Monday, December 8, 2025
Page 3
Court of Appeal:
‘Limited’ Designation Inapt After Case-Consolidation
Opinion Says Combining Unlawful Detainer Suit With Unlimited Civil Action Challenging Foreclosure Sale Was Properly Found to Have Eliminated Damages Cap Relating to Alleged Illegal Holdover
By Kimber Cooley, associate editor
Div. One of the First District Court of Appeal has held, in a matter of first impression, that a trial judge did not err in finding that the consolidation, for all purposes, of a limited civil action with an unlimited one had the effect of eliminating the damages cap otherwise applicable to the former category of cases.
Code of Civil Procedure §85 defines “limited civil cases” as involving an amount in controversy that “does not exceed thirty-five thousand dollars ($35,000),” and §88 specifies that any “proceeding other than a limited civil case may be referred to as an unlimited civil case.”
The question arose after an unlawful detainer action, classified in the pleading’s caption as a “Limited Civil Case,” was consolidated with a later-filed challenge to the underlying foreclosure sale of the subject property due to a judicial finding that both matters involved assertions that the transfer was illegally accomplished. The latter complaint sought relief unavailable in §85 cases.
Damages of $340,000 were eventually awarded to the plaintiff in the unlawful detainer complaint after the trial judge ruled against the party challenging the foreclosure sale and determined that consolidation transformed the entire case into an unlimited civil action.
Justice Monique Langhorne Wilson authored Thursday’s opinion, joined in by Presiding Justice James M. Humes and Justice Kathleen Banke, saying:
“[U]nder section 88 and the plain meaning of the term ‘civil action,’ an action consolidated for all purposes cannot be classified as both limited and unlimited. In this case, pursuant to its inherent authority, the trial court properly determined that the consolidated action was unlimited after providing the parties an opportunity to brief the issue. The court therefore did not err in awarding [the property owner] damages [on the unlawful detainer cause of action] in excess of $35,000.”
Foreclosure Sale
Appealing the judgment against him was Christopher Bearman, the former owner and occupier of the wine-country-area property at issue. The Saint Helena real estate was sold in a nonjudicial foreclosure sale to Bank of New York Mellon (“BNYM”) after Bearman, or one of his predecessors-in-interest, allegedly failed to cure a default on a deed of trust that was secured by the land.
BNYM then sold the property to Villa Zinfandel LLC, and the new owner claimed that it served the legally required notice to quit upon Bearman, who purportedly refused to relinquish possession.
In September 2022, Villa Zinfandel filed the unlawful detainer complaint against Bearman, characterizing the matter as a “limited” civil action and seeking holdover damages “at a daily rate.”
A few months later, Edward Sanchez, who claimed to be a failed bidder on the property, filed a separate lawsuit against BNYM, Villa Zinfandel, and others, seeking to set aside the deed of sale based on alleged violations of Civil Code provisions governing foreclosures. In January 2023, Bearman moved to consolidate his case with Sanchez’s action.
After Napa Superior Court Judge Cynthia Pillsbury Smith granted the request to consolidate, she summarily adjudicated Sanchez’s cause of action in favor of the defendants in May of last year. The following month, the case proceeded to trial on Villa Zinfandel’s unlawful detainer complaint.
Thursday’s opinion affirms the ensuing judgment, which was entered in favor of Villa Zinfandel last October.
Absence of Case Law
Langhorne Wilson wrote:
“As a preliminary matter, neither party cites, and we have been unable to find, any case that addresses the classification of a consolidated action. Nor does there appear to be any published cases interpreting section 88 or the other classification statutes in the context of a complete consolidation.”
Turning to the governing statutory language, she opined:
“[S]ection 88 provides that ‘[a] civil action or proceeding other than a limited civil case may be referred to as an unlimited case.’…Under the plain language of the statute, a civil action that has been classified as limited cannot also be classified as unlimited. As a practical matter, this must be true because many of the consequences of a ‘limited’ classification are inconsistent with the consequences of an ‘unlimited’ classification….In short, the statutory language and the consequences of classification support the trial court’s conclusion that the consolidated action must be classified as either limited or unlimited; it cannot be both.”
Saying that “there is no dispute that the unlawful detainer action was designated a limited civil action at its outset” or that “Sanchez’s action was an unlimited civil action,” Langhorne Wilson noted that “[a]fter the two actions were consolidated, no party sought to reclassify the case.” However, she pointed out that when two matters are consolidated “for all purposes,” the cases are merged into a single proceeding.
Retention of Classification
Responding to Bearman’s assertion that the unlawful detainer action retained its limited classification after consolidation, she remarked that “[t]o reach this conclusion…, we would need to determine that the unlawful detainer case constituted a separate ‘civil action or proceeding’ for purposes of case classification…even after consolidation.”
Rejecting this view, she commented:
“[U[pon consolidation with the Sanchez action, the unlawful detainer action was no longer a separate or distinct ‘civil action or proceeding’ under the classification statutes….[C]omplete consolidation means the cases that were consolidated are to be treated as if their causes of action were joined originally. Thus, Villa Zinfandel’s unlawful detainer complaint gave rise to one cause of action in the consolidated action, the other being Sanchez’s claim to set aside the trustee’s deed upon sale. Moreover, since only one judgment is rendered in a completely consolidated action, the court needed to determine whether the $35,000 cap on damages applied to the consolidated action.”
Langhorne Wilson continued:
“The question then is whether the trial court erred in awarding damages in the consolidated action greater than the $35,000 cap applicable to limited actions. This is an act in excess of the court’s jurisdiction ‘if a case is designated as a limited civil case.’…That did not occur with respect to the consolidated action.”
Finding inapplicable language in statutes governing reclassification by motion or by stipulation, she wrote:
“While there are no statutory procedures for the classification of a consolidated action, there is also nothing in the classification or reclassification statutes prohibiting the trial court from designating a consolidated action as unlimited where the action does not satisfy the conditions for a limited action under section 85.”
The case is Villa Zinfandel LLC v. Bearman, A171987.
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