First American Title Insurance Co. v. Cal. Dept. of Tax and Fee Admin.

Filed 11/12/

CERTIFIED FOR PUBLICATION

COURT OF APPEAL, FOURTH APPELLATE DISTRICT

DIVISION ONE

STATE OF CALIFORNIA

FIRST AMERICAN TITLE D077970

INSURANCE COMPANY,

Plaintiff and Respondent,

v. (Super. Ct. No. 37-2018-00065184-

CU-WM-CTL)

CALIFORNIA DEPARTMENT OF

TAX AND FEE ADMINISTRATION,

Defendant and Appellant.

APPEAL from a judgment of the Superior Court of San Diego County, Ronald F. Frazier, Judge. Reversed with directions. Request for judicial notice granted in part and denied in part. Matthew Rodriguez, Acting Attorney General, Tamar Pachter, Assistant Attorney General, Lisa W. Chao and Van-Dzung V. Nguyen, Deputy Attorneys General for Defendant and Appellant. Bewley, Lassleben & Miller, Joseph A. Vinatieri and Leighton M. Anderson for Plaintiff and Respondent. Albert Einstein reportedly said, “The hardest thing in the world to

understand is the income tax.”1 The subject of this case—sales and use tax as applied to a title insurance company’s lease of business equipment—is perhaps a not too distant second. Part of the difficulty is that the law is a bit counterintuitive. For example, under the…