one year after he discovered he had lung cancer.

Defendants demurred, alleging once again that plaintiff failed "to state facts sufficient to constitute a cause of action" and that his state law claims were "barred by [his] failure to comply with Government Code section 900 et seq." This time, the trial court overruled the demurrer, holding that the complaint pled "facts which if true could support a claim of estoppel so as to avoid the failure to comply with sections 911.2 and 911.4 of the Government Code."

Defendants then filed a petition for writ of mandate, asking the Court of Appeal to issue an order sustaining their demurrer to the third amended complaint as to all state law claims. After issuing an order to show cause, the court denied the petition. In doing so, the court did not reach the estoppel issue. Instead, the court held that compliance with the claim presentation requirement contained in section 900 et seq. is not an element of a cause of action against a public entity and need not be alleged. Thus, noncompliance is not a ground for sustaining a general demurrer. According to the court, the state may only "raise its defense of noncompliance with the Tort Claims [Act] requirement on a motion for summary judgment and/or at trial."

We granted review and limited the issue to whether failure to plead facts demonstrating or excusing compliance with the claim presentation requirement of section 900 et seq. may be raised on a general demurrer to the complaint. We conclude it may.

II.

Under section 911.2, "[a] claim relating to a cause of action for death or for injury to person or to personal property ... shall be presented as provided in Article 2 (commencing with Section 915) of this chapter not later than six months after the accrual of the cause of action." Section 945.4 then provides that "no suit for money or damages may be brought against a public entity on a cause of action for which a claim is required to be presented in accordance with Chapter 1 (commencing with Section 900) and Chapter 2 (commencing with Section 910) of Part 3 of this division until a written claim therefor has been presented to the public entity and has been acted upon by the board, or has been deemed to have been rejected by the board, in accordance with Chapters 1 and 2 of Part 3 of this division."⁵ (Italics added.) Thus, under these statutes, failure to timely present a claim for money or damages to a public entity bars a plaintiff from filing a lawsuit against that entity.⁶

Plaintiff concedes that his state law claims are subject to this claim presentation requirement. He, however, contends his complaint need not allege facts demonstrating or excusing compliance with the requirement because compliance is not an element of a cause of action against a public entity. As such, his state law claims are not subject to demurrer for failure to so allege. Defendants counter that failure to allege compliance subjects a claim for money or damages against a public entity to demurrer for either lack of subject matter jurisdiction (Code Civ. Proc., § 430.10, subd. (a)) or for failure to "state facts sufficient to constitute a cause of action" (Code Civ. Proc., § 430.10, subd. (e)). We conclude that failure to allege facts demonstrating or excusing compliance with the claim presentation requirement subjects a claim against a public entity to a demurrer for failure to state a cause of action.⁷

Our analysis begins with our decision in Williams v. Horvath (1976) 16 Cal.3d 834, 129 Cal.Rptr. 453, 548 P.2d 1125. In Williams, we held that the claim presentation requirement "is inoperative in an action brought under" 42 United States Code section 1983. To reach this holding, we found that "the filing of a claim for damages `is more than a procedural requirement, it is a condition precedent to plaintiff's maintaining an action against defendant, in short, an integral part of plaintiff's cause of action.'" (Williams, at p. 842, 129 Cal.Rptr. 453,548 P.2d 1125, quoting Illerbrun v. Conrad (1963) 216 Cal.App.2d 521, 524, 31 Cal.Rptr. 27.) We further observed that "[o]ur own view of the claims requirement comports with that of" Willis v. Reddin (9th Cir.1969) 418 F.2d 702 (Williams, at p. 841, 129 Cal.Rptr. 453,548 P.2d 1125) — which held that "`California statutes or ordinances which condition the right to sue the sovereign upon timely filing of claims and actions are ... elements of the plaintiff's cause of action and conditions precedent to the maintenance of the action'" (Williams, at p. 840, 129 Cal.Rptr. 453,548 P.2d 1125, italics added, quoting Willis, at p. 704). Because the claim presentation requirement is a "state substantive limitation[ ] couched in procedural language" (Williams, at p. 841, 129 Cal.Rptr. 453,548 P.2d 1125), we concluded that the supremacy clause precluded us from applying the requirement to the federal cause of action (id. at p. 842, 129 Cal.Rptr. 453, 548 P.2d 1125). (See also Allis-Chalmers v. City of Oxnard (1980) 105 Cal.App.3d 876, 881, 165 Cal.Rptr. 128 ["in holding the 100-day claims requirement of the Tort Claims Act inapplicable, the [California] Supreme Court distinguished the substantive nature of the claims requirements from the procedural nature of statutes of limitations which remain applicable to federal actions"].)

Consistent with Williams, we have observed that "submission of a claim to a public entity pursuant to section 900 et seq. `is a condition precedent to a tort action and the failure to present the claim bars the action.'" (Phillips v. Desert Hospital Dist. (1989) 49 Cal.3d 699, 708, 263 Cal.Rptr. 119, 780 P.2d 349, quoting Lutz v. Tri-City Hospital (1986) 179 Cal.App.3d 807, 812, 224 Cal.Rptr. 787.) Similarly, some Courts of Appeal have expressly stated that compliance with the claim presentation requirement is an element of a cause of action against a public entity. (See, e.g., Del Real v. City of Riverside (2002) 95 Cal.App.4th 761, 767, 115 Cal.Rptr.2d 705; Wood v. Riverside General Hospital (1994) 25 Cal.App.4th 1113, 1119, 31 Cal.Rptr.2d 8.) Thus, our Courts of Appeal have repeatedly held that failure to allege facts demonstrating or excusing compliance with the requirement subjects a complaint to general demurrer for failure to state a cause of action.⁸ Indeed, the Court of Appeal in this case acknowledged that it had consistently held the...