Court Filings

The Court of Appeal reversed in part and affirmed in part. After a 2018 marital dissolution divided a retirement asset, the parties signed a stipulation dividing the remaining proceeds. In 2020 the wife (Nishida) sued the husband (Kamoda) in civil court for fraud and breach of fiduciary duty, alleging he misrepresented his employment status to induce the stipulation. The civil court transferred the case to family court, which dismissed as time-barred and denied leave to amend; the Court of Appeal held the dismissal and denial of leave were erroneous because the complaint was timely under Family Code section 2122(a) and transfer resolved any jurisdictional problem. The court affirmed the civil court’s grant of relief from default to Kamoda under Code of Civil Procedure section 473(b).

The California Supreme Court reversed the juvenile court’s orders terminating a mother’s parental rights to her two young children and remanded for further proceedings. The juvenile court had ended reunification services and set permanency hearings after finding the children likely to be adopted, but the high court held a likelihood-of-adoption finding alone is not enough to terminate parental rights — the court must also make one of the statutory additional findings or find no applicable exception. The Court also held the mother received ineffective assistance of counsel because her attorney failed to assert her statutory right to reunification services for one child and failed to pursue writ review, requiring vacation of those orders and a new hearing.

The Court of Appeal affirmed the family court’s orders vacating a default judgment in a marital dissolution case and denying the petitioner’s request for a statement of decision, then remanded for further proceedings. The court held the default judgment exceeded the relief requested in the form petition because the petition left property division items as “to be determined,” so the entry of a default awarding specific property violated the respondent’s due process right to notice. The court also concluded Family Code set-aside provisions and Code of Civil Procedure section 580 both apply, found the record supported mistake/lack of notice, and directed amendment of the petition and an opportunity to answer.

The Court of Appeal affirmed a postjudgment order in a divorce case that awarded the wife $12,500 in attorney’s fees (rather than about $49,000 she sought) after she prevailed on a dispute over the family home. The trial court reduced the requested fees based on the parties’ limited finances, overlitigation, and the reasonableness of the fees. The appellate court held the family law court did not err: when a marital settlement agreement contains a prevailing-party fee clause, the trial court may still consider Family Code factors (including ability to pay) in fixing the amount of fees, and it did not abuse its discretion here.