Opinion
G056616
09-19-2018
In re Marriage of WALLACE LOY TIM and AMY JU WONG. ELIZABETH WONG, as Successor Trustee, etc., Appellant, v. AMY JU WONG, Respondent.
Sitzer Law Group, P. C., Michael Ferdinand Sitzer; Blanchard Krasner & French and Mark A. Krasner for Appellant. Seastrom Seastrom & Tuttle and Thomas W. Tuttle; Law offices of Marjorie G. Fuller and Marjorie Gross Fuller for Respondent.
NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN OFFICIAL REPORTS
California Rules of Court, rule 8.1115(a), prohibits courts and parties from citing or relying on opinions not certified for publication or ordered published, except as specified by rule 8.1115(b). This opinion has not been certified for publication or ordered published for purposes of rule 8.1115. (Super. Ct. No. 95D011667) OPINION Appeal from an order of the Superior Court of Orange County, Julie A. Palafox, Judge. Motion to dismiss appeal granted in part, denied in part. Sitzer Law Group, P. C., Michael Ferdinand Sitzer; Blanchard Krasner & French and Mark A. Krasner for Appellant. Seastrom Seastrom & Tuttle and Thomas W. Tuttle; Law offices of Marjorie G. Fuller and Marjorie Gross Fuller for Respondent.
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Before O'Leary, P. J., Bedsworth, J., and Goethals, J.
On July 27 and August 22, 2018, appellant filed notices of appeal from an order entered on July 23, 2018. Respondent promptly moved to dismiss this appeal as taken from a nonappealable order. Appellant asserts the order is appealable as a postjudgment order (Code Civ. Proc., § 904.1, subd. (a)(2)) and/or as an order refusing to dissolve an injunction (§ 904.1, subd. (a)(6)).
All statutory references are to the Code of Civil Procedure.
The parties to this appeal are the first (respondent Amy Ju Wong) and second (appellant Elizabeth Wong) wives of Wallace Loy Tim Wong, who died in 2010. A marital settlement agreement between Wallace and respondent was entered as a judgment in 1996. Respondent contends that the 1996 settlement agreement requires appellant to remit to respondent a portion of the proceeds from the sale of trust assets that occurred after the death of Wallace.
Respondent, using the original family law case number, filed a request for order seeking relief against appellant in 2016. Several orders pertinent to this appeal followed. An August 2017 order required appellant to place approximately $17.5 million in a designated escrow account and provide specified disclosures concerning the funds to respondent. A September 2017 order, among several other rulings, clarified that the funds could be maintained in a different account. According to the motion to dismiss, the trial court also granted respondent trial preference pursuant to section 36 as a result of her age. But (in part as a result of repeated appeals and claims of appellate stays) the case has still not been resolved.
The July 2018 order on appeal in the instant proceeding: (1) denied appellant's request to dismiss the proceeding for lack of subject matter jurisdiction; and (2) denied appellant's request to vacate or dissolve prior orders, ruling that the August 2017 and September 2017 orders were still in effect, and that the "approximate $17.5 million shall remain deposited in the" appropriate account.
The second ruling is appealable. An appeal may be taken "[f]rom an order . . . refusing to . . . dissolve an injunction." (§ 904.1, subd. (a)(6); see Malatka v. Helm (2010) 188 Cal.App.4th 1074, 1081-1082.) The court entered orders granting injunctions in August and September 2017 to preserve disputed funds pending resolution of the merits. In the July 2018 order, the court refused to dissolve those prior injunctions. There is no argument in respondent's motion to dismiss that the July 2018 order does not qualify, in part, as an appealable order refusing to dissolve an injunction.
It should be noted, however, that the appeal of an order refusing to dissolve an injunction does not result in a stay of trial court proceedings on the merits of the dispute. (See, e.g., § 916, subd. (a); Varian Medical Systems, Inc. v. Delfino (2005) 35 Cal.4th 180, 191; URS Corp. v. Atkinson/Walsh Joint Venture (2017) 15 Cal.App.5th 872, 882, 887-888.) The very purpose of the injunction at issue here is to maintain the status quo with regard to $17.5 million while the merits of the dispute are sorted out by the trial court.
The appealability of the remainder of the July 2018 order is less clear. In the course of determining that the family court had jurisdiction to proceed, the trial court examined the 1996 judgment and made a series of findings favorable to respondent regarding its meaning and enforceability (e.g., the notion that the contested asset was awarded to Wallace as "his sole and separate property . . . is flatly rejected," the judgment "has not expired, is not void and did not need to be renewed").
But the court did not finally resolve the dispute raised by respondent's request for order: "Without the benefit of an evidentiary hearing, the Court does not at this time determine the nature of the division (e.g, whether of ownership 'in kind', proceeds, value or otherwise) which is reserved for further determination." "Given the [disputed asset] was divided in the [1996 judgment] the remaining issue for post judgment enforcement . . . is whether [the asset] was distributed in accordance with the terms of the judgment." The case was continued for additional proceedings in the family court.
The inconvenient fact for respondent is that every order in this case is a "postjudgment order" because the marital settlement agreement was entered as a judgment in 1996. Postjudgment orders, as a general matter, are appealable. (§ 904.1, subd. (a)(2).) And the postjudgment order at issue here satisfies two requirements for appealability set out by our Supreme Court: (1) the issue is different from the issues decided in the judgment; and (2) the order affects the judgment or relates to its enforcement. (Lakin v. Watkins Associated Industries (1993) 6 Cal.4th 644, 651-652.)
However, there is an additional factor to consider in deciding whether a postjudgment order is appealable. Orders "more accurately understood as being preliminary to a later judgment" are not appealable even though they follow an earlier judgment. (Lakin, supra, at p. 652; see also In re Marriage of Levine (1994) 28 Cal.App.4th 585, 589 ["an essential element of an appealable postjudgment order is that the order be one which is not preliminary to later proceedings"].)
By its own terms, the July 2018 order is the equivalent of a non-appealable interlocutory order, merely halfway down the road to a final determination of respondent's request for order. It is not the equivalent of a final appealable judgment, i.e., a judgment (or order) that actually resolves the question of whether and in what form relief will be provided to respondent pursuant to her request for order. (§ 904.1, subd. (a)(1).) There remain additional issues for the trial court to decide. Indeed, there are no procedural obstacles to bar the trial court from modifying the findings of fact or legal determinations it has made in the July 2018 order as this case proceeds to its conclusion. Even assuming the factual findings and rulings made in the July 2018 order stand, they can be appealed as part of an appeal from the trial court's final ruling on respondent's request for order.
Had this been a new proceeding initiated under a new case number in 2016, there would be no debate as to the appealability of the July 2018 order. The happenstance that this proceeding was brought within the confines of the original family law case number is not dispositive of the question of appellate jurisdiction. This court is not required to review every ruling made by trial courts on their way to deciding a request for relief, even if the request is made after a judgment is entered. And parties (particularly elderly parties entitled to trial preference) should not be blocked from a prompt adjudication of their claims by way of premature appeals and unfounded assertions of appellate stays under section 916, subdivision (a).
DISPOSITION
Respondent's motion to dismiss the appeal is denied to the extent appellant seeks to challenge the portion of the trial court's July 2018 order refusing to dissolve an injunction. The motion to dismiss is granted with regard to all other aspects of the July 2018 order. If appellant chooses to maintain this appeal, her appellate briefing should be confined to the question of whether the trial court erred in refusing to dissolve its injunction.