People v. American Surety Co. CA2/6

DISCUSSION

Timeliness of Appeal The County asserts the appeal is untimely because it was filed more than 60 days after the court denied the surety’s first motion on January 26, 2021. American Surety does not respond to this challenge in its reply briefing. Nevertheless, we conclude the appeal is timely. The parties waived notice of the court’s ruling on January 26. A 180-day appeal period thus applies, making the April 23 appeal timely by any calculation. (See Cal. Rules of Court, rule 8.104(a)(3).)3 Adequacy of Record on Appeal American Surety sidesteps the crux of the trial court’s April 8 ruling, i.e., that the motion to set aside was an improper motion to reconsider the December 2020 motion to vacate. It makes no mention of the prior motion in its briefs and omits the moving and opposition papers from the record. This precludes any meaningful review of the April 8 order. We assume the trial court ruled correctly in the absence of a complete record. (See Jameson v. Desta (2018) 5 Cal.5th 594, 609 [“a trial court judgment is ordinarily presumed to be correct and the burden is

3 Rule 8.104(a)(3) states: “If the parties stipulated in the trial court under Code of Civil…