Dreamweaver Andalusians, LLC v. Prudential Insurance Co. of America

Filed 3/3/15 CERTIFIED FOR PUBLICATION

IN THE COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA

SECOND APPELLATE DISTRICT

DIVISION SIX

DREAMWEAVER ANDALUSIANS, 2d Civil No. B253227 LLC, et al., (Super. Ct. No. 56-2011-00405660 CU-PO-VTA) Plaintiffs and Appellants, (Ventura County)

v.

PRUDENTIAL INSURANCE COMPANY OF AMERICA, et al.,

Defendants and Respondents.

We have previously commented on the "daunting task" confronting an appellant who seeks reversal of a trial court's discretionary ruling. (Estate of Gilkison (1998) 65 Cal.App.4th 1143, 1448-1449). To succeed, the appellant must demonstrate that the ruling was arbitrary, capricious, whimsical, or exceeded the bounds of reason. As we shall explain, the appellants here have not come close to satisfying this exacting standard. Dreamweaver Andalusians, LLC, Michael Shuler, and Lynn Shuler appeal from the judgment entered after the trial court, in the exercise of its discretion, dismissed their action for failure to join an indispensable party. Appellants contend that the absent party, a federal agency, was neither necessary nor indispensable. We affirm. Facts and Procedural History Appellants Michael and Lynn Shuler own a 22-acre ranch in Somis, California. They leased the property to appellant Dreamweaver Andalusians, LLC. The property shares a common boundary with one thousand acres of land owned by respondent Sunshine Agriculture, Inc. (Sunshine). Sunshine's land is primarily used for agricultural

purposes. Respondent Sierra Pacific Farms, Inc., dba Somis Pacific Ag Management (Somis Pacific), farms the land and manages agricultural operations. Sunshine's land is on a hillside above appellants' property. Somis Pacific expanded its agricultural operations onto the hillside. In March 2011 the hillside collapsed onto appellants' property. Appellants filed an action against the persons and entities allegedly responsible for the collapse. Appellants' complaint consists of six causes of action: nuisance, negligence, private nuisance, trespass, mandatory injunction, and prohibitory injunction. The complaint names the following defendants: Sunshine; Prudential Insurance Company of America; Prudential Mortgage Capital Company, LLC; Prudential Financial, Inc.; Capital Agricultural Property Services, Inc.; Las Posas Farms; Sierra Pacific Farms, Inc.; Somis Pacific; Doug O'Hara; Danny P. Holmes; Holmes Enterprises, Inc.; and Haejin Lee. The complaint alleges: "The Defendants . . . were responsible for the removal of historic watercourses and stable ground cover and also for unreasonable grading, irrigation, planting and maintenance of the hillside slope above [appellants'] . . . property. . . . Defendants acted negligently in failing to take steps to prevent the land from collapsing. . . . [T]he harm was foreseeable because of the steepness of the slope and nature of its soil." "Each defendant is somehow responsible in some manner for the events herein referred to and was thus a cause of [appellants'] damages . . . ." Originally, the defendants included two individuals and one corporation "involved in the engineering of the slope": Haejin Lee, Danny P. Holmes, and Holmes Enterprises, Inc. They allegedly "were a cause of the encroachment because they were negligent in their preparations, plans, engineering, recommendations and supervision of the uphill work and they failed to inspect, warn, anticipate and monitor the slope. . . . Had they not been negligent, [appellants] would not have been harmed." Appellants dismissed the action as to the engineering defendants notwithstanding the conclusion of appellants' engineering expert "that this slope was unsuitable for development, that the removal of groundcover was a substantial cause of the slope failure, that the cuts into the slope undermined its stability, [and] that the alteration of the water courses and the introduction