Tennant v. Breen5/8/2002
NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN THE OFFICIAL REPORTS
California Rules of Court, rule 977(a), prohibits courts and parties from citing or relying on opinions not certified for publication or ordered published, except as specified by rule 977(b). This opinion has not been certified for publication or ordered published for purposes of rule 977.
In this lawsuit, Robert J. Tennant, an attorney representing himself, sued attorney Paul Breen and Breen's law firm, Hoge, Fenton, Jones & Appel, for allegedly breaching their warranty of authority to negotiate on behalf of their client. The trial court granted summary judgment in favor of defendants, and from the ensuing judgment, Tennant appeals. We shall affirm the judgment.
FACTS
Both parties have set forth in great detail the labyrinthine history of this case and its predecessor and related cases. That history, which we need not recount here, includes a dissolution action, a constructive trust action, a probate action, a legal malpractice action, three separate bankruptcy filings, a breach of guaranty action, a malicious prosecution action, an action to set aside fraudulent transfer of assets into an irrevocable trust, and the instant breach of warranty of authority action.
Facts pertinent to the resolution of this appeal include the following: in the late 1980's and early 1990's, plaintiff Robert Tennant represented the brothers of one Mory Star in a constructive trust action. Because the brothers lived in Iran , Mory Star, who lived in the United States, guaranteed his brothers' attorney fee obligation. The brothers did not pay their attorney fees and neither has Star.
All subsequent lawsuits have as their raison d'etre Tennant's relentless efforts to collect fees for the legal services he rendered to Mory Star's brothers in the early 1990's. Mory Star has been equally tenacious in his attempts to avoid payment. For example, on three occasions, Star filed for bankruptcy , thus protecting his assets from Tennant's reach. On another occasion, he transferred a number of his assets to an irrevocable trust, of which his current wife, Ladan Star, is the trustee.
In October 1997, Tennant sued Mory Star and Ladan Star to set aside the allegedly fraudulent transfer of Mory Star's assets into the irrevocable trust. At the same time, Tennant filed a Notice of Pendency of Action, which essentially tied up all the assets in the trust during the pendency of that lawsuit.
Breen and his law firm, the defendants in the instant case, were attorneys of record for Ladan Star from March to June 1998. The record does not list all the assets in the irrevocable trust, but two are identified: (1) a $160,000 note that had been given in connection with the sale of a parcel of real estate that the trust had sold, and (2) an apartment building worth $785,000. When the Notice of Pendency of Action was filed, these assets, as well as others in the trust, could not be sold.
On April 29, 1998, Tennant contacted defendants and told them that he intended to appear at an ex parte hearing at 8:30 a.m. on May 1, 1998, to request a restraining order that would prevent Ladan Star from selling, disposing, encumbering, transferring or otherwise committing waste to any property in the irrevocable trust. On April 30, 1998, Breen's associate, Helen Rakove, faxed a proposed stipulation to Tennant, which would have allowed the trust to sell the $160,000 note in order to pay capital gains taxes it owed of approximately $90,000. The stipulation asked Tennant to remove his lis pendens and stated that the balance of the note sale proceeds would be deposited into the firm's trust account pending further orde
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