Mula v. Mula

• Court: Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
• Decided: March 20, 2025
• Docket: 23-3490
• Status: Unpublished

Opinion

NOT FOR PUBLICATION FILED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS MAR 20 2025 MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK U.S. COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

PAUL MULA, Jr., a California resident. No. 23-3490 D.C. No. individually, and on behalf of the Ogier Revocable Trust, together with the putative 5:21-cv-04540-BLF Helene Mula-Stouky and Paul S. Mula Jr. Trusts, MEMORANDUM*

Plaintiff - Appellant,

v.

ALAN MULA, a California resident; the estate of Paul Mula, Sr., a deceased resident of California; HELENE MULA-STOUKY TRUST, dated November 24, 1997; ESTATE OF PAUL MULA, SR.; TERRY CAMPBELL, a California resident and former counsel to Sarah Mula- Ogier; KRISTOF BIORN, a California resident and former counsel to Paul Mula, Jr.; CRIST, SCHULZ, BIORN & SHEPHERD, APC; KRISTOFER BIORN,

Defendants - Appellees.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of California Beth Labson Freeman, District Judge, Presiding

Argued and Submitted February 12, 2025

* This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3. San Francisco, California

Before: VANDYKE and JOHNSTONE, Circuit Judges, and CHRISTENSEN, District Judge.**

Plaintiff-Appellant Paul Mula Jr. (“Mula”) appeals the district court’s

dismissal of his action against remaining Defendant-Appellees Alan Mula, Terry

Wallace Campbell, Kristofer Biorn (“Biorn”), and the law firm Crist, Schulz, Biorn

& Sheperd APC.1 In Count 1 of his Corrected Second Amended Complaint

(“CSAC”), Mula alleges that Defendant-Appellees entered two Racketeer

Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (“RICO”), 18 U.S.C. § 1961 et seq.,

conspiracies—an original conspiracy and a cover-up conspiracy—to deprive him

of assets allegedly left in trust to him by his deceased grandmother. Counts 2–7 of

the CSAC allege various state law violations.

We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1964(a). We review de novo an

order granting a motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim under Federal Rule of

Civil Procedure 12(b)(6). L.A. Lakers, Inc. v. Fed. Ins. Co., 869 F.3d 795, 800 (9th

Cir. 2017). We review for abuse of discretion both a district court’s decision to

dismiss a complaint with prejudice, Benavidez v. County of San Diego, 993 F.3d

** The Honorable Dana L. Christensen, United States District Judge for the District of Montana, sitting by designation. 1 Defendants Helene Mula-Stouky, Patricia Bye, Christina Weiss Smith, Robert E. Temmerman, and the associated law firms executed a Settlement Agreement and General Mutual Release with Mula on February 14, 2024, and are no longer parties to this action. Defendant Alan Mula is now deceased.

2 1134, 1141–42 (9th Cir. 2021), and decision to decline supplemental jurisdiction,

Trustees of Construction Ind. and Laborers Health and Welfare Trust v. Desert

Valley Landscape & Maintenance, Inc., 333 F.3d 923, 925 (9th Cir. 2003). We

affirm.

The district court did not err in concluding that Mula’s RICO claim

pertaining to the original conspiracy is barred by the statute of limitations. And

although not addressed by the district court, we find that Mula’s cover-up RICO

claim is similarly time-barred. The statute of limitations for civil RICO actions is

four years. Pincay v. Andrews, 238 F.3d 1106, 1108 (9th Cir. 2001). We follow the

“injury discovery” rule, meaning the statute of limitations period “begins to run

when a plaintiff knows or should know of the injury that underlies his cause of

action.” Grimmett v. Brown, 75 F.3d 506, 510–11 (9th Cir. 1996) (internal citations

omitted).

Mula alleges that two primary injuries form the basis of his RICO cause of

action: first, the transfer of four pieces of real property out of the trust by grant

deeds, and second, past legal expenses incurred in defending his interest in the

trust. Though Mula first learned of the 2005 real property transfer in 2012, he

argues he did not discover the 2006 Petition to Confirm Title to the real property—

“a new and independent act” that actually caused his injury—until 2019. We

disagree. The clock begins when appellant should have discovered the alleged

3 injury, see Rotella v. Wood, 528 U.S. 549, 555 (2000), and Mula’s knowledge of

the 2005 grant deeds was sufficient to put him on inquiry notice of the injury

underlying his cause of action. And while Mula argues that past legal expenses

may constitute a cognizable injury under civil RICO—an issue this Court has yet

to address—the only legal expense Mula alleges in his CSAC is a $5,000 payment

to Defendant-Appellee Biorn in 2012.

Mula’s subsequent discovery of Defendant-Appellees’ “widespread looting”

of trust property does not constitute a “new and independent” act such that Mula

experienced a “new” injury. See Grimmett, 75 F.3d at 514 (finding that acts part of

the same corporate scheme are not “new and independent”). Moreover, because the

CSAC fails to allege any non-conclusory allegations that Defendant-Appellees

actively mislead him, Mula cannot rely on the doctrine of fraudulent concealment.

See id. (“[t]he doctrine of fraudulent concealment is invoked only if the plaintiff

pleads and proves that the defendant actively mislead her . . .”) (emphasis in

original) (citation omitted).

Accordingly, because Mula knew of the facts underlying his RICO claims in

2012, the statute of limitations had expired on both conspiracies pled in Count I

when he filed his original complaint in 2021. Pincay, 238 F.3d at 1109.

The district court did not abuse its discretion when it dismissed Mula’s case

with prejudice. Leave to amend must be granted unless one or more of the

4 following factors is present: (1) undue delay; (2) bad faith or dilatory motive; (3)

repeated failure to cure deficiencies by amendment; (4) undue prejudice to the

opposing party; and (5) futility of amendment. Foman v. Davis, 371 U.S. 178, 182

(1962). The district court adequately explained that its decision rested on Mula’s

failure to cure the deficiencies in his RICO claim despite guidance from the court.

Finally, the district court did not abuse its discretion when it declined to

exercise supplemental jurisdiction over Mula’s state-law claims. The district court

declined to exercise supplemental jurisdiction because the case was still at the

pleading stage. This is not an abuse of discretion. See Sanford v. MemberWorks,

Inc., 625 F.3d 550, 561 (9th Cir. 2010) (“[I]n the usual case in which all federal

law-claims are eliminated before trial, the balance of factors to be considered under

the pendent jurisdiction doctrine—judicial economy, convenience, fairness, and

comity—will point toward declining to exercise jurisdiction over the remaining

state-law claims.”) (citation and internal quotations omitted).

AFFIRMED.2

2 Appellant’s motion for judicial notice relies primarily on Wikipedia articles and thus fails to satisfy the standards promulgated by Federal Rule of Civil Procedure § 201. Accordingly, Appellant’s motion for judicial notice, is DENIED. Because the lower court granted Defendant-Appellees’ motion for judicial notice of the same documents now before this Court, the motions are DENIED AS MOOT.