Christopher Connally vs. Samsung SDI Co Ltd

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34-2020-00278930-CU-PL-GDS: Christopher Connally vs. Samsung SDI Co Ltd 07/21/2026 Hearing on Motion to Dismiss for Failure to Timely Bring Action to Trial (Filed by Smoke 4 Less) in Department 16D

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TENTATIVE RULING

Defendant Smoke 4 Less’ (“S4L”) motion pursuant to Code of Civil Procedure §583.310 and §583.360 to dismiss this 2020 action on the grounds that plaintiff Connally failed to bring it to trial within five years is ruled upon as follows.

Factual Background

Plaintiff Connally commenced this personal injury action on 5/19/2020, filing against various defendants a complaint for damages based on strict liability, negligence, breach of warranty and other theories of liability arising from plaintiff’s use of a lithium-ion battery in an e-cigarette. No trial date has ever been set in this matter.

Moving Papers. On 4/13/2026, defendant S4L filed the present motion to dismiss this 2020 action on the grounds that plaintiff Connally has failed to timely bring it to trial within five years of filing his complaint on 5/19/2020 (even after accounting for this Court’s suspension of civil trials from 3/17/2020 through 1/4/2021); no circumstances of impossibility, impracticability, or futility excuse plaintiff’s failure to timely bring this action to trial; and no express written stipulation or oral agreement in open court extending the deadline was ever made, thereby making dismissal mandatory under Code of Civil Procedure §583.360. (Am. Not. of Mot., p.2:1-8.)

Opposition. Plaintiff Connally opposes, arguing that “bringing this action to trial in any meaningful sense was impracticable” until defendant Samsung SDI was served in South Korea pursuant to the Hague Convention but due to plaintiff’s extended difficulty in serving Samsung SDI, the first three years after this action was commenced should be excluded from the mandatory five-year statutory period. (Opp., p.1:2-14.) According to the opposition, plaintiff’s claims against defendant S4L as the seller of the allegedly defective battery and against defendant Samsung SDI as the manufacturer are “inextricably intertwined, in no small part by [S4L’s] counterclaims” and thus, “trial against [S4L] was therefore impracticable without Samsung [SDI],” given the risks of inconsistent results. (Id., at p.1:15-19.)

The opposition adds that plaintiff has acted diligently in pursuing service under the Hague Convention and actively prosecuting this case once Samsung SDI was served but because a trial without Samsung SDI would have been inefficient and impractical, S4L’s present motion to dismiss “should be denied for the same reasons Samsung’s motion should be denied.” (Id., at p.1:20-24.)

SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA COUNTY OF SACRAMENTO

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More specifically, plaintiff first asserts that 34 months it took to effect service on defendant Samsung SDI should be excluded from the five-year period pursuant to Code of Civil Procedure §583.340(c) because service under the Hague Convention was necessary, plaintiff was diligent, the delays were beyond plaintiff’s control and proceeding to trial without Samsung SDI was impracticable, futile and effectively impossible so as to preclude dismissal as against defendant S4L. (Opp., p.3:23- p.5:12.) The opposition also insists that plaintiff was diligent not only before defendant Samsung SDI was served but also afterward and because diligence is the “decisive factor in applying the impossibility/ impracticability/futility exception,” the present motion to dismiss should be denied. (Id., at p.5:13-26.)

Finally, according to plaintiff, the authorities cited by S4L which relate to a plaintiff’s failure to request a timely trial date “do not control because they do not involve a case [where trial was] rendered impracticable by prolonged foreign service on a key defendant” and defendant S4L’s agreement to proposed trial dates beyond the five-year period “represent a valid stipulation and undermine any claim of prejudice or entitlement to dismissal.” (Opp., p.6:1-p.7:6.)

Reply. In its reply, defendant S4L states that plaintiff cannot use the difficulty encountered in serving defendant Samsung SDI to toll the five-year statute as applied to S4L because the impracticability exception found in Code of Civil Procedure §583.340(c) “requires circumstances that prevented plaintiff from bringing this specific action to trial -- not merely made one trial strategy less convenient” and there was no actual impediment to bringing plaintiff’s claims against defendant S4L at any time from its appearance in this case in May 2020 through the expiration of the five-year period on 1/5/2026 notwithstanding plaintiff’s preferred method of proceeding against all defendants together. (Reply, p.3:2-28.)

