Monday, June 15, 2026
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C.A. Says Elder Abuse Victim Is Not Due Trebling of Doubled Damages Award
Opinion Says Civil Code Section Allowing Boosted Penalties for Undue Influence Is Unavailable Where Recovery Was Already Increased by Way of Probate Code
By a MetNews Staff Writer
Div. Five of this district’s Court of Appeal has rejected the assertion by a trustee, who accused a real estate firm of taking advantage of his elderly mother by convincing her to sell her home for less than it was worth shortly before she died, that a trial judge erred in declining to apply a Civil Code provision to triple the damages awarded to the trust, which were already doubled by way of a similar Probate Code section.
At issue is the interplay between Civil Code §3345 and Probate Code §859. The latter section provides:
“If a court finds that a person…has taken, concealed, or disposed of…property by the use of undue influence in bad faith or through the commission of elder or dependent adult financial abuse,…the person shall be liable for twice the value of the property recovered by an action under this part.”
Sec. 3345, in turn, specifies that if “the defendant knew…that their conduct was directed to one or more senior citizens” and there exists other statutory authority for the imposition of a fine or penalty meant to “punish or deter,” a court may “may impose a…remedy in an amount up to three times greater than authorized by the statute” if “the amount of the…penalty…is subject to the trier of fact’s discretion.” Presiding Justice Brian M. Hoffstadt authored Thursday’s unpublished opinion, joined in by Justices Lamar Baker and Carl H. Moor, saying:
“By its plain language, section 3345 only operates to treble a fine or penalty where ‘the amount of the fine, penalty, or other remedy is subject to the trier of fact’s discretion.’…But section 859 ‘imposes a strict and mandatory penalty structure’ where ‘[t]he probate court has no discretion regarding the calculation of the amount of the statutory penalty.’…Because the amount of section 859’s penalty is not ‘subject to the trier of fact’s discretion,’ it is not subject to trebling under section 3345.”
Also at issue was the judge’s valuation of the “property” that was “taken” as amounting to the difference between the fair market value and the agreed-upon sales price. Noting that, although the transaction was never consummated, the title to the home was clouded for a little over three years due to the firm’s recording of a lis pendens, Hoffstadt reasoned that the calculation was sound.
The question arose after Corrine Casanova signed a contract to sell her residence to Patriot Holdings LLC for $275,000 in November 2016, even though the property, which was held in a living trust for which she served as trustee, was worth $440,000 at the time. She had contacted the would-be purchaser via a flyer left on her home advertising “as is” home purchases.
She had been purportedly exhibiting symptoms “consistent with Alzheimer’s disease” and her family was in the process of moving her into an elder care facility. She passed away less than three weeks after signing the agreement.
Her son, David Casanova, became the successor trustee and only learned of the purchase agreements when an attorney with the real estate firm demanded that he perform under the contract.
After he refused, the company sued his mother, individually and as trustee, in December 2016 for breach of contract and recorded a lis pendens on the property. On March 28, 2017, David Casanova filed a cross-complaint and a separate probate petition seeking to resolve the property dispute, asserting that the company committed elder abuse.
The cases were found to be related and were both assigned to the probate division.
Property Sold
On Dec. 3, 2019, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Jessica A. Uzcategui granted David Casanova’s request to expunge the lis pendens, and Patriot Holdings dismissed its complaint six months later. In August 2020, David Casanova sold the property for $510,000.
Following a bench trial on the cross-complaint and probate petition, Uzcategui found that the defendant had committed financial elder abuse by means of undue influence and ruled that the “value of the property” taken was “the difference between the $440,000 appraised value of the Property at the time of the Contract…and the $275,000 purchase price of the Contract…, or $165,000.”
She doubled that figure pursuant to §859, for a total recovery of $330,000, and declined to award treble damages under §3345.
Hoffstadt wrote:
“[T]he trust argues that (1) the probate court was obligated to value the ‘property recovered’ as the full fair market value of the property, even though the trustor retained all of the property except for the right to alienate it; and (2) section 859’s double penalty must be further trebled under Civil Code section 3345. We reject both arguments, and affirm.”
As to the issue of treble damages, he noted that the trustee argued that §859 is exactly the sort of statute the Legislature was referring to in §3345, as it targets for punishment specific misconduct relating to the treatment of senior citizens. However, he remarked:
“This argument ignores that section 3345 has two prerequisites: (1) that the remedy be designed to punish or deter; and (2) that the amount of the remedy be ‘subject to the trier of fact’s discretion.’ ”
Saying that the probate court also “did not err in declining to use $510,000 as the ‘value of the property recovered,’ ” he reasoned:
“Had Corrine quitclaimed the entire property to Patriot Holdings, then David would be correct because the entire property would have been taken, and the value of the entire property—namely, the $510,000 sale price—would have been recovered. But that is not what happened.”
The jurist added:
“[T]he value of the right to alienate that Patriot Holdings clouded for three years is not the value of the entire property; put differently, the value of the stick is not the same as the value of the entire bundle that would have come with the sale of the property. The probate court did not err in declining to equate the value of the stick with the value of the whole bundle of sticks; doing so would have overvalued the property actually recovered from Patriot Holdings.”
The case is Casanova v. Patriot Holdings LLC, B342032.
Dorian L Jackson of the Torrance-based DLJ Law Firm PC acted for the trustee, and John Sung Cha of the Irvine office of Jeffer Mangels Butler & Mitchell LLP, as well as San Diego practitioner Alan S. Yockelson, represented Patriot Holdings LLC.
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