Phillips

INTRODUCTION

Plaintiff and appellant Bruce David Phillips sued defendants and respondents Sand Canyon Corporation (formerly known as Option One Mortgage Corporation); Homeward Residential, Inc. (formerly known as American Home Mortgage Servicing, Inc.); and Deutsche Bank National Trust Company as Trustee for HSI Asset Securitization Corporation 2006-OPT3 Mortgage Pass-Through Certificates, Series 2006-OPT3. Finding Phillips’s pleadings to be indecipherable, the trial court, on its own motion, struck Phillips’s original, first amended, and second amended complaints, under Code of Civil Procedure sections 128 and 436,1 and entered judgment against Phillips. Although we find that the trial court could not use sections 128 and 436 as a substitute for a demurrer without considering the substantive merits of the pleading, we nonetheless conclude that judgment was properly entered against Phillips because his second amended complaint (SAC) failed to state a cause of action. We therefore affirm the judgment.

FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

I. Factual background.

Phillips owned residential property at 715 Iliff Street in the Pacific Palisades (the Property). Option One loaned…