City of Long Beach v. Farmers & Merchants Bank

Defendants, Farmers and Merchants Bank of Long Beach and Farmers and Merchants Trust Company of Long Beach, appeal from a summary judgment in favor of plaintiff, the City of Long Beach (the city), to foreclose on a lien against real property and authorizing the sale of the parcel. In the published portion of the opinion, we address the issue of whether defendants preserved their written evidentiary objections to part of plaintiff’s evidence submitted in support of the summary judgment motion. We affirm.

On October 26, 1998, defendants filed a 16-page set of evidentiary objections to a declaration by an employee of a company which manages the assessment district in this case. The evidentiary objections were separately set forth. For example, the first objection was as follows:

Evidentiary objections are an integral part of the summary judgment process. Code of Civil Procedure section 437c, subdivision (b) states, “Evidentiary objections not made at the hearing shall be deemed waived.” Further, Code of Civil Procedure section 437c, subdivision (c) refers to rulings on evidentiary objections as follows, “In determining whether the papers show that there is no triable issue…