SENATE RULES COMMITTEE Office of Senate Floor Analyses (916) 651-1520 Fax: (916) 327-4478 SB 470 UNFINISHED BUSINESS Bill No: Author: Amended: Vote: SB 470 Jackson (D) 7/9/15 21 SENATE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE: 6-0, 4/14/15 AYES: Jackson, Vidak, Anderson, Leno, Monning, Wieckowski NO VOTE RECORDED: Hertzberg SENATE FLOOR: 35-0, 4/27/15 (Consent) AYES: Allen, Anderson, Bates, Beall, Berryhill, Block, Cannella, De León, Fuller, Gaines, Galgiani, Hall, Hancock, Hernandez, Hill, Hueso, Huff, Jackson, Lara, Leno, Leyva, Liu, McGuire, Mendoza, Mitchell, Monning, Morrell, Nguyen, Nielsen, Pan, Roth, Runner, Stone, Wieckowski, Wolk NO VOTE RECORDED: Hertzberg, Moorlach, Pavley, Vidak ASSEMBLY FLOOR: 78-0, 7/13/15 - See last page for vote SUBJECT: Civil actions: summary judgment and summary adjudication SOURCE: California Judges Association Judicial Council of California DIGEST: This bill provides that, in granting or denying a motion for summary judgment or summary adjudication, the court need rule only on objections made to evidence that the court deems material to the disposition of the motion. This bill also provides that objections to evidence not ruled on for purposes of the motion shall be preserved for appellate review. Assembly Amendments add double-jointing language to avoid chaptering out issues in the event that both this bill and AB 1141 (Chau), also amending Section 437c of the Code of Civil Procedure, are enacted into law. ANALYSIS: SB 470 Page 2 Existing law: 1) Authorizes any party, pursuant to a specified procedure, to move for summary judgment in any action or proceeding if it is contended that the action has no merit or that there is no defense to it and to move for summary adjudication as to certain issues in the action or proceeding. 2) Requires the court to grant a motion for summary judgment if all the papers submitted show that there is no triable issue as to any material fact and that the moving party is entitled to a judgment as a matter of law. 3) Requires the court to consider all of the evidence set forth in the papers, except evidence to which objections have been made and sustained by the court, in determining whether the papers show that there is no triable issue as to any material fact. 4) Requires that the summary judgment motion be supported by affidavits, declarations, admissions, answers to interrogatories, depositions, and matters of which judicial notice shall or may be taken, and that the supporting papers include a separate statement setting forth plainly and concisely all material facts which that the moving party contends are undisputed, as specified. 5) Provides that evidentiary objections not made at the hearing shall be deemed waived. 6) Holds, in the case of Reid v. Google, Inc. (2010) 50 Cal.4th 512, 534, that if a trial court fails to rule expressly on specific evidentiary objections, it is presumed that the objections have been overruled, the trial court considered the evidence in ruling on the merits of the summary judgment motion, and the objections are preserved on appeal. This bill: 1) Adds a provision to the existing summary judgment statute to specify that, in granting or denying a motion for summary judgment or summary adjudication, the court need rule only on objections made to evidence that the court deems material to the disposition of the motion. SB 470 Page 3 2) Specifies that objections to evidence not ruled on for purposes of the motion shall be preserved for appellate review. Background After the filing of a lawsuit, either party to an action may move for summary judgment by contending that the action has no merit or that there is no defense thereto. Essentially, the party filing the motion is claiming that all necessary factual issues are resolved and need not be tried by the court because they are so one-sided. A motion for summary judgment must be supported or opposed by admissible evidence such as affidavits, declarations, admissions, answers to interrogatories, depositions, and requests for judicial notice, as appropriate. In determining whether the papers show that there is no triable issue as to any material fact, the court must consider all of the evidence set forth in the papers, except evidence to which objections have been made and sustained by the court. If the court finds that there is no triable issue as to any material fact and that the moving party is entitled to a judgment as a matter of law, then the motion must be granted (which generally disposes of the whole case). If an issue of fact is presented the court must permit trial thereof, though it may also find that certain other issues “are without substantial controversy” and grant summary adjudication as to those issues. (See Code Civ. Proc. Sec. 437c.) In short, the purpose of the summary procedure is to provide a method for prompt disposition of actions in which there is no triable, material issue of fact on which evidence shall be taken. This bill is the product of a proposal recommended by the Judicial Council’s Policy Coordination and Liaison Committee, Civil and Small Claims Committee and Appellate Advisory Committee, to reduce the burdens