Opinion
B326311
05-30-2024
THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. FINANCIAL CASUALTY & SURETY, INC., Defendant and Appellant.
Law Office of John Rorabaugh and John Rorabaugh for Defendant and Appellant. Dawyn R. Harrison, County Counsel, Richard P. Chastang, Assistant County Counsel, and Michael J. Gordon, Deputy County Counsel, for Plaintiff and Respondent.
NOT TO BE PUBLISHED
APPEAL from a judgment of the Superior Court of Los Angeles County, Nos. SJ4702, BA490451, Natalie Stone, Judge. Affirmed.
Law Office of John Rorabaugh and John Rorabaugh for Defendant and Appellant.
Dawyn R. Harrison, County Counsel, Richard P. Chastang, Assistant County Counsel, and Michael J. Gordon, Deputy County Counsel, for Plaintiff and Respondent.
BAKER, ACTING P.J.
Bail Hotline Bail Bonds, Inc., acting as the agent for Financial Casualty &Surety, Inc. (Agent and Surety, respectively), posted a bail bond on behalf of criminal defendant Arthur Richard Olds (Olds). The trial court did not order the bond forfeited the first time Olds failed to appear, but it did so the second time-after he made an intervening court appearance. Later, the court granted summary judgment on the forfeited bond, and on appeal from a motion to set aside that judgment, discharge the forfeiture, and exonerate bail, we are asked to decide whether the trial court's decision not to declare a forfeiture upon Olds's first non-appearance divested it of jurisdiction to declare a forfeiture at a later date. The answer to that question principally comes down to whether the trial court had reason to believe there may be a sufficient excuse for Olds's initial failure to appear in January 2021.
I. BACKGROUND
Olds was charged with one felony count in November 2020. Bail was set at $30,000. Agent and Surety issued a bail bond in that amount and secured Olds's release in January 2021.
In December 2020, when he was still in custody, Olds attended a pretrial conference at which the trial court ordered him to appear at the next court date on January 12, 2021. Olds was not in court on January 12, 2021. His attorney explained, "I was informed by the bailiff that [Olds] bailed out. He hasn't checked in. I do have contact information for his family, which likely-who likely posted the bond. [¶] I would ask for maybe a one or two-week bench warrant hold so I can make sure that he was informed of today's court date and try to get him in."
The trial court issued and held a bench warrant and found good cause to hold the bond until the next court date later in January 2021. The trial court stated "that good cause is the pandemic."
Olds did appear at the next hearing roughly two weeks later, on January 28, 2021. The bench warrant was recalled and quashed. The trial court ordered Olds to appear again in February 2021. When Olds failed to appear in court in February, the trial court ordered the bond forfeited. At Agent and Surety's request, the trial court extended the forfeiture appearance period beyond the customary 180 days (Pen. Code, § 1305), but Agent and Surety were unable to locate Olds. The trial court accordingly entered summary judgment on the forfeited bond in April 2022.
Undesignated statutory references that follow are to the Penal Code.
Surety moved to set aside the summary judgment, discharge the forfeiture, and exonerate bail. Surety argued the trial court lacked jurisdiction to order the bail bond forfeited because it did not declare the forfeiture when Olds failed to appear without a sufficient excuse on January 12, 2021. The trial court denied the motion.
II. DISCUSSION
Under the pertinent statutes that we shall discuss, the sole issue presented is whether the trial court had reason to believe that sufficient excuse may exist for Olds's failure to appear in court on January 12, 2021. Surety contends (1) no such reason existed because Olds's attorney did not explain his absence, (2) the trial court was therefore required to order the bond forfeited immediately, and (3) the trial court accordingly lacked jurisdiction to forfeit the bond when Olds subsequently failed to appear in court. That is not our view of the matter. As the trial court stated, the COVID-19 pandemic provided a reason to believe a sufficient excuse may exist, and that is all the governing law requires. Moreover, the purpose of the jurisdictional rule requiring forfeiture at the time of an unexcused absence is to give sureties prompt notice of a failure to appear so as to improve the chances of locating a non-appearing defendant. Here, there is no reason to apply that rule when the defendant did make an intervening court appearance after his first absence and the trial court promptly declared a forfeiture at the time of his later unexcused absence.
Section 1305, subdivision (a)(1) provides in pertinent part as follows: "A court shall in open court declare forfeited the undertaking of bail or the money or property deposited as bail if, without sufficient excuse, a defendant fails to appear" for specified court proceedings (it is undisputed the January 12, 2021, hearing qualifies as one of the specified proceedings). The general rule is that if a "court fails to declare a forfeiture at the time of the defendant's unexcused absence, it is without jurisdiction to do so later." (People v. Safety Nat. Casualty Corp. (2016) 62 Cal.4th 703, 710.) But there is an important exception that is dispositive in this case: if "the court has reason to believe that sufficient excuse may exist for the failure to appear, the court may continue the case for a period it deems reasonable to enable the defendant to appear without ordering a forfeiture of bail or issuing a bench warrant." (§ 1305.1.)
