Barbaccia v. GBR Magic Sands MHP CA2/7

CourtCalifornia Court of Appeal
DecidedJanuary 12, 2023
DocketB322596M
StatusUnpublished

This text of Barbaccia v. GBR Magic Sands MHP CA2/7 (Barbaccia v. GBR Magic Sands MHP CA2/7) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering California Court of Appeal primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Barbaccia v. GBR Magic Sands MHP CA2/7, (Cal. Ct. App. 2023).

Opinion

Filed 1/11/23 Barbaccia v. GBR Magic Sands MHP CA2/7 NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN THE OFFICIAL REPORTS

California Rules of Court, rule 8.1115(a), prohibits courts and parties from citing or relying on opinions not certified for publication or ordered published, except as specified by rule 8.1115(b). This opinion has not been certified for publication or ordered published for purposes of rule 8.1115.

IN THE COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA

SECOND APPELLATE DISTRICT

DIVISION SEVEN

LOUIS P. BARBACCIA, SR., as Trustee, B322596 etc. et al., (Santa Clara County Plaintiffs and Respondents Super. Ct. No. 17CV313947) v. ORDER MODIFYING GBR MAGIC SANDS MHP, LLC, OPINION AND DENYING PETITIONS Defendant and Appellant. FOR REHEARING [NO CHANGE IN JUDGMENT]

THE COURT:

The opinion filed December 16, 2022, and not certified for publication, is modified as follows:

1. On page 46, second paragraph, line 1, the word “has” is changed to “may have,” and on line 2, the word “uncontradicted” is deleted, so that the sentences read: GBR may have a point, but not one that warrants reversal. GBR presented evidence the 2007 lease agreements and related documents describe the property encumbered by the leases as including Parcel Eight.

2. On page 46, lines 10-11, delete the sentence:

Therefore, “all of” lot 26, as described in the leases, includes Parcel Eight.

3. On pages 46-47, footnotes 21 and 22 are deleted.

The petitions for rehearing are denied.

This order does not change the appellate judgment.

PERLUSS, P. J. SEGAL, J. FEUER, J.

2 Filed 12/16/22 Barbaccia v. GBR Magic Sands MHP CA2/7 NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN THE OFFICIAL REPORTS

California Rules of Court, rule 8.1115(a), prohibits courts and parties from citing or relying on opinions not certified for publication or ordered published, except as specified by rule 8.1115(b). This opinion has not been certified for publication or ordered published for purposes of rule 8.1115.

LOUIS P. BARBACCIA, SR., as B322596 Trustee, etc. et al., (Santa Clara County Plaintiffs and Respondents Super. Ct. No. 17CV313947)

v.

GBR MAGIC SANDS MHP, LLC,

Defendant and Appellant.

APPEAL from a judgment of the Superior Court of Santa Clara County, Thang N. Barrett, Judge. Reversed with directions. Morgan Franich Fredkin Siamas & Kays, William Siamas, David A. Kays and Mark B. Fredkin for Defendant and Appellant. Hopkins & Carley, David W. Lively, Allonn E. Levy and Ryan Cunningham; Gates Eisenhart Dawson, Marc A. Eisenhart and James L. Dawson for Plaintiffs and Respondents. INTRODUCTION