The reply adds that even if the difficulty serving Samsung SDI could in theory toll the five-year statute as to S4L, plaintiff was not ready for trial during that period of time insofar as plaintiff did not serve any written discovery on Samsung SDI until nearly a year after the latter appeared in this suit nor did plaintiff even file any motion to set a trial date prior to the expiration of the statutory deadline. (Id., at p.4:1-16.) In short, defendant S4L insists that because plaintiff was never ready for trial within the period when he claims trial was impracticable and never filed any motion to secure a timely trial date, plaintiff cannot properly rely on §583.340(c)’s provisions to avoid dismissal and even those authorities which plaintiff himself cited in the opposition confirm that the claimed “impracticability” must relate to “actual trial readiness,” not merely the inability to proceed to trial in the manner plaintiff prefers. (Id., at p.4:1-p.5:5.)

Finally, defendant contends that the opposition’s “intertwined defendants” theory of tolling the five-year period has “no basis in the statute or case law” and the November

SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA COUNTY OF SACRAMENTO

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2025 emails relating to proposed trial dates “do not constitute a stipulation to extend the five-year period” since a valid stipulation under Code of Civil Procedure §583.330 requires a written agreement signed by counsel expressly provides for trial beyond the five-year period, whereas the emails proffered by the opposition which merely reflect preliminary discussions about potential trial dates do not meet this standard. (Reply, p.5:22-p.6:24.) Contrary to plaintiff’s attempts to recharacterize these emails as representing S4L’s unequivocal and unqualified agreement to a trial date in late 2026, the actual text of these emails confirm S4L was merely confirming which of the proposed trial dates did not create any calendar conflict and expressly indicate that agreement by all of the parties would be needed before confirmation of any trial date. (Id., at p.6:25-p.7:12.)

Accordingly, these emails also provide no valid basis for either estopping S4L from seeking dismissal or finding S4L has waived the five-year statute. (Id., at p.8:7-13.)

Objections to Evidence

The Court finds no written objections to evidence filed by either party.

Discussion

Code of Civil Procedure §583.310 establishes a mandatory five-year period within which a case must be brought to trial and in the case at bar, this statutory period expired by its own terms on 5/19/2025, exactly five years after plaintiff commenced this action 5/19/2020. However, defendant S4L acknowledges that because civil trials in this Court were in 2020-2021 suspended for a 230-day period ending on 1/5/2021, plaintiff may be considered to have had until 1/5/2026 to bring this case to trial but contends he still failed to satisfy this extended deadline. Additionally, §583.360 provides that “[a]n action shall be dismissed by the court if the action is not brought to trial within the time prescribed in this article” and that the requirements of this article are not only “mandatory” but also “not subject to extension, excuse, or exception except as expressly provided by statute.”

Code of Civil Procedure §583.340 provides in its entirety:

In computing the time within which an action must be brought to trial pursuant to this article, there shall be excluded the time during which any of the following conditions existed: (a) The jurisdiction of the court to try the action was suspended. (b) Prosecution or trial of the action was stayed or enjoined. (c) Bringing the action to trial, for any other reason, was impossible, impracticable, or futile.

SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA COUNTY OF SACRAMENTO

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As an initial matter, neither defendant S4L nor plaintiff suggests in their respective papers that the jurisdiction of this Court to try the present action was ever “suspended” or that the prosecution of trial of this action was ever “stayed or enjoined” within the meaning of §583.340(a) or (b). Indeed, while the opposition does advance several arguments about why this action should not be dismissed at this time, the bulk of these arguments is made in an attempt to demonstrate that bringing plaintiff’s claims against S4L to trial within the extended five-year deadline of 1/5/2026 “was impossible, impracticable, or futile” largely due to the delays plaintiff encountered in serving defendant Samsung SDI in Korea (but the opposition does also include a suggestion that defendant S4L should for various reasons be deemed to have stipulated to extend the five-year statute of limitations or otherwise waived the right to rely upon it, which claim will be addressed separately below).