A trial court has reason to believe that sufficient excuse may exist for a defendant's failure to appear where there is "'some rational basis'" for such belief that "appear[s] somewhere in the trial court record-in the minutes or in the reporter's transcript." (People v. Bankers Ins. Co. (2021) 69 Cal.App.5th 473, 478.) "[T]he test is not whether it has been conclusively demonstrated a defendant had an actual and valid excuse for his nonappearance to justify continuing a hearing without declaring a bail forfeiture. Instead, [section 1350.1] requires the court only have 'reason to believe that sufficient excuse may exist for the failure to appear.'" (People v. Ranger Ins. Co. (2003) 108 Cal.App.4th 945, 953, fn. omitted.)
Review of a trial court's determination that it has reason to believe a sufficient excuse may exist for a defendant's nonappearance is for abuse of discretion. (Ranger, supra, 108 Cal.App.4th at 952; Bankers Ins. Co., supra, 69 Cal.App.5th at 479.) Surety nevertheless suggests we should undertake de novo review in this case because there are no facts in dispute. Although the absence of a factual dispute does not necessarily preclude review for abuse of discretion (People v. Grimes (2016) 1 Cal.5th 698, 712, fn. 4 ["the abuse of discretion standard is designed to pay deference to [a] trial court's application of the governing law to the 'peculiar facts of the individual case'"]), the dispute over the standard of review does not matter in this case. The same result obtains even if our review is de novo.
Trial courts generally rely on defense attorneys' representations in finding that a criminal defendant's absence may be excused (Ranger, supra, 108 Cal.App.4th at 952), but they are not prohibited from relying on their own knowledge and experience (Bankers Ins. Co., supra, 69 Cal.App.5th at 481). Here, the trial court impliedly determined Olds may have been exposed to or infected with COVID-19 at a time when the Los Angeles County Superior Court was under an administrative order recognizing "a dangerous rise in the number of COVID-19 cases."
On our own motion, we take judicial notice of general order 2020-GEN-027-00, issued by the presiding judge of the Los Angeles County Superior Court on December 31, 2020. (Evid. Code, §§ 452, subd. (d), 459, subd. (a).)
Surety contends these conditions do not support the trial court's determination that a sufficient excuse may have existed because "[t]here is nothing about the existence of the pandemic that prevented this defendant from appearing in court on January 12, 2021, or at a minimum communicating an excuse to the court. This is not a case[, Surety contends,] where the defendant was ill, or somehow prevented from making a court appearance." Surety's argument demands "an actual and valid excuse" where the court need only have a reason to believe that one exists. (Ranger, supra, 108 Cal.App.4th at 953.) In other words, Surety reads "may" out of section 1305.1's requirement that the trial court have "reason to believe that sufficient excuse may exist for the failure to appear."
The fact that Olds did not communicate with his attorney or the court does not mean the trial court had no reason to believe he may have had a pandemic-related excuse. The court could reasonably infer Olds was too ill to communicate or discovered he could not come to court only shortly before the hearing. Surety's demand for a concrete, individualized showing that Olds was impacted by the pandemic is contrary to both the text of section 1305.1 and common sense. According to Surety's reasoning, a trial court would have no reason to believe that a sufficient excuse may exist for a defendant's failure to appear in the event of a natural disaster affecting large parts of the state unless the defendant reached out to confirm they were impacted-even though the circumstances excusing the defendant's absence might also explain their failure to communicate. Conditions in early January 2021 were such that it was not speculative to find that Olds may have had a sufficient excuse for his failure to appear.
That conclusion alone warrants affirmance. But there is additional reason to reject Surety's arguments on this record. Surety's opening brief concedes, consistent with case law from our Supreme Court, that the purpose of the rules enacted by the Legislature in section 1305 is to ensure a surety is given prompt notice of a defendant's non-appearance so that the surety can act quickly to attempt to locate the defendant and avoid forfeiture of the bond. (See, e.g., People v. United Bonding Ins. Co. (1971) 5 Cal.3d 898, 906 ["There are sound reasons . . . implicit in the pertinent statutory provisions for holding that a forfeiture of a bail bond, where required, must be timely declared.... If a surety is to be afforded the protections provided by the[ statutory] provisions[,] he must be advised at an early date of the fact of the forfeiture in order that he may institute procedures to locate and compel the appearance of the bailee"].) This Legislative purpose, however, has no application to the trial court's decision not to declare a forfeiture of the bond after defendant's first nonappearance because he did make his next court appearance. Put differently, Surety could have no need for a prompt forfeiture declaration to enable it to attempt to quickly locate defendant and compel his appearance because everyone knew where he was on the next court date: in court. That, of course, is not true for defendant's next non-appearance, but on that date, the trial court did promptly declare a forfeiture. Thus, applying section 1305's rule to defendant's first non-appearance-for which Surety could have suffered no prejudice-is unwarranted even if we assume for argument's sake that the trial court erred in concluding defendant may have had a sufficient excuse for his failure to appear.
DISPOSITION
The judgment is affirmed. Respondent is awarded costs on appeal.
We concur: KIM, J., LEE, J. [*]
[*]Judge of the San Bernardino County Superior Court, assigned by the Chief Justice pursuant to article VI, section 6 of the California Constitution.