Re: The Diocese of San Joaquin v. The Rev. James Snell, et al.
Court Case No. 10CECG00908
Hearing Date: February 27, 2018 (Dept. 503)
Motion: Defendants’ Motion to Dismiss Complaints for Failure to Bring to Trial
Within Five Years [C.C.P. § 583.310]

Tentative Ruling:

To deny the motion to dismiss.

Explanation:

Code of Civil Procedure section 583.310 requires an action “be brought to trial within five years after the action is commenced against the defendant.” Otherwise, dismissal of the action is “mandatory and . . . not subject to extension, excuse, or exception except as expressly provided by statute.” (Code Civ. Proc., § 583.360, subd.

(b).) In computing the time within which an action must be brought to trial, courts must exclude the time during which “[p]rosecution or trial of the action was stayed or enjoined.” (Code Civ. Proc., § 583.340(b).) Courts must also exclude the time during which “[b]ringing the action to trial, for any other reason, was impossible, impracticable, or futile,” in computing the time within which an action must be brought to trial. (Code Civ. Proc., § 583.340(c); Bruns v. E–Commerce Exchange, Inc. (2011) 51 Cal.4th 717, 726.) Thus, subdivisions (b) and (c) of section 583.340 represent two separate tolling conditions. (Gaines v. Fidelity National Title Ins. Co. (2016) 62 Cal.4th 1081, 1087 (Gaines).)

On November 7, 2013, this court issued the following order:

On November 5, 2013 this matter came on for hearing regarding the issue of whether or not a stay of the proceedings should be imposed until the case Diocese of San Joaquin et. al., v. John-David Schofield, case No. 08CECG01425 is resolved. After submission of briefs and argument, the Court STAYS the instant action until the resolution of the case referenced above. This stay applies to all proceedings in this case. The parties may, if they wish, stipulate that certain depositions taken in case no. 08CECG01425 will not have to be retaken in this case, but the court leaves that decision up to the parties.

As to the five year statute, an action must be brought to trial within five years after it is commenced against the defendant. If not, dismissal is mandatory on motion of any party, or on the court’s own motion. (CCP 583.310, 583.360). The five year statute begins to run when the action is “commenced against the defendant.” It continues to run until the action

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is “brought to trial.” (Id.) The parties may extend the five year period by either written stipulation, or oral agreement entered into in open court and recorded in the minutes or a transcript of the proceedings. (CCP 583.330). If, as here, the parties fail to stipulate to extend the five year deadline, the court may still extend the deadline by staying the action completely. Bruns v. E-Commerce Exch., Inc. (2011) 51 Cal.4th 716. “If a complete stay is in effect, bringing the action to trial is impossible” and therefore, that time is excluded from the calculation pursuant to CCP section 583.340(b) and (c). Id. The “clock” will not begin to run again until the stay is lifted and the case placed back on the court’s active docket.

(Emphasis added.)

Defendants argue that the stay expired when the main action ended in July of 2016 when the California Supreme Court denied certiorari and the Fifth District Court of Appeal issued the remittitur, focusing on the language of the first paragraph of the Court’s order (“the Court STAYS the instant action until the resolution of the case referenced above”). Defendants argue that, because a plaintiff always has the burden of prosecuting his or her case, plaintiffs here were required to act diligently in ending the stay. Plaintiffs counter that subdivisions (b) and (c) of section 583.340 are separate; once a complete stay has been imposed, a plaintiff need not act diligently to seek relief from the stay. Plaintiffs rely on the last paragraph of the order and emphasize that this court intended the stay to toll the five-year statute until the case was restored to the civil active list, which did not occur until December of 2017. Plaintiffs are correct.

Ocean Services Corp. v. Ventura Port Dist. (1993) 15 Cal.App.4th 1762, is directly on point. In that matter, the defendant moved to dismiss for failure to bring the case to trial within five years. However, the trial court found that an order of the Court of Appeal staying the case tolled the five-year period under Code of Civil Procedure section 583.340, subdivision (b), and denied the motion. (Id., at pp. 1773-1774.) On appeal, the defendant argued that the motion should have been granted because, with reasonable diligence, the plaintiff could have had the stay vacated six months earlier, and subtracting those six months from the tolling period would have brought the case past the five-year limit. (Id. at pp. 1773-1774.)

The Court of Appeal rejected this argument. “Code of Civil Procedure section 583.340, subdivision (b), provides that the five-year period ‘shall be’ tolled if ‘[p]rosecution or trial of the action was stayed or enjoined.’ The statute is unconditional and is intended to have uniform application. ‘“This is consistent with the treatment given other statutory excuses; it increases certainty and minimizes the need for a judicial hearing to ascertain whether or not the statutory period has run.” [Citation.] It also is consistent with the general policy favoring trial over dismissal. (§ 583.130.)’ (Holland v. Dave Altman’s R.V. Center (1990) 222 Cal.App.3d 477, 484.)” (Ocean Services Corp. v. Ventura Port Dist., supra, 15 Cal.App.4th at p. 1774.)

Defendants argue that reliance on Ocean Services is misplaced because the basis of the Ocean Services decision was lack of jurisdiction, not reasonable diligence.

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However, the language from the case contradicts this argument: “The five-year statute was also tolled because the trial court lacked jurisdiction to try the action.” (Ocean Services Corp. v. Ventura Port Dist., supra, 15 Cal.App.4th at p. 1774 (emphasis added).) The use of the word “also” demonstrates that the Ocean Services court considered lack of jurisdiction a secondary argument to the stay argument, and not the sole justification for the tolling.

Defendants argue that the stay was not “complete” and thus not effective to toll the five-year statute because plaintiffs could have sought relief from the stay and set a trial date once the main action ended. But this is generally true of all stays – parties are always free to seek court relief. Even if this stay was wrongly issued, plaintiffs had no obligation to seek relief in court. (Ocean Services, supra, 15 Cal.App.4th at 1775.)

In Gaines, supra, 62 Cal.4th 1081, the California Supreme Court held that the legal effect of the event triggering a stay is what matters: “[t]he label the trial court uses is not dispositive of the inquiry[,]” and what “matters is whether the order is functionally in the nature of a stay . . . .” (Gaines, supra, 62 Cal.4th at p. 1092.) The high court in Gaines examined the nature of the continuance orders before it to determine whether they were, in fact, continuances the parties could control, or stays they had no control over, but at no time did the Supreme Court engraft a diligence requirement onto the “bright-line” stay tolling. Gaines requires that a stay “be functionally in the nature of a stay.” (Gaines, supra, 62 Cal.4th at p. 1092.) It must be “extrinsic to the litigation and beyond the plaintiff’s control.” (Ibid.) A stay of the prosecution of the action qualifies under Code of Civil Procedure section 583.340, subdivision (b), “only when the stay encompasses all proceedings in the action.” (Id. at p. 1094 (italics in original).) It is clear that a stay of the entire instant action issued on November 7, 2013 and that stay was not lifted until December 7, 2017. (“This stay applies to all proceedings in this case[,]” Order dated November 7, 2013.) The five-year statute was tolled between those two dates.

Pursuant to California Rules of Court, rule 3.1312(a) and Code of Civil Procedure section 1019.5, subdivision (a), no further written order is necessary. The minute order adopting this tentative ruling will serve as the order of the court and service by the clerk will constitute notice of the order.

Tentative Ruling
Issued By: KAG on 02/26/18
(Judge’s initials) (Date)