However, California law is clear that an exclusion of time pursuant to §583.340(c) is not automatically available in all cases but rather, “[d]etermining whether the subdivision (c) exception applies requires a fact-sensitive inquiry and depends on the obstacles faced by the plaintiff in prosecuting the action and the plaintiff’s exercise of reasonable diligence in overcoming those obstacles.” (Howard v. Thrifty Drug & Discount Stores (1995) 10 Cal.4th 424, 438.) The determination “of whether the prosecution of an action was indeed impossible, impracticable, or futile during any period of time, and hence, the determination of whether the impossibility exception to the five-year statute applies, is a matter within the trial court’s discretion.” (Sanchez v.

City of Los Angeles (2003) 109 Cal.App.4th 1262, 1271.) “What is impossible, impracticable or futile must be determined in light of all the circumstances in the individual case, including the acts and conduct of the parties and the nature of the proceedings themselves.” (Moran v. Superior Court (1983) 35 Cal.3d 229, 238.) “‘[I]mpracticability and futility’ involve a determination of ‘ “excessive and unreasonable difficulty or expense,” ’ in light of all the circumstances of the particular case.” (Bruns v.

E-Commerce Exchange, Inc. (2011) 51 Cal.4th 717, 731 [quoting Brunzell Constr. Co. v. Wagner (1970) 2 Cal.3d 545, 554].) Finally, a plaintiff seeking to rely on §583.340(c)’s tolling provision bears the burden of first establishing the existence of those circumstances which are claimed to have made it impracticable, impossible, or futile to bring the matter to trial, and then demonstrating the existence of a causal connection between those circumstances and the failure to bring the case to trial. (Bruns, supra, 51 Cal.4th at 730 [citing Moran, supra].)

As noted above, Code of Civil Procedure §583.340(c) indicates that the determination of the five-year limitations period shall exclude the amount of time, if any, when bringing the action to trial was impossible, impracticable or futile but case law confirms that in order for §583.340(c)’s provisions to be invoked, the plaintiff must show the existence of some facts or circumstances which are claimed to have made it impracticable,

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impossible, or futile to bring the matter to trial within the five-year period, as well as the existence of a causal connection between those circumstances and the failure to bring the case to trial. (Bruns, supra, 51 Cal.4th at 730.) Recently, the First District Court of Appeal in Seto v. Szeto (2022) 86 Cal.App.5th 76 made clear that “a plaintiff’s duty of diligence increases as the case proceeds to the end of the five-year period and a plaintiff has the duty to call the court’s attention to the deadline.” (Seto, supra, 86 Cal.App.5th at 98 (citations omitted; emphasis added); see also, Jordan v.

Superstar Sandcars (2010) 182 Cal.App.4th 1416, 1422.) Consistently, the Second District Court of Appeal in Sanchez v. City of Los Angeles, supra, affirmed the trial court’s dismissal of the action because even after the trial court assigned a specific trial date which was beyond the five-year limitations period, the plaintiffs still had “ample time after [trial setting] to bring a motion to advance the trial date” but failed to do so. (Sanchez, supra, 109 Cal.App.4th at 1273-1274.) The Second District Court of Appeal explained that where a plaintiff possesses the means to bring a matter to trial before the expiration of the five-year period by filing a motion to specially set the matter for trial, the plaintiff’s failure to bring such motion will preclude a later claim of impossibility or impracticability. (Id., at 1274 (citations omitted).)

Because there is no claim here that the jurisdiction of this Court to try the action was ever “suspended” or that the prosecution of trial of this action was ever “stayed or enjoined” as referenced in Code of Civil Procedure §583.340(a) and (b), all that remains is to determine whether plaintiff has satisfied his burden to warrant an exclusion of time under Code of Civil Procedure §583.340(c). Thus, the Court will now consider each of the various arguments advanced by plaintiff in an attempt to show that it was impossible, impracticable or futile to bring to trial his claims against defendant S4L within the five-year period expiring no later than 1/5/2026 and why time should be excluded from the calculation of the five-year period pursuant to Code of Civil Procedure §583.340(c).

