Kazan Law Partner Denyse Clancy Honored With Appellate Advocacy Award From the National Civil Justice Institute
The Institute recognizes victory in a major challenge to default judgment procedures in the California Supreme Court through the pro bono efforts of Denyse Clancy of Kazan, McClain, Satterley, & Greenwood. After Cory Michael Hoehn’s apartment burned down, the building’s insurer sued him. It claimed to have served Mr. Hoehn’s girlfriend, but he never received the complaint or summons. After that, the insurer got a default judgment, and it assigned the judgment to a debt collector, which placed a lien on Mr. Hoehn’s wages nine years after the default judgment. When Mr. Hoehn attempted to vacate the default judgment, lower courts held that he was time-barred from doing so. Denyse Clancy took Mr. Hoehn’s case to the California Supreme Court. In California Capital Ins. v. Hoehn, 558 P.3d 590 (2024), the California Supreme Court held that motions to vacate judgments for lack of proper service were not subject to the two-year time limit courts had previously imposed. As a result of this decision, individual litigants will have an easier time setting aside default judgments obtained by predatory corporations.