California Health & Safety Code, section 1428(b) states:

Notwithstanding any other provision of law, a licensee prosecuting a judicial appeal shall file and serve a case management statement pursuant to Rule 212 of the California Rules of Court within six months after the department files its answer in the appeal. Notwithstanding subdivision (d), the court shall dismiss the appeal upon motion of the department if the case management statement is not filed by the licensee within the period specified. The court may affirm, modify, or dismiss the citation, the level of the citation, or the amount of the proposed assessment of the civil penalty.

(Cal. Health & Safe. Code, § 1428, subd. (b).) In York Healthcare & Wellness Centre LP v. State Dept. of Public Health (2019) 33 Cal.App.5th Supp. 20, 24, a published decision of the Appellate Division of the Superior court of California, Los Angeles County, the trial court’s dismissal of an action challenging a citation under the Health & Safety Code due to failure to file a case management statement within six months of the defendant’s answer was affirmed.

Code of Civil Procedure, section 473, subdivision (b), in the case of a violation of Health & Safe. Code, § 1428, is not a means of avoiding dismissal. For example, in San Diego v. Department of Health Services (1991) 1 Cal.App.4th 656, in which the Court of Appeals upheld the trial court’s determination that relief was not available under Code of Civil Procedure, section 473, subdivision (b) where the health care facility failed to timely file an at-issue memorandum. (County of San Diego v. Dept. of Health Services (1991) 1 Cal.App.4th 656, 660-661.) The Court of Appeals found “the legislative history of the 1987 amendment to section 1428, subdivision (c), indicates an intent to expedite judicial review of licensees' challenges to the validity of citations issued by the Department. Construing the statute to permit judicial relief from the six-month time limitation for filing an at issue memorandum would contravene such legislative intent.” (Id. at 663.) The same is true for the six-month time limitation on filing a case management statement. (York Healthcare & Wellness Centre LP v. State Dept. of Public Health (2019) 33 Cal.App.5th Supp. 20, 28-29.)

Significantly, the statute requiring that a case management statement be filed within six months of the filing of Defendant’s answer also states that it is creating this requirement “notwithstanding any other provision of law.” The term “notwithstanding any other provision of law” is a “very comprehensive phrase [that] signals a broad application overriding all other code sections unless it is specifically modified by use of a term applying it only to a particular code section or phrase.” (In re Marriage of Cutler (2000) 79 Cal.App.4th 460, 475; Apartment Ass'n of Los Angeles County, Inc. v. City of Los Angeles (2009) 173 Cal.App.4th 13, 26.) In other words, even if case management conferences do not occur in limited civil actions (see, e.g., LA County Court Rules, Rule 3.23), Health & Safety Code § 1428(b) still applies. The Court cannot simply discount or ignore the case management statement requirement found in §1428(b), even if other provisions require case management statements in different circumstances. Brandt v. Fox (1979) 90 Cal.app.3d 737, 743 (“Any other construction of subdivision (c) would effectively nullify the provisions of subdivision (a)(2) of section 475 and thereby run afoul of the cardinal rule that a court is prohibited from a construction which will omit a portion of a statute; also, that a court is required to construe a statute so as to effectuate all of its provisions.”)

A review of the legislative history of section 1428(b) supports the same conclusion. Here, the Senate Health Committee Analysis dated June 8, 2005, indicates:

When the statute [section 1428(b)] first codified the Rule 209 requirement, most, if not all, California courts required civil litigants to file . . . at-issue memoranda. However, in 1995, the Judicial Council repealed that portion of Rule 209 for civil cases subject to the Trial Delay Reduction Act (i.e., every type except probate, juvenile and domestic violence cases), and effective July 1, 2002 Judicial Council repealed Rule 209 for all cases. A result, filing at-issue memoranda in citation disputes has become a challenge because the court clerks are resistant to accept the documents for filing because the clerks generally understand that these memoranda are not required. In the past, providers have managed to get the at-issue memoranda accepted for filing only with specific attorney intervention with court clerks, which is extraordinary in relation to the filing of documents and consequently increases the costs of litigation for facilities. In fact, the new case management rules have enhanced the scope of the Case Management Statement (Cal. Rule Court 212) to better serve this purpose. Now, despite the Health and Safety Code requirement that facilitates file at-issue memoranda, the facility must also comply with Rule 212 by filing a Case Management Statement, thereby duplicating the information provided to the court.

Thus, it appears that the impetus for amending section 1428(b) in 2005 was (1) to prevent documents from being rejected because they were called “at issue” memoranda, and (2) to eliminate the need for a health care facility to file both an “at issue” memorandum and a case management statement. Nothing in the legislative history of section 1428(b) suggests that the statute was intended to apply only when there is an actual Case Management Conference pending on calendar. Rather, consistent with a plain reading of the statute, the legislature apparently intended to avoid duplication of information provided to the court and to facilitate Plaintiff’s filing of one case management statement within six months of an answer -- regardless of whether a Case Management Conference has been scheduled. See Wilcox v. Birtwhistle (1999) 21 Cal.4th 973, 977-978 (“When construing a statute, we must "ascertain the intent of the Legislature so as to effectuate the purpose of the law.")