People v. U.S. Fire Ins. Co.

Filed 10/6/26 CERTIFIED FOR PUBLICATION IN THE COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA FOURTH APPELLATE DISTRICT DIVISION THREE THE PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, G066068 v. (Super. Ct. No. 23WF2336) UNITED STATES FIRE OPINION INSURANCE COMPANY, Defendant and Appellant. Appeal from an order of the Superior Court of Orange County, Anthony J. Ferrentino, Judge. Affirmed. Law Offices of John Rorabaugh and John Mark Rorabaugh for Defendant and Appellant. Leon J. Page, County Counsel, Suzanne E. Shoai and Kevin Dunn, Deputy County Counsels for Plaintiff and Respondent. * * *  The People filed a felony complaint against Mihai Olaru alleging various theft crimes. At the arraignment, Olaru’s attorney asked the trial court to set bail at $50,000. Counsel told the court there was a stipulation with the prosecution that “upon posting of that bail” amount Olaru was going “to be placed on GPS through the bail bond[] company.” The court ordered bail in the amount of $50,000, and told Olaru “that GPS has to be placed on you. Usually it’s an ankle monitor.” Defendant United States Fire Insurance Company (U.S. Fire) posted a $50,000 bond through its bail agent AJH Bail Inc. (AJH Bail). Olaru then failed to appear in court. The trial court forfeited the bond and later entered summary judgment against U.S. Fire in the amount of $50,000. U.S. Fire filed a motion to set aside summary judgment on the grounds the Orange County Sheriff’s Department (OCSD) allegedly released Olaru without GPS monitoring. The trial court denied the motion because it found GPS monitoring was the responsibility of the bail bond company. U.S. Fire appeals from the trial court’s order denying its motion to set aside summary judgment. We find that the court did not abuse its discretion and affirm its order. I. FACTS AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND On August 4, 2023, the People filed a felony complaint charging Olaru with 64 counts of theft. At the arraignment hearing on that same day, Olaru was in custody. He pleaded not guilty, and the court set the matter for further proceedings. Olaru’s counsel then said: “And in terms of bail your Honor, we’ve made an agreement with the [prosecution] to set bail at $50,000.00 and upon 2 posting of that bail to be placed on GPS through the bail bond[] company.” Counsel also advised the court that there was a waiver of Penal Code section 1275. 1 The trial court ordered: “Upon stipulation of the parties, bail is set in the amount of $50,000.00. Any [section] 1275 requirement is vacated, but the defendant[] is going to be ordered to enroll in GPS.” Olaru replied, “Yes, sir.” The court told Olaru: “That means that GPS has to be placed on you. Usually it’s an ankle monitor. You’re not to remove that for any reason. If you do remove it, the Court’s going to be notified immediately that you’ve removed that item or tampered with it in any way. But that GPS monitoring is at your expense as is the bonding at your expense.” On August 13, 2023, U.S. Fire through its agent AJH Bail posted the $50,000 bail bond to secure Olaru’s release from custody. The contract required Olaru to appear in court and to be “amenable to the orders and process of the court.” U.S. Fire agreed that if Olaru failed to perform the conditions in the bond then according to law it would pay the State of California $50,000, and U.S. Fire further consented to summary judgment if the trial court ordered forfeiture of the bond. On September 11, 2023, Olaru failed to appear in court. The court ordered the bond forfeited, issued a bench warrant, and increased bail to $100,000. The court sent notice of the forfeiture to U.S. Fire the following day. The court later granted U.S. Fire’s motion to extend the forfeiture period, but Olaru was never returned to custody. 1 Further undesignated statutory references are to the Penal Code. We will also generally omit the word “subdivision” or its abbreviation. “Before a court reduces bail to below the amount established by the bail schedule . . . the court shall make a finding of unusual circumstances and shall set forth those facts on the record.” (§ 1275 (c).) 3  On November 5, 2024, the trial court filed an order of summary judgment ($50,000) against U.S. Fire. Subsequently, U.S. Fire filed a motion to set aside summary judgment. On September 8, 2025, the trial court held a hearing and denied U.S. Fire’s motion to set aside the summary judgment order (the proceedings will be covered in detail in the discussion section of this opinion). II. DISCUSSION U.S. Fire claims the trial court abused its discretion when it denied its motion to set aside the summary judgment order because Olaru “was released from custody without the court-ordered GPS monitoring condition, constituting a unilateral change to the terms of the bail contract.” (Boldface & capitalization omitted.) We disagree. A trial court’s denial of a motion to set aside summary judgment on a bail bond forfeiture will be upheld absent an abuse of discretion. (People v. Legion Ins. Co. (2002) 102 Cal.App.4th 1192, 1195.) “The abuse of discretion standard is not a unified standard; the deference it calls for varies according to the aspect of a trial court’s ruling under review. The trial court’s