## Facts

- Antonio and Lucille Sanchez-Corea, and a bankruptcy trustee, sued Bank of America and a bank officer, Virgil McGowen, over transactions in a commercial account used by the Sanchez-Coreas’ company, Cormac.
- McGowen handled the account and arranged for bank funds to cover overdrafts without the bank’s knowledge, creating a dispute about amounts owed and related misconduct.
- After a three-week trial, the jury awarded plaintiffs $2,100,015.50, including general damages, emotional distress damages, and punitive damages (primarily against the bank).
- The bank moved for a new trial under California Code of Civil Procedure § 657 on multiple grounds, including irregularity in proceedings, jury misconduct, excessive damages, insufficiency of the evidence, verdict against law, and error in law.
- Within the statutory 60-day period after notice of entry of judgment, the trial court issued a minute order granting a new trial but did not state any grounds or reasons.
- After the 60-day period expired, the trial court issued a second written order granting a new trial and stating the sole ground as insufficiency of the evidence.
- Plaintiffs appealed, arguing the late second order was jurisdictionally invalid and that the first order’s defect could not be cured nunc pro tunc.

## Issues

1. Whether a trial court’s failure to specify grounds in a new trial order as required by Code of Civil Procedure § 657 can be cured nunc pro tunc when the omission results from judicial (not clerical) error.
2. Whether a new trial order that fails to specify statutory grounds under § 657 is void.
3. If the defective order is not void, whether it can be affirmed on any other § 657 ground raised in the motion and supported by the record.

## Decision

- The California Supreme Court held that the trial court could not cure the omission of § 657 grounds by a nunc pro tunc order when the omission was a judicial error.
- The Court held the first new trial order was not void, but noncompliance with § 657 prevented affirmance on insufficiency-of-the-evidence and damages-amount grounds.
- The Court reviewed whether any other statutory ground asserted in the new trial motion could support the order and found none supported by the record.
- The Court reversed the order granting a new trial and reinstated the jury judgment.

## Legal Principles

- A new trial order granting relief under Code of Civil Procedure § 657 must state the statutory grounds (and associated reasons); noncompliance has limiting appellate consequences.
- A nunc pro tunc order may correct clerical omissions but cannot supply an omitted judicial act or substantively change the basis of a ruling after the court’s jurisdiction has lapsed.
- Under Code of Civil Procedure § 660, the trial court’s power over a new trial motion expires after the statutory period; a later order that adds a new substantive basis is ineffective.
- An order granting a new trial that omits § 657 grounds is not void, but an appellate court may affirm it only on other statutory grounds raised in the motion and supported by the record; it may not affirm on insufficiency of the evidence or excessive/inadequate damages when § 657 was not satisfied.

## Conclusion

Because the trial court’s timely new trial order failed to specify any § 657 grounds and that judicial omission could not be corrected after the § 660 jurisdictional deadline, and because no other proper statutory basis supported a new trial, the Supreme Court reversed the new trial order and reinstated the plaintiffs’ jury verdict.


Sanchez-Corea v. Bank of Am., 38 Cal. 3d 892, 701 P.2d 826 (Cal. 1985)