The opposition’s primary contention is that the 34-month period in which plaintiff was unable to serve defendant Samsung SDI in Korea should be excluded from the statutory five-year period to bring to trial his claims against defendant S4L, particularly when service had to be effected pursuant to the Hague Convention, plaintiff was diligent in his efforts to accomplish this service, and the delays in completing this service were beyond plaintiff’s control. (See, Opp., p.1:4-24; p.2:7-15; p.3:22-p.4:18; p.5:13-19.) Plaintiff concedes this contention is substantively identical to what he advanced in his separate opposition to defendant Samsung SDI’s own pending motion to dismiss and as such, the Court will reject plaintiff’s assertion here for the same reasons that are detailed in the concurrent tentative ruling on defendant Samsung SDI’s own motion to dismiss.

Having rejected the opposition’s primary contention that the 34-month period it took for

SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA COUNTY OF SACRAMENTO

34-2020-00278930-CU-PL-GDS: Christopher Connally vs. Samsung SDI Co Ltd 07/21/2026 Hearing on Motion to Dismiss for Failure to Timely Bring Action to Trial (Filed by Smoke 4 Less) in Department 16D

plaintiff to effect service on defendant Samsung SDI should be excluded from the statutory five-year period to bring this case to trial, the Court turns next to plaintiff’s argument that the five-year period should be tolled on the ground it was “not practicable to bring this product-liability action to trial against [S4L] alone while Samsung remained unserved,” given that “Samsung is not a peripheral party” and “Plaintiff’s claims turn on Samsung’s design, manufacture, testing, warnings, corporate knowledge, and causation,” making it impracticable to proceed to trial against S4L within the five-year period. (Opp., p.4:19-p.5:12.)

Notably, the only authorities cited in connection with this assertion by the opposition are Seto v. Szeto, supra and Gaines v. Fidelity National Title Ins. Co. (2016) 62 Cal.4th 1081. According to plaintiff, Seto indicates that Code of Civil Procedure §583.340(c)’s “exception applies where trial was impracticable ‘for all practical purposes,’” while Gaines requires courts to consider “all the circumstances in the individual case” before granting a motion to dismiss, “with reasonable diligence as the critical factor.” (Id., at p.4:23-p.5:2.)

Aside from plaintiff’s incorrect citation for Seto v. Szeto (i.e., 86 Cal.App.5th 124, 141- 142 [underline added for emphasis]), the First District Court of Appeal did acknowledge in Seto that Code of Civil Procedure §583.340(c) “makes allowance for circumstances beyond the plaintiff's control, in which moving the case to trial is impracticable for all practical purposes” but Seto otherwise fails to provide any support of the opposition’s claim that it would have been impractical for plaintiff to have proceeded to trial against defendant S4L without Samsung SDI.

Indeed, the facts of Seto bear no resemblance to those of the case at bar and the narrow grounds on which the First District ultimately reversed the trial court’s dismissal of the action (i.e., failure to exclude the six-month period when a settlement was in place) fails to persuade this Court that it was impractical for plaintiff to proceed to trial against defendant S4L within the five-year period. The opposition’s argument also ignores the fact that defendant Samsung SDI appeared in this action shortly after being served in March 2023 and thus, plaintiff’s suggestion that evidence of “Samsung’s design, manufacture, testing, warnings, corporate knowledge, and causation” was not available to him within the five-year period expiring on 1/5/2026 appears factually incorrect.

Notably, the opposition offers no evidence showing that plaintiff could not with reasonable diligence have obtained the necessary evidence relating to Samsung’s design, manufacture, testing, warnings, corporate knowledge, and causation” to proceed to trial as against defendant S4L within the five-year period ending on 1/5/2026 and this Court can on the present record find no reason why plaintiff could not have with the exercise of due diligence obtained the evidence needed to proceed to trial against defendant S4L on or before 1/5/2026.

Accordingly, Seto does not advance plaintiff’s position.

