Case Name: Dee Vu vs Thomas Nguyen
Case No.: 16CV302134

Defendant Thomas Nguyen has filed a series of motions all intended to challenge the Court’s grant of summary judgment on October 19, 2018. The grant of the motion was largely based on a prior court order where the Court ordered that served requests for admissions were deemed admitted due to Defendant’s failure to respond. That order was issued on May 15, 2018.
Defendant has now served a series of motions to challenge that order granting summary judgment, including the hearing on December 13, 2018 to vacate the order deeming requests for admissions admitted; a motion for reconsideration of the order granting summary judgment (February 21, 2019); and has reserved a hearing date on a motion for new trial (March 5, 2019).
The Court ORDERS that all pending motions are OFF CALENDAR.

On November 19, 2018, Defendant Thomas Nguyen has filed a notice of appeal of the October 19, 2018 order granting summary judgment, that deprives the Court of jurisdiction over the matters presented by these three motions.

The Court lacks jurisdiction to consider any of Defendant’s motions because of the pending appeal on the very orders Defendant is asking this Court to modify, reconsider or clarify. As a general rule, “the perfecting of an appeal stays [the] proceedings in the trial court upon the judgment or order appealed from or upon the matters embraced therein or affected thereby, including enforcement of the judgment or order….’” (CCP 916(a). See also Betz v. Pankow (1993) 16 Cal. App. 4th 931, 938; In re Marriage of Horowitz (1984) 159 Cal.App.3d 377, 381; Varian Med. Systems, Inc. v. Delfino (2005) 35 Cal.4th 180, 189; Dowling v. Zimmerman (2001) 85 Cal.App. 4th 1400, 1427-1428.)

Here, Defendant is asking this Court to vacate or modify the very orders that are the subject matter of the pending appeal. Any modification of these orders will have a direct impact on the proceedings before the appellate court. That is why a stay under CCP 916(a) from an appealable order deprives the trial court of jurisdiction to adjudicate a motion for reconsideration of that order or related orders – because the motion for reconsideration is not collateral to the appealed order. (Young v. Tri-City Healthcare Dist. (2012) 210 Cal.App.4th 35, 51-53.)