Rice v. City of Carson CA2/1

Filed 6/24/14 Rice v. City of Carson CA2/1 NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN THE OFFICIAL REPORTS California Rules of Court, rule 8.1115(a), prohibits courts and parties from citing or relying on opinions not certified for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 This opinion has not been certified for publication or ordered published for purposes of rule 8.1115.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 ONE

CARA RICE, B249997

Plaintiff and Appellant, (Los Angeles County Super. Ct. No. TC025873) v.

CITY OF CARSON et al.,

Defendants and Respondents.

APPEAL from a judgment of the Superior Court of Los Angeles County, Lynn D. Olson, Judge. Affirmed. Cara Rice, in pro. per., for Plaintiff and Appellant. Aleshire & Wynder, William W. Wynder and Mily C. Huntley for Defendants and Respondents. _______________________________

Cara Rice sued the City of Carson and Victor Rollinger for racial, age, and disability discrimination, wrongful termination, and harassment, after Rollinger, her supervisor, terminated Rice from her position as transportation services manager. The trial court granted summary judgment in favor of the City and Rollinger, and Rice appealed. We affirm, because Rice fails to cite to any evidence in the record of racial or other discrimination, wrongful termination, or harassment. DISCUSSION We accept as true the facts and reasonable inferences supported by Rice’s evidence, and the defendants’ undisputed evidence, on the motion for summary judgment. (Raghavan v. Boeing Co. (2005) 133 Cal.App.4th 1120, 1125.) Rice contends “there was a dispute of material fact as to whether [she] was incompetent and unable to perform the duties of Transportation Services Manager.” She provides a factual statement nine pages long, most of which mirrors verbatim the allegations in her third amended complaint. We discovered this on our own review, as Rice’s statement of facts contains not a single citation to the record. The only citations to the record in her entire 19-page appellate brief are three citations in her one-page statement of the case, to the trial court’s order sustaining a demurrer to an earlier version of the complaint, an order to strike certain defendants from portions of the third amended complaint, and the order granting summary judgment. The City and Rollinger challenged Rice on this point in their respondents’ brief. Rice did not file a reply brief. We thus are left with no citations to the 731-page record regarding Rice’s purported evidence of discrimination, wrongful termination, or harassment. It is Rice’s duty to support her arguments with appropriate reference to the record, including providing exact page citations for any factual or procedural matters, “no matter where the reference occurs in the brief.” (Lona v. Citibank, N.A. (2011) 202 Cal.App.4th 89, 96–97, fn. 2.) We have no duty to search the record for evidence, and we may simply disregard any factual contention not supported by a proper citation. (Grant-Burton v. Covenant Care, Inc. (2002) 99 Cal.App.4th 1361, 1379.) We therefore disregard all Rice’s claims that material facts were disputed. “The claimed existence of facts that are