Since 2007 brothers Louis P. Barbaccia, Sr. (Lou) and Cyril Barbaccia (Cy) (now deceased), their two sisters, and their respective successors, have been litigating in Santa Clara County Superior Court over the rights to a 20-acre property in San Jose. Lou, Cy, and their parents originally obtained the property in the 1960s, with Lou and Cy collectively holding an undivided one-half interest in the property and the parents holding the other undivided one-half interest. In 1963 the parents agreed to lease their interest to Lou and Cy under a 98-year lease. The brothers subsequently built a mobilehome park on the property. By 2010, after a series of transactions and lawsuits, Josephine Pecoraro (Cy and Lou’s sister), Catherine Pecoraro (Cy and Lou’s niece; the daughter of their deceased sister, Rita), Lou, and Loubar LLC—an entity created by Lou—collectively held, in various shares, the one-half interest originally owned by Cy and Lou’s parents. GBR Magic Sands MHP, LLC—an entity created by Cy to operate the mobilehome park—held the right to lease that one-half interest under the 1963 lease. Loubar separately owned the collective one-half interest originally owned by the brothers, which GBR also held the right to lease under two separate agreements. In 2010 Josephine and Catherine (backed by Lou) filed an action in Santa Clara County Superior Court to cancel the 1963 lease and to quiet title to the one-half undivided interest originally owned by Cy and Lou’s parents. (Pecoraro v. GBR Magic Sands MHP, LLC (Super. Ct. Santa Clara County, 2013, No. 1-10-CV-186621) (the Pecoraro action).) Josephine and Catherine prevailed. The trial court in that action ruled Cy

2 obtained the 1963 lease from his parents by “undue influence,” and in 2013 the court entered a judgment canceling the lease, quieting title in favor of Josephine, Catherine, and Lou, and ordering GBR to relinquish possession of the one-half interest in the property originally owned by Cy and Lou’s parents and previously encumbered by the 1963 lease. In October 2016 the Sixth District Court of Appeal affirmed that judgment. (See Pecoraro v. Barbaccia (Oct. 18, 2016, H040008, H040222) [nonpub. opn.].) GBR, however, did not relinquish possession of the property. It continued to operate the mobilehome park and lease mobilehome lots on the property to tenants. In 2018 Loubar, Lou, Catherine, and Vivian Martorana (the Loubar plaintiffs)1 filed this action against GBR seeking mesne profits from GBR’s continued possession of the Loubar plaintiffs’ undivided one-half interest in the property.2 GBR, in turn, filed a cross-complaint

1 Josephine died in 2016, and Martorana sued as trustee of the Josephine Pecoraro Trust. Lou similarly sued as trustee of the Louis P. Barbaccia Sr. Inter Vivos Trust.

2 Mesne profits are recoverable from a trespasser or other wrongful possessor of land and include the “value of the rents, issues and profits of the land during a certain period.” (Haggin v. Clark (1875) 51 Cal. 112, 115; see Pocono Realty Co. v. Lamar Advertising Co. (3d Cir. 2010) 395 Fed.Appx. 903, 904 [mesne profits are “[t]he profits of an estate received by a tenant in wrongful possession between two dates”].) “Mesne,” pronounced “mean,” is a medieval French legal term meaning “intermediate.” (Davis v. L.N. Dantzler Lumber Co. (1923) 261 U.S. 280, 283; Larsson v. Grabach (2004) 121 Cal.App.4th 1147, 1151; ODonnell v. Harris County, Texas (S.D.Tex. 2017) 251 F.Supp.3d 1052, 1070, fn. 6.)

3 seeking declaratory relief to allow it to occupy the entire property and continue operating the park. Following a nonjury trial, the trial court ruled in favor of the Loubar plaintiffs and awarded them over $5 million in damages. GBR makes several arguments on appeal, which generally involve some version of the argument that the judgment in the Pecoraro action quieting title to the Loubar plaintiffs’ one-half interest had no practical effect on GBR’s right to possess the property. As we explain, those arguments lack merit, and GBR is liable for damages caused by continuing to possess or occupy the property to the exclusion of the Loubar plaintiffs after the date the Pecoraro judgment became enforceable. GBR may not relitigate whether it has any rights in the Loubar plaintiffs’ one- half interest. GBR, however, is partially correct on one of its arguments: Claim preclusion bars the Loubar plaintiffs from recovering damages from GBR’s possession of the property before the judgment in the Pecoraro action became enforceable, which as we explain was not until the Sixth District Court of Appeal issued its remittitur on January 12, 2017. If the Loubar plaintiffs wanted to seek damages for GBR’s possession of the property before that date, they had to seek those damages in the Pecoraro action. Thus, by awarding the Loubar plaintiffs damages for GBR’s possession of the property as far back as August 2012, the trial court erred.

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