Cedars-Sinai Medical Center v. Superior Court

Petitioners, defendants in a malicious prosecution action, seek review of an order of the respondent court denying their motion for summary judgment. We grant the petition.

Facts

Early in 1982, there were a number of arson fires at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center (Cedars). At one point, the investigation into the cause of the fires focused on real party Marcus Henderson. During the course of the investigation, police investigators asked several Cedars employees to listen to a tape of a telephoned bomb threat. Five individuals, including petitioners Sharon Huff and Rodrigo Rojas, independently identified the voice as Henderson’s. Henderson was arrested for arson, and Huff and Rojas, among others, testified at his preliminary hearing, identifying Henderson as the individual whose voice they had heard on the tape. Although the charges were later dismissed for lack of evidence, Henderson spent over three months in jail.

Henderson thereafter sued Cedars, Huff and Rojas, and others, for malicious prosecution and other causes of action. In his cause of action for malicious prosecution, Henderson alleges that the defendants “acted without probable cause in instigating and…