California Legal Brief

The Rule of Santa Clara Valley Water District v. Eisenberg is that the claim and delivery law does not preclude a party from seeking preliminary injunctive relief to recover possession of personal property, under Code of Civil Procedure section 516.050, even after the party has already obtained a writ of possession and turnover order under the claim and delivery statutes.

Appeal from order granting preliminary injunction in Santa Clara County Superior Court.

Defendant Appellant was Rebecca Eisenberg — an elected water district board director who removed confidential investigation reports from the water district facility without permission.

Plaintiff Respondent was Santa Clara Valley Water District — the public water agency that owned attorney work product investigation reports concerning misconduct complaints.

The suit sounded in conversion, trespass to chattels, breach of fiduciary duty, and declaratory relief.

The key substantive facts leading to the suit were Water District retained outside counsel to investigate staff complaints about Eisenberg's conduct and Eisenberg's counter-complaints of discrimination. The investigations resulted in confidential reports marked "Attorney-Client Privileged." Water District made the reports available for board review at its secured facility with instructions they could not be removed. Eisenberg reviewed the reports in January 2024 but removed them from the facility without permission and refused to return them despite repeated requests and a board censure.

The procedural result leading to the Appeal: The trial court granted Water District's writ application and issued a writ of possession and turnover order, which Eisenberg stayed by posting a $25,000 undertaking. Water District then filed a motion for preliminary injunction seeking to compel return of the reports, which the trial court granted, ruling that section 516.050 permitted injunctive relief despite the prior writ proceedings and that Water District established likelihood of prevailing on conversion and greater harm from denial of relief.

The key question(s) on Appeal: 1. Whether the trial court erred as a matter of law by granting preliminary injunctive relief after having previously granted a writ of possession and turnover order under the claim and delivery law 2. Whether the trial court abused its discretion in finding Water District likely to prevail on the merits of its conversion claim 3. Whether the trial court abused its discretion in determining the balance of harms favored granting the injunction

The Appellate Court held that Code of Civil Procedure section 516.050 unambiguously provides that claim and delivery law does not preclude injunctive relief under section 525 et seq., making the remedies nonexclusive, and that the trial court properly exercised discretion in finding Water District likely to prevail on conversion of attorney work product it owned and that harm from continued wrongful possession outweighed harm to Eisenberg from mandatory return.

The case is inapplicable when the personal property at issue is not attorney work product owned by the client, when the defendant has a legitimate ownership or possessory interest in the property, when the property was not taken without permission or wrongfully detained, or when the claim involves secured property or collateral rather than outright conversion.

The case leaves open whether section 516.050 would permit injunctive relief in other contexts involving different types of personal property disputes, the scope of "less drastic" relief contemplated in the legislative history, and whether different procedural requirements might apply when seeking both remedies simultaneously rather than sequentially.