findings of fact are reviewed for substantial evidence, its conclusions of law are reviewed de novo, and its application of the law to the facts is reversible only if arbitrary and capricious.” (Haraguchi v. Superior Court (2008) 43 Cal.4th 706, 711–712, fns. omitted.) In this discussion we will: A) review general legal principles; B) summarize the trial court proceedings; and C) analyze the law as applied to the facts in this case. 4 A. General Legal Principles A “‘bail bond is a contract between the surety and the government whereby the surety acts as a guarantor of the defendant’s appearance in court under the risk of forfeiture of the bond.’” (People v. American Contractors Indemnity Co. (2004) 33 Cal.4th 653, 657–658.) A bail bond permits a defendant to be released from actual custody into the constructive custody of a surety, which agrees to pay the face amount of the bond if the defendant fails to appear in court. (See § 1269.) If the bail bond has served its purpose, the surety will be “exonerated,” meaning the surety will be released from its financial obligation to the government; exoneration typically occurs upon termination of the case, or upon the return of the defendant to custody. (See § 1297.) If a defendant fails to appear, the trial court must declare a forfeiture of the bond. (People v. Tingcungco (2015) 237 Cal.App.4th 249, 253.) If the surety returns the defendant to custody within 180 days, the court must order the forfeiture vacated, and order the surety’s bond to be exonerated. (§ 1305 (c)(1).) If the defendant fails to appear after the 180-day grace period, no further action is required to enter summary judgment against the surety. This is because the terms of the bail bond contain a surety’s consent to the entry of summary judgment. (See §§ 1278, 1287.) An order of summary judgment becomes final 60 days after the court clerk mails the notice of the entry of summary judgment; therefore, a surety must file a motion to set aside a summary judgment order within 60 days of when the clerk mails the notice. (People v. American Contractor’s Indemnity Co. (2015) 238 Cal.App.4th 1041, 1047 [“‘[A] party seeking to set aside a voidable judgment or order must act to set aside the order or judgment before the matter becomes final’”].) 5 B. Trial Court Proceedings When U.S. Fire filed its motion to set aside the trial court’s summary judgment order it noted in the statement of facts that at the arraignment, the court had required GPS monitoring of Olaru “‘upon posting of the bond.’” U.S. Fire further noted that about nine days later, it had posted the $50,000 bond through its agent AJH Bail, and Olaru was then released from custody. U.S. Fire asserted: “The record fails to reflect that the GPS monitoring device was installed on the defendant following their release.” U.S. Fire argued that “contrary to the court’s order, the defendant was released without GPS monitoring. . . . This deviation from the court’s directive renders the original bail contract void, as the terms upon which the bond was predicated were not honored.” In its opposition, county counsel argued that AJH Bail posted Olaru’s bond, but “apparently neglected to arrange for GPS monitoring for the Defendant. Defendant then fled and failed to appear in court. This is precisely the risk of absconding that [a surety] undertakes when it writes a bail bond for a Defendant. Therefore, Summary Judgment was appropriately entered against [U.S. Fire].” At the hearing on the motion, the trial court asked U.S. Fire if its bail bond company had been aware of the GPS monitoring condition. Counsel said he did not know because AJH Bail was now “out of business.” However, counsel argued “that the jail didn’t have authorization to release [Olaru] until all of the conditions of the Court ordered were in place.” 2 County counsel argued that “the bond company was . . . charged with setting up the GPS monitoring, not the Sheriff’s Department. [¶] The 2 There is no evidence in the record to support this assertion. 6 Sheriff’s Department didn’t necessarily have any knowledge whether or not the bond company was following through with the requirement. So, it would create a very bad public policy if a bond company could get out of a bond by not setting up the Court order[ed] GPS monitoring.” The trial court found that the minutes and the transcript from Olaru’s arraignment “indicates to the Court that the bond was to be posted, and the Defendant[] [is then] released and then needs to be placed on GPS. [¶] And that was the responsibility, apparently, according to the Defense Attorney, of the bond company.” The trial court found as far as county counsel’s public policy argument, “I think it’s valid that if the bond company just decided to have [Olaru] released and not put him on GPS, and then have [U.S. Fire] come back to court and . . . say that the bond cannot be forfeited, that would be something that they would be unjustly enriched by their own actions in the case. [¶] So, the Court is denying the motion, at this time.” C. Application and Analysis At the arraignment, Olaru’s attorney represented to the trial court that there was a stipulation that Olaru was going “to be placed on GPS through the bail bond[] company.” AJH Bail posted the $50,000 bail on behalf of U.S. Fire, but