YUNG‑SHEN STEVEN LEE v. FIORE, RACOBS & POWERS, Orange County Superior Court Case Number 30-2017-00921587.



Attorney Sterling Winchell is listed by the California Court of Appeals as the attorney for responsible for the appeal in this case.




According to Lawzilla's understanding of the Court of Appeals ruling, this is what happened:

An HOA sued plaintiff and Sterling Winchell, Esq.'s client for unpaid assessments. After the HOA won the plaintiff sued the HOA's attorneys for obtaining the judgment against him.




As an aside, Lawzilla is not an attorney, but a lawsuit against an opponent's attorneys initially seems to be a bad decision, likely frivolous, and a probably loser.

The trial court granted the defendants' motion that the lawsuit was an improper SLAPP suit.




The court of appeal said Winchell's client was required by the law to have evidence to support his claims. However, plaintiff "did not submit any admissible evidence in opposition to the anti-SLAPP motion".









Then the court of appeal said even if admissible evidence has been submitted for Mr. Sterling Winchell's client, his claims were barred by the litigation privilege.




Then, for a third reason why the appeal was baseless, the justices said the claims were barred by the statute of limitations. Not just time-barred in a close call, but barred "on their face".




Finally, the court noted that oral argument (which he understand is always done by an attorney like Sterling Winchell) a new claim was made for the first time to try and salvage the statute of limitations.

The appellate judges said the argument was not alleged in the complaint. Worse - there was no evidence to support the claim.

Finally, closing the book on the appeal, the court of appeals told attorney Winchell that his client's own declaration contradicted what the attorney was arguing. Basically, Sterling Winchell argued his client was innocently unaware of his claims until about 2016, but if his client's declaration were considered it showed he was actually aware of his claims in 2012.




Regardless, the statute of limitations issue still does not address the problems of a lack of evidence and the litigation privilege barring the claims.


Lawzilla Commentary: From our read we believe this was a bad appeal. We hope Mr. Winchell did not charge his client money.

The court of appeal said, literally, no admissible evidence was presented for the plaintiff. How does an attorney file an appeal when no admissible evidence was submitted to the trial court?

Then the court of appeal said even if evidence were submitted that could be considered, the claims were barred by the litigation privilege, and the claims were barred by the statue of limitations "on their face". In our opinion we would expect an attorney like Sterling Winchell to know their clients claims are barred on their face and to not pursue issues that waste the public resources of the courts and possibly his client's money.

Finally, the court of appeal said a new claim made during oral argument had no basis and was actually contradicted by Winchell's own client's declaration.

From what we have read we cannot fathom why this appeal was made. The opinion by the unanimous judges on the court of appeals is embarrassing to read. This does not appear to be the type of competent and professional representation we would want from an attorney.

Sterling Winchell was admitted to the California Bar in 1990. Bar Number 147054.

3 Hutton Centre Drive Suite 900
Santa Ana, California 92707

Law School: Western State University