30-15-799088

Mendoza VS Omniduct Systems

Demurrer and Motion to Strike re Complaint

This is a personal injury action involving an incident at plaintiff’s workplace. Mauricio Mendoza was working at Omniduct Systems operating a machine tubeformer when he suffered injury allegedly as a result of a missing pinch-point guard. At issue will be whether the machine qualifies as a power press for the exception to workers compensation exclusivity.

Before the Court this day is a demurrer and motion to strike by the defendants. There is no opposition, which may suggest an intent by the plaintiffs to simply moot the motions with an FAC filed just prior to the hearing. However, the lack of opposition may also indicate a problem with service, as explained herein.

The official address on file for plaintiffs’ counsel is 16542 Ventura Boulevard, Suite 300, Encino, California 91436. This is the address used by counsel on the Complaint, and the address used by this Court for various notifications. Defendants served the demurrer and motion to strike at 6355 Topanga Canyon Boulevard, Suite 411, Woodland Hills, California 91367. Although this is the address used by plaintiffs’ counsel more recently on POS filings, there has been no official change of address lodged with the Court. See CRC 2.200: “An attorney or self-represented party whose mailing address, telephone number, fax number, or e-mail address (if it was provided under rule 2.111(1)) changes while an action is pending must serve on all parties and file a written notice of the change.”

Based on the official court record, and without hearing from plaintiffs’ counsel, this Court has no option but to conclude that the demurrer and motion to strike were mail-served to an incorrect address. See, e.g., Whitehead v. Habig (2008) 163 Cal.App.4th 896, 903. Assuming an amended complaint does not come in before the hearing, the hearing will need to be continued 30 days for revised service.