Regan Roofing Co. v. Superior Court

Petitioners Regan Roofing Company, Inc., and Vince Ramirez doing business as Pacific Rebar (collectively Regan Roofing) challenge certain aspects of a pretrial settlement reached between 44 individual homeowners (Kenn Finkelstein et al., collectively plaintiffs) and the developer of plaintiffs’ homes, Leisure Technology Corporation of Oceanside (developer). Pursuant to Code of Civil Procedure section 877.6, 1 plaintiffs and developer obtained trial court approval of their settlement for a $2 million payment and a $5,000 assignment of indemnity and contribution rights as being in good faith within the meaning of Tech-Bilt, Inc. v. Woodward-Clyde & Associates (1985) 38 Cal.3d 488 [ 213 Cal.Rptr. 256 , 698 P.2d 159 ] (Tech-Bilt). Regan Roofing, as well as some 20 other construction subcontractors, tradespeople and design professionals, were not parties to the plaintiff/developer settlement, and opposed that settlement as not being in good faith, chiefly on the theory that the settlement provided an inadequate *1694 amount of setoff or credit to which the nonsettling defendants would be entitled in the event that the plaintiffs obtained judgments against the nonsettlors after…

I concur in the majority opinion in all respects. I write separately both to highlight difficult aspects of the majority and to voice reservations as to certain inferences which might be made from it. The central theme I derive from the majority opinion is that settlements are to be encouraged; partial settlements of multiparty construction defect cases will not occur unless the settling defendants can achieve the good faith settlement insulation against later claims which is provided by Code of Civil Procedure 1 section 877.6; determining whether a settlement is “within the ballpark” is highly subjective and cannot be a matter subject to significant precision; and that if the trial court evidences its own good faith and industry in terms of an independent evaluation of allocations made by the settling parties, its exercise of discretion will not be disturbed. The trial court did that in this case (except for its treatment of the value of the assignment of indemnity rights) and hence we affirm that decision.

Our affirmance confirmed a substantial allocation of settlement proceeds to “emotional distress damage.” We also affirmed the position we took in Erreca’s v. Superior Court…

Gerard, Selden, Osuch & Johnson, Lawrence T. Osuch, Lynde Selden II, Greco & Traficante, Paul A. Traficante, Scott A. Johnson and Jon S. Brick for Real Parties in Interest.

OPINION

HUFFMAN, J.

Petitioners Regan Roofing Company, Inc., and Vince Ramirez doing business as Pacific Rebar (collectively Regan Roofing) challenge certain aspects of a pretrial settlement reached between 44 individual homeowners (Kenn Finkelstein et al., collectively plaintiffs) and the developer of plaintiffs' homes, Leisure Technology Corporation of Oceanside (developer). Pursuant to Code of Civil Procedure section 877.6, [1] plaintiffs and developer obtained trial court approval of their settlement for a $2 million payment and a $5,000 assignment of indemnity and contribution rights as being in good faith within the meaning of Tech-Bilt, Inc. v. Woodward-Clyde & Associates (1985) 38 Cal.3d 488 [ 213 Cal. Rptr. 256 , 698 P.2d 159 ] ( Tech-Bilt ). Regan Roofing, as well as some 20 other construction subcontractors, tradespeople and design professionals, were not parties to the plaintiff/developer settlement, and opposed that settlement as not being in good faith, chiefly on the theory that the settlement…