Payless Drug Store v. SUPERIOR COURT OF ORANGE CTY.

Real party in interest, Jacqueline Parks-Butcher, claims to have suffered injuries as a result of actions of petitioner, Payless Drug Store. According to Parks-Butcher, Payless’s delay in filling her prescription for an antibiotic, allegedly because Payless mistakenly believed that Parks-Butcher was allergic to the prescribed antibiotic, caused her to suffer a severe infection. Payless, however, maintains that Parks-Butcher knew about this alleged mistake more than a year before she filed her complaint and based on the statute of limitations brought a motion for summary judgment against her. On October 6, 1993, that motion was heard and denied. The court’s ruling was, “I am not convinced. The court is going to deny the motion.” When asked by Payless to state the facts in dispute, the judge replied, “As stated in counsel’s moving papers, Counsel. The opposition papers.” No order was prepared and the court gave no other reasons for denying the motion.

Code of Civil Procedure section 437c, subdivision (g) provides that upon the denial of a motion for summary judgment the court shall by written or oral order specify one or more material facts raised by the motion as to which…