Page 3
Appeals Court:
Lawyer Barred From Relitigating Lien at Issue in Client’s Suit Despite Non-Party Status
Opinion Says Issue Preclusion Prevents New Action Where Attorney ‘Controlled Litigation’ In Earlier Matter Which Expunged His Interest
By a MetNews Staff Writer
Div. Eight of this district’s Court of Appeal has held that issue preclusion prevented an attorney—whose deed of trust, securing the payment of overdue fees against his client’s real property, was extinguished in earlier litigation to which he was not a party—from pursuing a legal action to challenge the expungement because he “controlled” the previous lawsuit and could have filed a motion to vacate the order in that matter on his own behalf.
At issue is Code of Civil Procedure §1908(b), which provides:
“A person who is not a party but who controls an action, individually or in cooperation with others, is bound by the adjudications of litigated matters as if he were a party if he has a proprietary or financial interest in the judgment or in the determination of a question of fact or of a question of law with reference to the same subject matter or transaction.”
In Monday’s opinion, authored by Justice John Shepard Wiley Jr. and joined in by Acting Presiding Justice Elizabeth A. Grimes and Justice Victor Viramontes, the court acknowledged jurisprudence providing that privity does not exist between two parties for purposes of issue preclusion based solely on an attorney-client relationship, but said the case law was inapplicable where the lawyer had a stake in the outcome.
The dispute arose after years of litigation between two churches over real property located at 1041 South Oxford Street, in the Koreatown area of Los Angeles. The Los Angeles Central Korean Evangelical Church owned the property in 2011 when it agreed to lease it to New Life Oasis Church.
Under the terms of the lease, New Life had an option to purchase the property, which it attempted to exercise in 2011. After Central Korean refused to sell the property, New Life sued, seeking specific performance.
Attorney Steven C. Kim, of the Los Angeles-based firm Law Offices of Steven C. Kim & Associates, represented Central Korean in the protracted litigation over the parcels at issue. In 2013, during the pendency of the litigation, Central Korean and Pastor Jang Kyun Park executed the deed of trust on the South Oxford Street, listing Kim as the beneficiary.
Sale Ordered
Then-Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Mark V. Mooney (now serving as an arbitrator) ruled in favor of New Life and ordered the property to be sold pursuant to the purchase option.
On the day scheduled for closing, Kim entered an escrow demand of $826,051.06 based on the deed of trust, seeking to collect his outstanding fees.
New Life filed an application seeking expungement of the deed, saying the lien clouded title and prevented the parties from completing the court-ordered sale. Central Korean and Park argued that the trial court lacked jurisdiction because Kim was not a party to the action.
Mooney ordered that the deed of trust be extinguished and commanded Kim to withdraw his escrow demand. The sale was completed 11 days later, on October 30, 2017; Central Korean and Park appealed the order extinguishing the deed.
This district’s Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal for lack of standing in September 2018. The court said an appellant must be “aggrieved” by the challenged order and that appellants, while “obviously parties of record,” were not the ones affected by the expungement.
Declaration of Lien
Three days later, Kim filed the instant action against New Life, seeking a declaration that his lien was valid and that the order extinguishing it was without “legal force and effect.” He also filed a lis pendens against the property.
Kim later amended the pleading to add Bank of Hope, a lienholder on the South Oxford Street property, as a defendant.
In July 2022, then-Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Michelle Williams Court (now sitting on the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California) granted New Life’s motion for judgment on the pleadings.
Wiley’s opinion affirms the ensuing judgment in favor of New Life. He explained that issue preclusion applies only if there has been final adjudication of an actually-litigated, necessarily-decided identical question and the doctrine is asserted against a party to the first suit or someone in privity with that person or entity.
Concluding that the “lien issue was actually litigated and necessarily decided in the first suit,” the jurist said:
“On October 19, 2017, a trial court decided the lien was invalid….Park and Central Korean appealed that decision, but the appellate court dismissed their appeal….Kim could have appealed the issue by filing a motion to vacate, but he never took this step. No one sought review in the Supreme Court. That case is over. The judgment is final.”
Privity With Client
Addressing privity, he pointed out that “Kim protests he was not in privity with Central Korea,” citing the 2012 Div. Three decision in Kerner v. Superior Court, in which the court found that the existence of an attorney-client relationship by itself does not establish privity for purposes of issue preclusion.
Unconvinced, Wiley said that Kim “fits the description” of one covered by §1908(b). He wrote:
“He had a financial interest in the lien question because he sought the lien to guarantee payment to him. And he controlled the litigation in cooperation with his client Central Korean: Kim wrote the complaint, and Kim presumably recommended a litigation strategy and gave advice on litigation tactics. Kim was Central Korean’s attorney throughout. The Court of Appeal dismissed the 2018 appeal because the appeal was centrally about Kim’s financial interests and not those of his clients.”
Kim argues that the section requires factual findings about the extent to which he controlled the litigation.
Rejecting the notion that such findings were necessary, he noted that “six appellate decisions…have charted the course of this litigation” and “[t]hey demonstrate the extent of Kim’s involvement.”
The case is Kim v. New Life Oasis Church, 2025 S.O.S. 551.
Kim acted on his own behalf in the appeal, along with attorney Gabriel Colorado from his office.
New Life was represented by Timothy Vance Milner of the Woodland Hills-based The Milner Firm. Appearing for Bank of Hope were David B. Owen, of the Los Angeles office of Fidelity National Law Group, and Kevin R. Broersma, of the firm’s Irvine office.
Copyright 2025, Metropolitan News Company