California Court of Appeal

In this consolidated appeal of three mechanic’s lien foreclosure actions, judgments of foreclosure are affirmed in part and reversed in part, where: 1) plaintiff Cass’s failure to name certain defendants on its preliminary notice and its mechanic’s lien, and conducting work after it recorded its mechanic’s lien, was not fatal to foreclosure; 2) plaintiff R3’s listing of a wrong address of defendant Kohl’s store was not fatal to the foreclosure, as the address was sufficient for identification of the whole tract; 3) the filing was timely even though two defendants were later added as Doe defendants, as at the time of filing, plaintiffs did not have actual knowledge that those defendants were owners in the tract; 4) lien amounts are susceptible to precise calculation, and therefore plaintiffs Cass and Palomar Grading can collect prejudgment interest on their liens; 5) it was within the trial court’s discretion not to allocate the lien judgments between parcels given the unitary nature of the project; and 6) the amount of prejudgment interest is properly figured at 7 percent, not the 10 percent rate for contract obligations, because defendants did not enter into any contract with any lien claimant.

Appellate Information

• Decided 10/15/2014
• Published 10/15/2014

Judges

• Bedsworth

Court

• California Court of Appeal

Counsel