The trial court properly took judicial notice of an earlier court’s ruling on a motion for judgment under CCP 631.8 and the earlier court’s stated reasons for that ruling. The ruling and its basis were shown in official court records: minute orders, trial transcript and trial minutes. There is an exception to the hearsay rule for such official records. The trial court properly noticed the records for the purpose of determining the reasons for the ruling on the CCP 631.8 motion, but did not accept the truth of facts the earlier court had found. Under the interim adverse judgment rule, certain types of interim rulings in the plaintiff’s favor conclusively establish probable cause to bring the action, thus defeating a later malicious prosecution counter-suit. This decision holds that a denial of the defendant’s motion for judgment under CCP 631.8 in a court trial is a type of ruling to which the interim adverse judgment rule applies since on such a motion the trial judge weighs the plaintiff’s evidence and must find that it establishes a prima facie case against the defendant in denying the motion. The interim adverse judgment rule can be overcome by proof that the favorable ruling in the prior case was induced by the knowing use of false and perjured testimony. Here, however, the trial court expressly did not rely on the allegedly false testimony in ruling on the CCP 631.8 motion. An opinion in a prior appeal from an Anti-SLAPP motion ruling was not law of the case. Though the prior opinion had found lack of probable cause, it did so based on a different record, not including the ruling on the CCP 631.8 motion, which was raised for the first time on a petition for rehearing. Denial of a rehearing petition is no determination of issues raised for the first time in that petition.
California Court of Appeal, Second District, Division 2 (Hoffstadt, J.); June 1, 2017 (partial publication); 2017 WL 2375503