Filed 3/27/20 Salamah v. Superior Court CA4/2

NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN OFFICIAL REPORTS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 This opinion has not been certified for publication or ordered published for purposes of rule 8.1115.

IN THE COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA

FOURTH APPELLATE DISTRICT

DIVISION TWO

ABDEL FATAH SALAMAH,

Petitioner,

v.

THE SUPERIOR COURT OF

RIVERSIDE COUNTY,

Respondent;

ROBERT LEWIS,

Real Party in Interest.

E073311

(Super.Ct.No. MCC1900156)

OPINION

ORIGINAL PROCEEDINGS; petition for extraordinary writ. Rick S. Brown, Judge. (Retired judge of the Santa Barbara Super. Ct. assigned by the Chief Justice pursuant to art. VI, § 6 of the Cal. Const.) Petition dismissed.

Heath & Yuen, Stephen B. Heath, Steven W. Yuen and Sapphira W. Davis for Petitioner.

No appearance for Respondent

The Ellis Firm, Brian C. Ellis and Joshua K. Helm for Real Party in Interest.

The law firm of Heath & Yuen, APC (Heath & Yuen) represents Veterans Rideshare, Inc. (Veterans Rideshare) in a case pending in Los Angeles County. Scott K. West (West) serves as the CEO of Veterans Rideshare, but does not have an ownership interest in the company.

In the instant case, Robert Lewis (Lewis) is suing Abdel Fatah Salamah (Salamah) who does business as Superior Shuttle. Salamah is represented by Heath & Yuen. Lewis designated West as an expert for the case. Salamah moved to disqualify West as Lewis’s expert because Heath & Yuen would violate its duty of loyalty by cross-examining West in Lewis’s case while representing West’s employer, i.e., Veterans Rideshare, in the Los Angeles County case. The trial court denied the motion. Salamah petitioned this court for a writ of mandate or prohibition asserting the trial court erred by denying his motion. Salamah now moves this court to dismiss his writ petition. We dismiss the writ petition.

FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY

Because Salamah moved for dismissal of his writ petition, we do not include the facts and procedural history of the case.

DISCUSSION

In Salamah’s writ petition, he contended the trial court erred by denying his motion to disqualify West because Heath & Yuen cannot represent West’s employer in the Los Angeles case while cross-examining West in the instant case. Salamah moved this court to dismiss his petition. Salamah failed to support his motion to dismiss with (1) a memorandum, and (2) a declaration. (Cal. Rules of Court, rule 8.54, subd. (a)(2).) In the body of the motion, Salamah asserts the case has settled, but there is no declaration to support that assertion. Nevertheless, because it is Salamah’s petition and Salamah is no longer interested in pursuing the matter, we will grant the motion.

We do not make an award of costs because (1) the matter is being dismissed (see Cal. Rules of Court, rule 8.493 (a)(1)(B)); and (2) we have no evidence concerning the settlement, which means we cannot determine the prevailing party in the dismissal (Code Civ. Proc., § 1032, subd. (a)(4)).

DISPOSITION

The writ petition is dismissed with prejudice. The stay filed August 1, 2019, is DISSOLVED.

NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN OFFICIAL REPORTS

MILLER

J.

We concur:

RAMIREZ

P. J.

SLOUGH

J.