Plaintiff’s reliance on Gaines v. Fidelity National Title Ins. Co. fares no better. The facts of Gaines are unlike those of the case at bar insofar as in Gaines, the plaintiff, shortly

SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA COUNTY OF SACRAMENTO

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before a September 2008 trial date, sought and obtained an order vacating the trial date and imposing a partial stay of 120 days so the parties could participate in mediation, with no claimed difficulty in service any defendant or in proceeding to trial against less than all defendants. (Gaines, supra, 62 Cal.4th at 1089.) Moreover, the opposition’s citation to Gaines remains questionable because the California Supreme Court ultimately affirmed the dismissal of the underlying lawsuit (except as to one defendant) on the ground that (1) trial was not commenced within the mandatory five-year period; (2) the trial court’s order “stay[ing] the proceedings while the parties engaged in mediation and completed all outstanding discovery” “did not effect a complete stay of the prosecution of the action [n]or did the order create a circumstance of impracticability because plaintiff agreed to it, remained in control of the circumstances, and made meaningful progress towards resolving the case during the stay period;” and (3) the plaintiff also failed to demonstrate diligence during the period of the subject stay in question. (Gaines, supra, 62 Cal.4th at 1087-1089.)

These same factors weigh in favor of the dismissal of S4L in the case at bar given that it is undisputed that plaintiff did not commence trial within the mandatory five-year period ending no later than 1/5/2026; there was never any “complete stay” halting prosecution of the current lawsuit; plaintiff remained able to conduct discovery and file any motion deemed necessary to secure a timely trial date; and the opposition to the present motion fails to show that plaintiff proceeded with reasonable diligence before or after the service was effected on defendant Samsung SDI in March 2023.

As discussed in the concurrent tentative ruling on defendant Samsung SDI’s own motion to dismiss, the case chronology attached as Exhibit A to the Dalia Declaration in opposition shows that plaintiff did not serve any written discovery on defendant Samsung SDI until more than one year after the latter was served in March 2023 and did not take his first deposition until after Samsung SDI’s own motion to dismiss was filed in January 2026. (See, Dalia Decl., Ex. A, p.3, Line 108; p.7, Line 269.) Additionally, although the opposition claims prosecution of this case was “impracticable” until defendant Samsung SDI was served, Exhibit A to the Dalia Declaration in further indicates plaintiff himself did not actually notice any deposition in this case until he served a notice for the deposition of defendant Samsung SDI’s person most qualified on 12/23/2025. (Id., at p.7, Line 250.)

This evidence undermines plaintiff’s claim that he diligently prosecuted this case both before and after Samsung SDI’s appearance in 2023 even while plaintiff himself acknowledges that “the critical factor” is “reasonable diligence.” (Opp., p.4:23-25.)

Adding to the weight of the evidence showing a lack of diligence on the part of plaintiff is the fact that he did not even bring any motion to obtain a trial date until 4/23/2026, nearly six years after this litigation was commenced and more than four months after Samsung SDI’s motion to dismiss was filed on 1/5/2026. As discussed above, current California law clearly imposes on each plaintiff a duty of diligent prosecution and this

SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA COUNTY OF SACRAMENTO

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duty of diligence increases as the case proceeds to the end of the five-year period, requiring the plaintiff bring the approaching deadline to the court’s attention (see, e.g., Seto v. Szeto, supra, 86 Cal.App.5th at 98; Jordan v. Superstar Sandcars, supra, 182 Cal.App.4th at 1422) and according to Sanchez v. City of Los Angeles, a plaintiff who has opportunity to bring a motion to secure timely trial date but fails to do so is effectively precluded from later claiming there was some impracticability or impossibility of complying with five-year deadline. (Sanchez, supra, 109 Cal.App.4th at 1273-1274.)

In light of these binding authorities, this Court holds that plaintiff has failed to carry his burden of first establishing the existence of those circumstances which are claimed to have made it impracticable, impossible, or futile to bring the matter to trial within five years and then demonstrating the existence of a causal connection between those circumstances and the failure to bring his claims against defendant S4L to trial on or before 1/5/2026. (See, e.g., Bruns v. E-Commerce Exchange, Inc., supra, 51 Cal.4th at 730.)

