Dunmore v. Dunmore CA3

Filed 1/31/22 Dunmore v. Dunmore CA3 NOT TO BE PUBLISHED California Rules of Court, rule 8.1115(a), prohibits courts and parties from citing or relying on opinions not certified for publication or ordered published,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 This opinion has not been certified for publication or ordered published for purposes of rule 8.1115.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 THIRD APPELLATE DISTRICT (Placer) ----

STEVEN G. DUNMORE, C089854

Plaintiff and Appellant, (Super. Ct. No. S-CV- 0026453) v.

SIDNEY D. DUNMORE et al.,

Defendants and Respondents.

Steven G. Dunmore, assignee of all legal and equitable claims belonging to his parents, George and Ruth Dunmore, now deceased, and trustee of the Dunmore Family Trust, sued his nephews, Sidney D. Dunmore and Jeremy A. Dunmore, and their real estate development companies, for various forms of fraud, financial elder abuse, breach of contract, and other related causes of action arising out of an alleged fraudulent scheme in which the defendant Dunmores forged the signatures of their grandparents on numerous loan agreements and other financial documents in order to obtain financing for numerous real estate development projects, exposing their grandparents and the Dunmore

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Family Trust to over $100 million in civil liability when the real estate market collapsed and the defendant Dunmores defaulted on the loan agreements. The case was tried before the court, sitting without a jury.1 The trial court ruled in plaintiff’s favor on his breach of contract cause of action and in favor of the defendant Dunmores on all remaining causes of action. Judgment in the sum total of $13,521,232.24 was thereafter entered in plaintiff’s favor. On appeal, plaintiff contends the trial court prejudicially abused its discretion by excluding certain out-of-court statements made by Ruth Dunmore, in which she stated that she did not authorize anyone to sign her name on her behalf and to her knowledge neither did her husband. Plaintiff argues these statements were admissible hearsay because they fell within the former testimony exception to the hearsay rule and their exclusion prejudiced his fraud and elder abuse causes of action. We disagree and affirm. BACKGROUND The nature of the contention raised in this appeal does not require a detailed recitation of the evidence adduced at trial. It will suffice to note that plaintiff’s expert in signature authentication, David Moore, testified to examining over 100 promissory notes, loan guarantees, and other financial instruments purporting to contain the signatures of George and/or Ruth Dunmore. With respect to 126 such documents, Moore definitively concluded that only one signature purporting to be that of George Dunmore was a genuine signature while the others were signed by someone else “try[ing] to mimic or simulate his signature.” None of the signatures purporting to be that of Ruth Dunmore were genuine signatures. With respect to two additional documents, Moore concluded the signatures for George and Ruth Dunmore were “very probably not genuine.”