on trial courts associated with evidentiary objections in summary judgment proceedings. According to those advisory committees’ October 29, 2014 report to the Judicial Council, advisory committee members (including both judges and attorneys) report that time and resources expended in ruling on objections to evidence offered in support of or in opposition to summary judgment motions are substantial. (See Report to the Judicial Council, Judicial Council-Sponsored Legislation: Evidentiary Objections in Summary Judgment Proceedings (Oct. 29, 2014) (hereinafter, “Report”) <http://www.courts.ca.gov/documents/jc-20141212itemN.pdf [as of Apr. 4, 2015] p. 2.) The Report cites published opinions that illustrate the large number of objections made in summary judgment papers and the huge volume of motion papers in overall. (See Reid v. Google, Inc. (2010) 50 Cal.4th 512, 532 [“We recognize that SB 470 Page 4 it has become common practice for litigants to flood the trial courts with inconsequential written evidentiary objection, without focusing on those that are critical [footnote omitted].”]) The Report specifically cites, as an example, the case of Nazir v. United Airlines, Inc. (2009) wherein “the moving papers in support of a summary judgment totaled 1,056 pages, plaintiff’s opposition was nearly three times as long and included 47 objections to evidence, and the defendant’s reply included 764 objections to evidence.” (Report at pp.2-3, citing 178 Cal.App.4th 243, 249, 250-251 and 254.) This bill, co-sponsored by the Judicial Council of California and the California Judges Association, seeks to increase court efficiency by specifying, consistent with a recent California Supreme Court case (Reid v. Google, Inc.), that in granting or denying a motion for summary judgment or summary adjudication, the court need rule only on objections made to evidence that the court deems material to the disposition of the motion. This bill also preserves objections to evidence not ruled on for purposes of the motion for appellate review. Comments The author writes: Summary judgment motions have become one of the most time-consuming pretrial matters that civil courts handle, as parties on both sides flood the courts with evidentiary objections. SB 470 is a carefully balanced, court efficiency proposal that would not only save judges significant amounts of time and resources when considering huge volumes of summary judgment motion papers, but would also avoid any harm to the litigants by preserving their rights on appellate review with respect to any properly raised objections that are not expressly ruled upon by the court. . . . In turn, by reducing the burdens on trial courts associated with evidentiary objections in summary judgment proceedings, this proposal will allow the trial courts to handle other motions and proceedings more swiftly. FISCAL EFFECT: Appropriation: No SUPPORT: (Verified 7/15/15) California Judges Association (co-source) Judicial Council of California (co-source) California Chamber of Commerce Civil Justice Association of California Fiscal Com.: No Local: No SB 470 Page 5 OPPOSITION: (Verified 7/15/15) None Received ARGUMENTS IN SUPPORT: Judicial Council of California and the California Judges Association, co-sponsors of this bill, write that “[j]udges may spend hours ruling on evidentiary objections for a single summary judgment motion. Frequently, the number of objections that pertain to evidence on which a court relies in determining whether a triable issue of fact exists is a small subset of the total number of objections made by the parties.” Accordingly, Judicial Council writes, “[t]o reduce the burden on trial courts in ruling on numerous objections to evidence in summary judgment and summary adjudication proceedings, Code of Civil Procedure [S]ection 437c would be amended by providing that a court need rule only on those objections to evidence that it deems material to its disposition of the summary judgment motion, and that objections not ruled on for purposes of the motion are preserved for appellate review. This important efficiency proposal is intended to reduce burdens on trial courts associated with evidentiary objections in summary judgment and summary adjudication proceedings without resulting in a corresponding negative impact on the litigants or the appellate courts.” ASSEMBLY FLOOR: 78-0, 7/13/15 AYES: Achadjian, Alejo, Travis Allen, Baker, Bigelow, Bloom, Bonilla, Bonta, Brough, Brown, Burke, Calderon, Campos, Chang, Chau, Chávez, Chiu, Chu, Cooley, Dababneh, Dahle, Daly, Dodd, Eggman, Frazier, Beth Gaines, Gallagher, Cristina Garcia, Eduardo Garcia, Gatto, Gipson, Gomez, Gonzalez, Gordon, Gray, Grove, Hadley, Harper, Roger Hernández, Holden, Irwin, Jones, Jones-Sawyer, Kim, Lackey, Levine, Linder, Lopez, Low, Maienschein, Mathis, Mayes, McCarty, Medina, Melendez, Mullin, Nazarian, Obernolte, O'Donnell, Olsen, Patterson, Perea, Quirk, Ridley-Thomas, Rodriguez, Salas, Santiago, Steinorth, Mark Stone, Thurmond, Ting, Wagner, Waldron, Weber, Wilk, Williams, Wood, Atkins NO VOTE RECORDED: Cooper, Rendon Prepared by: Ronak Daylami / JUD. / (916) 651-4113 7/15/15 15:48:13 **** END ****