Finally, while the opposition also contends that the authorities cited by S4L relating to a plaintiff’s failure to request a timely trial date “do not control because they do not involve a case [where trial was] rendered impracticable by prolonged foreign service on a key defendant” (Opp., p.6:1-11), this Court finds that none of the authorities offered by plaintiff in opposition to defendant S4L’s motion to dismiss relates to a case where trial was rendered impracticable by virtue of delays encountered in serving a “key” foreign defendant. This fact is largely dispositive here given that the authorities addressed above unequivocally place on plaintiff the burden to show entitlement to additional time pursuant to Code of Civil Procedure §583.340(c) to bring a case to trial and the Court has explained in its concurrent tentative ruling on defendant Samsung SDI’s own motion why the cases cited in opposition Samsung SDI’s motion are inapposite.

As an alternative ground for avoiding dismissal, the opposition argues that S4L’s November 2025 emails consenting to proposed trial dates beyond the five-year period “represent a valid stipulation and undermine any claim of prejudice or entitlement to dismissal.” (Opp., p.6:12-p.7:6.) First, the Court notes that plaintiff failed to include the referenced November 2025 emails in connection with his opposition to this motion to dismiss by defendant S4L and in fact, the opposition to the present motion to dismiss consists solely of a memorandum of points & authorities (although a declaration was filed in support of plaintiff’s opposition to the separate, concurrent motion to dismiss by defendant Samsung SDI).

Second, based on the attachments to the Vandersluys Declaration in support of defendant S4L’s reply, this Court cannot find that defendant S4L actually agreed to any trial date beyond the five-year period but instead merely provided, in response to plaintiff’s proposals, that S4L’s counsel was available for potential trial dates in November and December 2026, along with a settlement conference on various dates in October 2026. Moreover, these emails confirm that

SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA COUNTY OF SACRAMENTO

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such dates would still need to be agreed to by all other counsel before submission to the Court and under such circumstances, plaintiff’s suggestion that defendant S4L either stipulated to extend the five-year statute or otherwise waived the right to enforce same is remains factually and legally unfounded. This conclusion is effectively confirmed by Sanchez, wherein the Court of Appeal explained that a stipulation to extend the five-year statute requires a writing which “extend[s] in express terms the time of trial to a date beyond the five-year period or expressly waive[s] the right to a dismissal.” (Sanchez, supra, 109 Cal.App.4th at 1269, Fn. 3 (citing Miller & Lux, Inc. v.

Superior Court (1923) 192 Cal.333, 338).) The November 2025 emails which indicated that S4L’s counsel was available for potential trial dates in November and December 2026 neither “extend[s] in express terms the time of trial to a date beyond the five-year period” nor “expressly waive[s] the right to a dismissal” based on the five-year statute. Indeed, plaintiff could have requested an express agreement to actually make “the time of trial to a date beyond the five-year period” or requested an “express waiver” of the “right to a dismissal” based upon the five-year statute, but plaintiff did not make such a request, much less obtain such an agreement from S4L.

Consequently, the opposition’s claim of a stipulation and/or waiver of the five-year statute by argument defendant S4L fails to provide plaintiff with a valid basis for avoiding dismissal pursuant to Code of Civil Procedure §583.310 and §583.360.

In the end, because plaintiff has failed to establish (1) it was impossible, impracticable or futile to bring his claims against defendant S4L to trial within the five-year limitations period; (2) entitlement to exclude from the five-year limitations period any amount of time due to the time it took to effect service on defendant Samsung SDI; and/or (3) plaintiff exercised reasonable diligence in the prosecution of this action as against defendant S4L, the Court finds that the latter is entitled to mandatory dismissal of plaintiff’s claims based on his failure to timely commence trial with the mandatory fiveyear period. In short, given the present evidentiary record, plaintiff has failed to take reasonable steps necessary to ensure this case proceeded to trial on a timely basis.

Disposition

Because the five-year statute expired no later than 1/5/2026 and because plaintiff has failed to carry his burden of establishing entitlement to additional time pursuant to Code of Civil Procedure §583.340(c), defendant S4L’s present motion to dismiss is GRANTED but only without prejudice.

Pursuant to CRC Rule 3.1312, defendant S4L to prepare for the Court’s consideration a proposed order and judgment of dismissal without prejudice consistent with this ruling.

Defendant S4L to provide notice of this ruling and file proof of service of same

SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA COUNTY OF SACRAMENTO

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within five (5) court days.

This minute order is effective immediately. No formal order or other notice is required. (Code Civ. Proc. §1019.5; CRC Rule 3.1312.)