Filed 12/29/21 CERTIFIED FOR PUBLICATION IN THE COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA FIRST APPELLATE DISTRICT DIVISION ONE BBBB BONDING CORPORATION, Plaintiff, Cross-defendant and Appellant, A162453 v. (Alameda County KIARA CALDWELL, Super. Ct. No. RG19041553) Defendant, Cross-complainant and Respondent. This appeal requires us to interpret a long-standing consumer protection statute in a novel context: whether the requirement under Civil Code section 1799.91 that notice be afforded to cosigners of consumer credit contracts about the risks of guaranteeing such an agreement applies to bail bond premium financing agreements.1 We conclude that it does. In this putative class action, the trial court enjoined appellant BBBB Bonding Corporation, doing business as Bad Boys Bail Bonds (BBBB), from enforcing bail bond premium financing agreements entered into by respondent Kiara Caldwell and other similarly situated persons who had cosigned on behalf of an arrestee without having first been provided with this statutory notice. BBBB asserts that this consumer protection law has never applied to bail bond agents or to bail bond premium contracts before. BBBB 1 All further undesignated statutory references are to the Civil Code. 1 raises many substantive and procedural challenges to the trial court’s preliminary injunction, arguing primarily that because the Legislature adopted a comprehensive scheme to regulate the conduct of bail bond licensees, it intended to exclude from such transactions the consumer protections applicable to consumer credit contracts. We hold that a bail bond premium financing agreement between a cosigner and the bail bond agent is a consumer credit contract subject to the notice provision of section 1799.91 and related statutory protections. No statute or regulatory provision supports BBBB’s claim that the legal regime governing bail bond licensees was intended to operate as the exclusive source of law for the bail bond industry. Nor is BBBB able to identify any licensee provision that stands in conflict with the cosigner notice requirement. While we appreciate that this decision may upend business expectations for bail bond agents, we cannot accept BBBB’s urging that the injunction should apply only on a prospective basis. To do so would deprive respondent and other cosigners who never received statutory warning of the risks of cosigning a bail bond premium financing agreement of the protections the consumer credit laws were designed to address. We reject BBBB’s other challenges to the issuance of the preliminary injunction and affirm. I. FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND On June 21, 2018, Caldwell was contacted by BBBB and informed that her friend D.C. had been arrested and was being held in the City of San Leandro jail. To bail her friend out, Caldwell was asked to sign several documents and provide a bail bond premium. Caldwell signed an “Unpaid Premium Agreement” (Premium Agreement) in which she became legally responsible for the bail bond premium of $5,000, representing 10 percent of D.C.’s bail. Pursuant to the Premium Agreement, Caldwell 2 agreed to make a downpayment of $500 and pay the balance due of $4,500 in $450 monthly installments until paid in full. Caldwell …
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