Recording Lis Pendens Was Protected by Litigation Privilege

Thursday, October 30, 2025

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Court of Appeal:

Recording Lis Pendens Was Protected by Litigation Privilege

Justice Wiley Rejects Trial Court’s View That Attorney’s Bad Faith Justified Assessment of Damages

By a MetNews Staff Writer

Depicted is a church at 1041 South Oxford Street in Los Angeles’s Koreatown. The Court of Appeal for this district held Tuesday that, in light of the litigation privilege, an attorney with a lien on the property to ensure payment of his fees cannot be held liable for slander of title or abuse of process by virtue of having a lis pendens recorded in the aftermath of his client’s sale of the building.

An attorney who had a lien against his client’s real property as security for payment of his fees and recorded a lis pendens after the realty was sold, resulting in a suit against him by the purchaser, is protected by the litigation privilege against liability for slander of title and abuse of process, Div. Eight of this district’s Court of Appeal has held.

Justice John Shepard Wiley Jr. authored the opinion, filed Tuesday. He also wrote the division’s March 3 opinion in the case, vacated by the court in granting a rehearing on March 13.

In the initial opinion—the seventh Court of Appeal decision in a 14-year fracas among three churches—Wiley declared that attorney Steven C. Kim is barred by collateral estoppel—or “issue preclusion”—from suing the purchaser of a church building, as he did on Sept. 20, 2018, to establish the validity of his lien. The unenforceability of that lien, Wiley said, had been determined with finality in prior litigation.

The rehearing was granted to consider the unresolved contention by Kim that then-Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Michelle Williams Court (now a judge of the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California) erred in finding that Kim is liable to the purchaser, New Life Oasis Church, for damages amounting to $277,821.90 based on his recording the lis pendens.

That recording took place on Sept. 21, 2018, after the transfer of ownership of the church at 1041 South Oxford Street in Los Angeles had been completed. New Life sued Kim, in a cross-complaint, on March 25, 2019.

Court’s Ruling

Court ruled on April 14, 2023, that Kim’s “actions were not privileged” and that the requisites for the asserted cases of action were met.

With respect to slander of title, she wrote:

“Kim filed a lis pendens that cast doubts about New Life Oasis Church’s ownership of the Property, the lis pendens was recorded, the statement was untrue and the Church did in fact own the Property, Kim knew that the Church owned the Property, Kim knew or should have recognized that someone else might act in reliance on the lis pendens, causing the Church financial loss, that the Church did in fact suffer immediate and direct financial harm by incurring legal expenses necessary to defend this lawsuit and pursue its cross-complaint to remove the doubt cast by the lis pendens and to clear title, and Kim’s conduct was the sole or a substantial factor in causing the Church’s harm.”

As to abuse of process, Court said that New Life showed “(1) that Kim recorded a lis pendens in the chain of title to the Property; (2) that Kim intentionally used this legal procedure to wrongfully cloud title; (3) that the Church was harmed; (4) that Kim’s conduct was a substantial factor in causing the Church’s harm.”

Wiley’s Opinion

Wiley—sticking to his view that issue preclusion bars Kim’s effort to rehash the issue as to the validity of the lien—said in the new opinion:

“The bottom line…is a split decision. We remand for entry of judgment against Kim on his complaint and for Kim on the cross-complaint against him.”

Addressing the cross complaint, he recited:

“A lis pendens is a recorded document that constructively announces to the world a lawsuit may affect real property identified in the lis pendens. The purpose is to make any judgment in the specified lawsuit binding on those who might acquire an interest in that property. The lis pendens effectively republishes the pleadings in the lawsuit. Potential buyers or lenders can go to the courthouse and examine the pleadings. Any party in a lawsuit asserting a real property claim may file a lis pendens.”

Litigation Privilege

“The litigation privilege applies to any communications made in judicial or quasi-judicial proceedings by litigants or other participants to achieve the objects of the litigation that have some logical relation to the action.”

The jurist declared:

“The litigation privilege protects the recording of a lis pendens so long as the lis pendens (1) identifies an action previously filed in a court of competent jurisdiction, and (2) the action affects title or right to possession of real property….

“Kim’s lis pendens satisfied both conditions and thus gained the protection of the litigation privilege.”

The case is Kim v. New Life Oasis Church, 2025 S.O.S. 3036.

Kim represented himself, joined by an associate in his mid-Wilshire office, Gabriel Colorado. Woodland Hills attorney Timothy V. Milner acted for New Life. David B. Owen and Kevin R. Broersma of Fidelity National Law Group also participated; Kim included their client Bank of Hope as a defendant in his suit; it had made a loan to New Life to fund its purchase and had a lien on the Oxford Street property.