BARBARA DARWISH v. JACK VAUGHN, Los Angeles County Superior Court Case Number LC106660.



Rena Kreitenberg is listed by the court of appeals as one of the attorneys from the Mesisca, Riley and Kreitenberg law firm responsible for representing some of the defendants and appellants.






Interestingly, Rena Kreitenberg is also listed as a defendant in the case and is one of the appellants. She is represented by attorney Mike Vo and his law firm.






From the court of appeal ruling it is Lawzilla's understanding the following happened:

Ms. Kreitenberg, another attorney at her firm Dennis Riley, and her law firm Mesisca, Riley and Kreitenberg are defendants in a lawsuit, along with other persons. On behalf of many of the other persons she, Mr. Riley and her law firm filed an appeal. The Vo firm participated in the appeal representing attorneys Kreitenberg, Riley and their law firm.

The other side objected saying the appeal was defective because the order being appealed was not appealable.




The court of appeal noted the defendants do "not identify a provision ... that would support his appeal."




The appeal was then dismissed by unanimous decision of the three court of appeal justices.




Aside from attorney competence in knowing whether an order is appealable or not, the opinion from the court of appeal noted other interesting issues.



After plaintiff filed her lawsuit defendants filed a motion to strike the complaint.

Plaintiff then filed an amended complaint which mooted the motion to strike. If there were still grounds for such a motion in the amended complaint then a new motion to strike would need to be filed.

Additionally, the trial judge said defendant's attorneys had failed to file a "mandatory declaration" which meant the motion to strike would have been taken off calendar anyway.




Then the appeal was made and the court of appeal dismissed it as improper.




Lawzilla Review and Commentary: In our opinion this is bad lawyering wasting the public resources of the courts.

First, the opinion recites the trial court saying a mandatory declaration was not filed. (We do not know which attorney made this error).

Then, what appears in our view to be an obviously unproductive appeal was filed. We believe the attorneys could have re-filed the motion to strike if there were still grounds for a motion in the amended complaint.

Finally, the court of appeal dismissed the appeal ruling it was improper. Rena Kretienberg and the other attorneys listed for the appeal could not identify any law allowing the appeal according to the opinion. The court said they could "not identify a provision within this section that would support his appeal."

We believe there was a waste of money filing the appeal. There was a waste of money having to pay awarded costs to plaintiffs. There was a waste of public court resources because the appellate court had to read the papers and then dismiss the appeal.

In Lawzilla's opinion attorneys should know the law about what orders are appealable or not. More importantly, the scenario described by the court of appeal and trial court seems absurd. The trial judge said a motion to strike was moot because an amended complaint had been filed, and even without the filing would have been taken off calendar because a mandatory declaration was not filed.

It is not clear what Rena Kreitenberg, Dennis Riley and their firm were trying to accomplish. To force a judge to rule upon a motion to strike a complaint that did not exist anymore? (Because an amended complaint had been filed) To require the judge to rule upon a motion where a mandatory declaration had not been filed? (Ironically, for a meet and confer requirement likely designed to prevent avoidable motions from being heard by judges)

If this is how Rena Kreitenberg, Dennis Riley, and the Mesisca, Riley and Kreitenberg law firm, and Mike Vo from the Law Offices of Mike N. Vo practice in other cases then we would not recommend their services.


Update: We asked attorney Rena Kreitenberg to review and let us know if any information was incorrect, what the correction was, and if she had anything to add to our discussion or understanding of the case, and why the appeal was dismissed.

Kreitenberg's response was to threaten us for libel. But, naturally, she was unable to identify a single fact that was incorrect. It would be hard to since, after all, this comes from the court of appeals. We linked to the court of appeals decision which anyone is free to read to make-up their own mind about what happened. But we did go through and copy, from the California court of appeals, everything cited in this article and which the article is based on.

It is our impression she made this bullying threat in an unethical attempt to prevent negative, but truthful information from being published. We definitely do not recommend that anyone hire her as an attorney.


We also reviewed freely available online records from the Los Angeles County Superior Court to verify that Rena Kreitenberg was sued as a defendant in the case. Obviously, we do not know the merits of any claim and the court of appeals opinion did not describe to us what the lawsuit is about.

was admitted to the California Bar in 1988. Bar Number 138913.

Mesisca Riley et al LLP
644 South Figueroa Street Suite 200
Los Angeles, California 90017

Law School: Southwestern University School Of Law