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Stevens v. 396 Investment Co.5/17/2005
.)
Mrs. Suryanto argues that, inasmuch as she and her husband owned the property as their community property, she had an "equal undivided interest" together with her husband. (See Fam. Code, ยง 751 [husband and wife have "equal interests" in community property].) Mrs. Suryanto cites Family Code section 1102 in support of the proposition that she had management and control of the community property and that this gave her the authority to seek damages with respect to the entirety of the community property. We agree. Mrs. Suryanto, on behalf of the community, has pursued damages pertaining to the entirety of the community asset. This is consistent with the statutory power of management and control.
Anaheim disagrees. It asserts that the applicable rule is found in Razzano v. Kent (1947) 78 Cal.App.2d 254. As the court stated therein: "It settled law in this state that a cotenant cannot recover the total damages caused by a trespass to the leasehold, but may only recover for his [or her] proportionate interest." (Id. at p. 258.) However, inasmuch as the property in question was the Suryantos' community property, the Razzano rule pertaining to cotenancies does not apply.
The award of property damages in favor of Mrs. Suryanto is affirmed.
M. OFFSETS:
(1) Introduction
As the trial court stated at one point, "this case is . . . a thousand-layer roll, and we have to peel back the layers." As the following will show, Anaheim has presented to us the rather nightmarish task of ascertaining whether the trial court correctly applied offsets in this matter. To Anaheim's credit, it did request a statement of decision with respect to offsets, as well it should have considering the lack of clarity in the record. However, it would appear that this request was denied. We are therefore left to sort out, to the best of our ability, the manner in which offsets were determined. In some cases, we are able to conclude that the offsets are incorrect and also to state what the correct amounts of the offsets should have been. In many instances, however, we are able to ascertain only that the offsets are incorrect. The trial court, on remand, will need to determine the correct amounts of the offsets in each of those instances.
(2) Offsets with Respect to Mortgage Forgiveness
(a) Introduction
Anaheim asserts that a number of the judgments contain erroneous offsets because the amount of each offset included the amount 396 paid for the cancellation of the mortgage debt with respect to the plaintiff homeowner's property, rather than the full amount of the mortgage debt before cancellation. It contends that by including in the offset amount only the money 396 actually paid for the mortgage cancellation, rather than the full amount of the mortgage debt as of the date of cancellation, the property owner received a windfall. That is to say, the amount of the judgment included an amount in respect of real property losses that exceeded the amount of the equity in the property.
Anaheim backs up its argument with a citation to Smith, supra, 214 Cal.App.3d 266. In that case, the court addressed inverse condemnation damages and stated: "Although the usual measure of just compensation is the fair market value of the property taken, the award of damages should be sufficient to make the owner whole but not result in a windfall. [Citation.])" (Id. at p. 292.) The court further stated: "[The homeowner] asserts that no windfall would have resulted had the trial court ignored the reconveyance and awarded him the full value of the destroyed property. The fact is, however, that prior to the landslide [the homeowner] owned a house enc
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