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San Joaquin County v. Perano2/1/2002
NOT TO BE PUBLISHED
California Rules of Court, rule 977(a), prohibits courts and parties from citing or relying on opinions not certified for publication or ordered published, except as specified by rule 977(b). This opinion has not been certified for publication or ordered published for purposes of rule 977.
In December 1995, plaintiff and appellant San Joaquin County (San Joaquin) filed a complaint against defendants and respondents asserting a workers' compensation subrogation claim. In January 2001, the trial court dismissed the action pursuant to the mandatory five-year dismissal statute. (Code Civ. Proc., ยงยง 583.310, 583.360.) San Joaquin contends "due process considerations require that a trial court should not be allowed to remove a case from arbitration without notice to the parties." San Joaquin also argues the five-year "period to bring this case to trial has not run because it was tolled while this case was in arbitration." San Joaquin asserts defendants are "not entitled to a dismissal herein under the doctrine of equitable estoppel[.]" We shall reverse the judgment.
FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND
On December 8, 1995, San Joaquin filed its complaint against respondents Dante and Sandra Perano, individually and doing business as Park Place Apartments. The complaint asserted San Joaquin's subrogation rights for payments made to one of its employees arising out of a workers' compensation claim. Allegedly, San Joaquin's employee was injured on the Peranos' property.
On November 12, 1997, the trial court ordered the matter into judicial arbitration. (Cal. Rules of Court, rule 1605(a).) The arbitration hearing was originally set for February 23, 1998. Due to calendar conflict, the February arbitration was cancelled and the parties contemplated the arbitration would occur in April 1998.
Instead of arbitration, the parties set this matter for mediation in October 1998. The mediation was then continued to January 11, 1999, and later cancelled. Then, the parties set the matter for mediation on July 13, 1999.
Due to the filing of two additional claims by the injured worker, San Joaquin informed the Peranos it was not prepared to go forward with mediation on the July date. The mediation was then reset for November 15, 1999, but was again removed from calendar.
On August 2, 2000, the court issued an "Order To Show Cause re: Why Arbitration Has Not Been Completed" (OSC). On August 21, 2000, the court held a hearing on the OSC. The OSC hearing was continued to November 30, 2000. The parties then rescheduled the mediation to February 22, 2001.
The Peranos brought a motion to dismiss this case pursuant to Code of Civil Procedure sections 583.310 and 583.360 because it had been pending for more than five years. We are unable to discern from the record when this motion was filed, nor can we discern the grounds for the motion other than these two statutes, because San Joaquin failed to designate the moving papers as part of the record. San Joaquin opposed the motion arguing the matter had been submitted to arbitration since November 1997, and that submission tolled the statute of limitations under Code of Civil Procedure section 1141.17, subdivision (b). Further, San Joaquin argued the Peranos' actions lulled them into a "false sense of security" about the five-year statute, thus, the Peranos were estopped from relying on that statute as a basis for dismissing the action.
At the hearing on the motion to dismiss, the trial court stated it had vacated the arbitration submission on August 21, 2000. San Joaquin's attorney claimed he had received no notice of the vacation of the arbitra
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