Appellant challenged the decision of the Superior Court of Orange County (California), which entered a default judgment in favor of respondent after respondent served interrogatories on suspended attorney and failed to receive a response on the interrogatories. The trial court also denied appellant's motion to set aside the default.
Counsel for appellant was suspended from practice during litigation between appellant and respondent. Appellant hired another attorney, however substitution of attorneys was not accomplished and suspended attorney purported to continue representing appellant. Unaware that CACI instructions was suspended, respondent served interrogatories upon him and thereafter served motions to compel answers and for sanctions on attorney. Attorney did not file opposition to the motions and did not appear and a default judgment was granted to respondent without appellant's knowledge. When appellant learned what happened it filed a motion to set aside the judgment and the trial court denied the motion. The court held that the default judgment was void, as appellant did not have actual or constructive notice of the interrogatories or of the discovery motions. The court further held that appellant was deprived of opportunity to present its case by attorney's misconduct, that the misconduct constituted extrinsic fraud and as such the trial court should have set aside the default. Accordingly the judgment was reversed and remanded.
The order of the trial court was reversed because it was abuse of discretion for the trial court to refuse to set aside the default judgment because appellant did not have actual or constructive notice of the interrogatories and because attorney's conduct constituted extrinsic fraud.
Defendants appealed their convictions in the Superior Court of Contra Costa County (California) for kidnapping and rape. Defendants argued that the trial court improperly instructed the jury on "consent" and should have granted their motion for mistrial based on references to lie detector tests made by prosecution witnesses. Defendant robber argued that he was denied his right to a speedy trial and a jury instruction on lesser included offenses.
Defendants' victim was kidnapped, then raped by defendants at their apartment and robbed by one of them. At trial, defendants were convicted of kidnapping and rape with defendant robber also being convicted of robbery. The court held that defendant robber was not prejudiced by any delay in being brought to trial because the witnesses he was unable to procure would not have provided relevant testimony, and the delay occurred before he was charged with an offense, when his speedy trial rights first arose. The court held that the trial court did not err in refusing to instruct on lesser included offenses to robbery where the evidence supported either robbery or innocence and not some lesser included offense. However, the court reversed defendants' convictions, holding that Cal. Jury Instructions - Criminal No. 1.23 likely confused the jury into believing that fraud negated any consent by victim. The court held that the trial court properly denied defendants' motion for mistrial based on passing references to lie detector tests taken by them. In addition, the trial court provided defendants the opportunity to renew the motions, but they neglected to do so.
Defendants' convictions for rape and kidnapping were reversed because an instruction may have confused the jury as to the effects of fraud on consent. As to defendant robber, the court held that speedy trial rights arose only when an offense was charged and that the trial court's failure to instruct on lesser-included offenses was not error in the absence of evidence of such offenses.