apparently did ensure Olaru was placed on GPS monitoring upon his release from jail. Olaru later failed to appear in court, which was a violation of the bond. The court declared a forfeiture, and entered a $50,000 summary judgment against U.S. Fire, which is what the surety had agreed to pay under the terms of the bail bond contract. The trial court appears to have strictly complied with all of the statutory requirements related to a bail bond forfeiture prior to entering the 7 summary judgment order. (See §§ 1505, 1506.) Further, we find that the court’s minutes, and the transcript of the arraignment, provide substantial evidence to support the court’s factual finding that it was the responsibility of the bail bond company (AJH Bail) to arrange for GPS monitoring of Olaru after it had posted the $50,000 bond. (See Haraguchi v. Superior Court, supra, 43 Cal.4th at pp. 711–712 [under the abuse of discretion standard, factual findings “are reviewed for substantial evidence”].) In short, we find that the trial court did not abuse its discretion. Thus, we affirm the court’s ruling that denied U.S. Fire’s motion to set aside the $50,000 summary judgment order. U.S. Fire argues in this appeal, as it did in the trial court, that People v. Lexington National Ins. Corp. (2015) 242 Cal.App.4th 1098 (Lexington), compels a different result. We disagree. A bail bond may be declared void by a trial court’s unilateral change of its terms after its execution by the surety. (Lexington, supra, 242 Cal.App.4th at p. 1102.) In Lexington, a trial court set defendant’s bail at $20,000, and the surety posted a bond in that amount. After a preliminary hearing, the court increased bail to $100,000, but released defendant without requiring him to post the higher bail. (Id. at p. 1101.) When defendant failed to appear at the next hearing date, the court ordered the $20,000 bond forfeited and issued a bench warrant. (Id. at p. 1102.) The surety moved to vacate forfeiture and exonerate the bond, arguing that “as a matter of law, the bail increase changed the terms of the $20,000 bail bond and thereby rendered it void.” (Ibid.) The Court of Appeal agreed. (Id. at pp. 1103, 1107.) “When the trial court increased [defendant’s] bail to $100,000, it should have remanded [him] into custody, exonerated the $20,000 bail bond, and required [him] to post a new $100,000 bail bond before readmitting him 8 to bail. Because the trial court rendered the terms of the $20,000 bond void, it should have granted the surety’s motion to exonerate the bond and vacate the bail forfeiture.” (Lexington, supra, 242 Cal.App.4th at p. 1107.) Here, at Olaru’s arraignment, the trial court set bail at the stipulated amount of $50,000. The court ordered that if Olaru posted bail, he was to be released on the condition that he be placed on GPS monitoring through the bail bond company. About a week later, U.S. Fire executed the bail bond through its agent AJH Bail, but apparently AJH Bail did not arrange for Olaru to be placed on GPS monitoring. This case is not remotely similar to Lexington. The trial court never at any point unilaterally changed any of the terms of Olaru’s bail bond. And the court most certainly did not change any of the terms of Olaru’s bail bond after the surety executed the bond as happened in Lexington. To the extent that U.S. Fire may now be objecting to Olaru’s GPS monitoring condition, which the trial court imposed pursuant to the stipulation that the GPS monitoring would occur through the bail bond company, that objection was waived when U.S. Fire executed the bond. (See Western Surety Co. v. Municipal Court (1937) 20 Cal.App.2d 442, 443–444 [“Defects and irregularities, if any, in the proceedings preliminary to the taking of bail are considered as waived by the surety when it assumes its obligations as such at the time of the execution of the bond”].) U.S. Fire also argues: “The jail, as the entity effectuating the release, had the final and only authority to decide whether and when the defendant left custody. It was obligated to do so only in compliance with the full terms of the court’s order.” U.S. Fire further argues: “The jail could have—and should have—refused to release until GPS was confirmed in place. By choosing to release anyway, the State altered the deal.” 9  But there is no evidence in the record supporting U.S. Fire’s assertions on appeal that the jail (or the OCSD) had any obligations under the bail bond contract. And again, we find substantial evidence to support the trial court’s factual finding that it was the bail bond company, rather than the jail, that had the obligation to ensure Olaru was placed on GPS monitoring upon his release, and to further ensure that Olaru complied with the court’s GPS order. (See People v. Green (1996) 50 Cal.App.4th 1076, 1085 [we presume in support of the trial court’s ruling the existence of every fact the court could have reasonably deduced from the evidence].) Finally, we agree with county counsel and the trial court that it would be unjust as a matter of public policy to reward U.S. Fire for its own failure to ensure that Olaru was placed on GPS monitoring. III. DISPOSITION The order of the trial court is affirmed. Costs on appeal are awarded to respondent. MOORE, ACTING P. J. WE CONCUR: DELANEY, J. MACAULAY, J. 10