Unreported / Non-Citable
Background
Joel M. Torres sued U.S. Bank National Association, Nationstar Mortgage LLC, Barrett Daffin Frappier Treder & Weiss, LLP, and other defendants in Los Angeles County Superior Court. His July 27, 2021 complaint alleged wrongful foreclosure, cancellation of an instrument, quiet title, violations of statutory foreclosure protections and the California Homeowner Bill of Rights, unfair competition, and a claim for preliminary injunctive relief. Nationstar and U.S. Bank obtained judgment on the pleadings, and the trial court entered judgment for them on August 18, 2023. Their counsel served notice of entry that day. Barrett later obtained the same procedural ruling; judgment in its favor was entered on March 22, 2024, and Barrett served notice of entry on April 4, 2024.
Torres sought relief under Code of Civil Procedure section 473, subdivision (d), and a new trial. The appellate record did not contain either motion, although the case summary indicated that both were filed on March 19, 2024. On January 8, 2025, the trial court denied them. It found no demonstrated clerical errors, no argument that the judgments were void, and no newly discovered evidence that could not reasonably have been found earlier. Torres filed a notice of appeal on January 24, 2025, identifying only that January 8 order. The Court of Appeal also noted that an order denying a new trial is not independently appealable, although it may be reviewed on a proper appeal from the judgment.
The Court’s Holding
The court affirmed without reaching whether the trial court correctly granted judgment on the pleadings. Torres’s opening brief attacked those earlier rulings, but presented no argument against the January 8, 2025 order denying his section 473 and new-trial motions—the only order identified in his notice of appeal. The court therefore held that he waived any challenge to the order actually before it. His reply did not change that result: designating a record containing the earlier orders did not make their merits reviewable, and merely denying that his appeal was limited to the postjudgment order could not expand the notice of appeal.
Relying on Nellie Gail Ranch Owners Assn. v. McMullin, the court explained that separately appealable judgments and orders must be expressly specified in a notice or notices of appeal. A party challenging both a final judgment and a postjudgment order ordinarily must pursue separate appeals, and an untimely appeal forfeits review. Because Torres specified neither the August 18, 2023 judgment nor the March 22, 2024 judgment, he could not obtain review of those judgments or the orders underlying them.
The court additionally concluded that the appeal would have been untimely even if the notice had identified the earlier judgments. Service of the notices of entry triggered 60-day appeal periods under California Rules of Court, rule 8.104(a)(1)(B). Denial of the new-trial motion could extend the deadline only to at most 180 days after entry of judgment under rule 8.108(b)(1)(C). The January 24, 2025 notice was therefore too late for a direct challenge to either judgment. The disposition affirmed the denial of both postjudgment motions and awarded costs on appeal to Nationstar and U.S. Bank; Barrett had not filed a respondent’s brief.
Key Takeaways
- An appellant must substantively challenge the order identified in the notice of appeal rather than assume that earlier rulings are automatically before the court.
- Including earlier orders in the appellate record does not substitute for expressly identifying the corresponding judgments in a notice of appeal.
- Challenges to a final judgment and a separate postjudgment order ordinarily require separate appeals when both are appealable.
- A new-trial motion does not indefinitely preserve appellate review, because the relevant extension is capped at 180 days after entry of judgment.
- The affirmance rested on waiver, the scope of the notice of appeal, and untimeliness, not on an appellate merits ruling concerning foreclosure or judgment on the pleadings.
Why It Matters
The decision illustrates how appellate procedural requirements can determine a case without any review of the underlying foreclosure claims. Torres’s briefing focused on the rulings that produced the judgments, but the only order he timely and expressly appealed was one his opening brief did not challenge. That mismatch independently supported affirmance through waiver.
The opinion also separates record designation from appellate jurisdiction and timeliness. Supplying the earlier orders for review could not cure their omission from the notice of appeal, and even a broader notice filed on the same date would have been late. The court thus provided two independent procedural reasons why the merits of the judgments on the pleadings were not before it.