Tuesday, June 23, 2026
Page 3
Court of Appeal:
Excuse for Late-Filing of Claim Against District Was Lame
By a MetNews Staff Writer
A bench officer did not abuse her discretion in denying relief from the requirement of presenting a claim to a governmental entity before suing it where the plaintiff’s lawyer declared that he didn’t know, until it was too late, that the Metropolitan Water District is an independent entity, the Court of Appeal has held, rejecting the excuse that the MWD’s website doesn’t make its status clear and its third-party administrator didn’t mention it.
The Fourth District’s Div. One affirmed the order Friday in an unpublished opinion by Justice Jose S. Castillo. It rejects an effort by the appellant’s counsel to center attention on a single remark by the bench officer in uttering her decision.
The lawyer for the aggrieved party in the proceedings below, Ryan W. Cooper of Fielding Law in Irvine, learned of the MWD’s standalone nature two weeks after the six-month period for filing a claim, pursuant to Government Code §945.4, expired. He was so informed by the City of Los Angeles, to which a claim had been made.
Would-be plaintiff Melanie De Leon—who was involved in a traffic collision in Santa Ana which she alleges to have been caused by an MWD employee (though she rear-ended him)—filed a claim after the deadline; it was rebuffed due to its tardiness. She then applied to MWD for leave to file a late claim.
After 45 days, the unanswered request was statutorily deemed denied; a petition for relief under §946.6 was filed in the Orange Superior Court; senior research attorney Sally Wu, sitting as a temporary judge, denied it, finding that Cooper’s failure to determine MWD’s statute was not “excusable.”
Sec. 946.6(c)(1) authorizes relief where “[t]he failure to present the claim was through mistake, inadvertence, surprise, or excusable neglect unless the public entity establishes that it would be prejudiced in the defense of the claim if the court relieves the petitioner from the requirements of Section 945.4.”
Argument on Appeal
De Leon argued on appeal, in an opening brief filed by Brooke L. Bove and Mohammed W. Aly of the Santa Ana firm of Aly & Bove:
“Rather than analyzing whether the mistake was excusable under settled law or weighing the strong public policy favoring resolution on the merits, the trial court sua sponte denied relief based on a theory no party had raised: that counsel should have located MWD’s enabling statute in the Water Code Appendix and inferred its separate status. This decision was not only an abuse of discretion but also a violation of Appellant’s right to due process. The trial court imposed a strict-liability standard for attorney error that, if affirmed, would nullify the remedial purpose of section 946.6 and bar relief even where—as here—the record shows diligence, prompt corrective action, and zero prejudice to the public entity. Reversal is warranted.”
What Wu had said was:
“The fact that Respondent is its own entity can be determined by statute. (Wat. Code, § App. § 109-26.) Courts have charged counsel with knowledge of a public entity’s potential liability when it is can be found in state statutes.”
MWD protested in its reply brief, filed by its lawyers Marcia L. Scully, Betty L. Kuo Brinton and Elliot H. Min, that the appellant zeroed in on one particular comment by Wu “[i]nstead of addressing any of the trial court’s numerous findings.”
The reply brief asserts:
“This contortion of the trial court’s ruling is misleading, at best, and patently incorrect. The record clearly reflects that the trial court carefully based its decision on a multitude of facts that clearly show Appellant’s attorney’s lack of diligence, only one of which was his failure to read the pertinent provisions of the Water Code.”
Castillo’s Opinion
Castillo rejected De Leon’s contention that the ruling was tethered to Cooper’s failure to avert to a Water Code provision, saying that Wu’s “point” that the nature of the MWD is made clear by the statutory provision merely “highlights” one “of the possible steps counsel could have taken to be reasonably diligent.” He added that Wu did “not raise an alternative issue or legal theory.”
Addressing the issue of whether Cooper’s unawareness of MWD’s status was excusable, Castillo wrote:
“De Leon was injured in the collision on June 6, 2023, giving her until December 6 to timely present her claim to Metropolitan….Within one week of the collision, she retained her counsel. On June 29, she submitted an amendment to the California Highway Patrol report that documented the collision. The Highway Patrol report listed Metropolitan as the owner of the other vehicle involved in the collision. Even assuming De Leon and her counsel did not obtain the report and discover Metropolitan’s ownership until the date of the request to amend the report, that left them more than five months to discover Metropolitan was a separate public entity and timely present De Leon’s claim.”
The justice said that no “diligent efforts” to ascertain MWD’s status “over the course of five months” are shown to have been made.
Source of Confusion
Castillo’s reading of the facts differed markedly from De Leon’s. The appellant blamed MWD for Cooper’s confusion as to just what the agency is, noting that its website does not spell out its independent nature.
That website listed 26 agencies that buy water from MWD, mostly in Los Angeles County, and a claim was filed with the City of Los Angeles and the County of Los Angeles. De Leon said in the reply brief on appeal:
“The undisputed facts in the record show that trial counsel’s confusion was caused by Respondent’s own website; Respondent’s agents avoided trial counsel’s communication; trial counsel timely and diligently presented claims to other likely responsible agencies based on information gleaned from Respondent’s website; trial counsel’s diligence paid off when a claim rejection pointed trial counsel in Respondent’s direction; and finally, Respondent received the claim only six weeks after the six-month deadline, and never suffered any articulable prejudice. On these facts, the trial court erred in denying relief, and its decision should be reversed.”
Castillo responded:
“De Leon’s counsel could have but did not contact Metropolitan before the time for presentation lapsed. De Leon’s counsel declared he conducted ‘[a] thorough review of [Metropolitan’s] website’ and found ‘no contact information’ for Metropolitan, suggesting the lack of contact information was the reason counsel could not contact Metropolitan sooner. But at all relevant times. Metropolitan’s webpage included a ‘Contact Us’ page accessible to the public from a drop-down menu. That page included phone numbers, e-mail addresses, and a mailing address for Metropolitan.”
Dismissing any relevance as to MWD’s insurer not divulging the insured’s status, Castillo said:
“Given the uncertainty about Metropolitan’s public entity status, the trial court could conclude reasonably prudent counsel would have contacted Metropolitan to further inquire before the time for presentation lapsed.”
De Leon’s Passenger
Also injured in the 2023 collision was De Leon’s passenger, Fe Oudaimy, who retained separate counsel. Castillo observed:
“That De Leon’s passenger was able to discover Metropolitan’s contact information and present her claim to Metropolitan in less than two months tends to show that, with reasonable diligence. De Leon’s counsel could have done the same.
“Accordingly, on this record, we conclude the trial court did not abuse its discretion in denying De Leon’s petition. Because De Leon failed to prove excusable neglect, Metropolitan’s prejudice, or lack thereof, is immaterial.”
The case is De Leon v. Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, D087939.
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