The Supreme Court filed two unanimous opinions this morning.
An opinion written by Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye in Tract 19051 Homeowners Association v. Kemp approves a superior court’s attorney fee award to a homeowner who was sued by his homeowners association under the Davis-Stirling Common Interest Development Act. The Court of Appeal (Second District, Division Four) agreed with the superior court that the Act didn’t apply to the action, but, unlike the superior court, it concluded that the Act’s inapplicability precluded an attorney fee award under the Act. The Supreme Court reverses the Court of Appeal, holding, among other things, that denying fees to the defendant homeowner “would unquestionably violate the reciprocal nature of the [Act’s attorney fee] statute and thus defeat the evident legislative intent underlying the statute.”
It has nothing to do with the issue decided by the Supreme Court, but the underlying dispute between the homeowners association and the homeowner was whether the homeowner could demolish a one-story house and build a much larger 7,000 square-foot two-story residence. On Monday, in Berkeley Hillside Preservation v. City of Berkeley, the Supreme Court ruled mostly in favor of property owners who want to build a 6,478-square-foot house with an attached 3,394-square-foot 10-car garage. It’s been a good week for big houses.
In the other opinion filed today — People v. Loper — the Supreme Court reverses the Fourth District, Division One, on an issue of criminal appellate procedure. The court, in an opinion authored by Justice Kathryn Werdegar, holds that a prisoner can appeal a superior court order denying a Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation recommendation that the prisoner’s sentence be recalled and that he be granted compassionate release based on his medical condition. The court states that “a defendant may appeal an adverse decision on a postjudgment motion or petition if it affects his substantial rights, even if someone else brought the original motion.” It also disapproves a 1978 case from the Fourth District, Division Two, and a 1982 case from the Second District, Division Two.